Charleroi girls hit roadblock against Neshannock
CANONSBURG – It didn’t take long for Charleroi to find itself in a hole Wednesday night against Neshannock at Canon-McMillan High School.In fact, one minute into the Cougars’ Class AA first-round playoff game against the Lancers, they already trailed, 8-0, having turned the ball over three times.
The end result was a season-ending 58-23 loss for the Cougars and a large dose of reality.
“Tonight just showed how much better we really have to get,” said Charleroi head coach Kevin Lee. “We have to get bigger, faster and stronger. We just have to be a whole lot better to compete against good teams.”
Neshannock (19-3) certainly proved to be that. The Lancers advance to play Bishop Canevin in the quarterfinals.
The Crusaders defeated Mohawk Wednesday night.Charleroi, which finishes at 16-8, didn’t make a shot from the floor in the first quarter as the Neshannock’s defense was smothering in building a 15-2 lead.
A three-point shot from Carmela Matarazzo early in the second quarter extended the Neshannock lead to 20 at 24-4. Matarazzo led the Lancers with 19 points.
Charleroi finally made a shot from the floor when Kaitlyn Riley made a layup three minutes into the second quarter.But on the Lancers next possession Riley picked up her third foul, sending the Cougars’ leading scorer to the bench for the rest of the half.
The Cougars closed the half on a 7-2 run to head into the locker room down 26-11, but that’s as close as they would get in the game.
Turnovers were a big problem for Charleroi, as the Cougars committed 18, 12 of which came in the first half.
Most of those resulted in easy layups for the Lancers.
“We didn’t do much good at all,” Lee said. “We weren’t very good offensively. We rushed things and we didn’t take care of the basketball.”
The Lancers’ man-to-man defense had plenty to do with that.
“We preach defense,” said Neshannock head coach Luca Grybowski. “That’s the only way I know how to coach. I knew that in their section the teams all play zone and they probably haven’t seen an aggressive man-to-man like we play all season.”
Charleroi was led in scoring by Maria Claybaugh with eight points.