Feb 19, 2016 4 min read

PITTSBURGH – When Canon-McMillan junior Cheyenne Trest sank a three-pointer from the left corner and the buzzer echoed throughout Baldwin High School’s gymnasium to signal halftime, Penn Hills found itself in an unfamiliar situation – barely leading and stagnant on offense.

The Indians were out of synch in the second quarter as screens were missed, passes were too early or too late, and they looked tentative in half-court sets.

As it has been the past two seasons, a full-court press defense and the relentless play of junior point guard Desiree Oliver proved to be the perfect elixir Friday night.

Third-seeded Penn Hills forced turnovers and junior guard Lonie Banner’s two three-pointers sparked a 16-2 third-quarter run to help the Indians pull away with a 58-47 win over the sixth-seeded Big Macs in a WPIAL Class AAAA girls basketball quarterfinal.

They held Canon-McMillan to just seven third-quarter points and Oliver scored 14 of her game-high 27 points in the second half.

“The biggest difference is that team has experience, they’ve been here before, we haven’t and the moment was pretty big for us,” C-M head coach Lou Waller said. “We probably lost our composure and I did, too. We’ll learn from this.”

With the win, Penn Hills (22-2), which has just four games decided by 10 points or less this season and is last season’s WPIAL runner-up, advanced to the semifinals to face second-seeded North Allegheny Tuesday at a site and time to be determined.

The Big Macs (15-8) saw their WPIAL championship hopes end, but they will play Bethel Park Monday in a PIAA play-in game. The winner will face the winner of Hempfield and Mt. Lebanon for the WPIAL’s fifth and final spot in the state playoffs.

Penn Hills started the game with three consecutive three-pointers, including two by Oliver, and used its man-to-man defense to speed up the Big Macs, forcing six turnovers. The Indians capitalized in transition and were not afraid to drive into the lane in half-court sets.

That all changed in the second quarter when Canon-McMillan switched from its 1-3-1 zone defense to a man-to-man, throwing Penn Hills out of rhythm and giving the Big Macs confidence, despite making just 2 of 11 field goals in the first quarter that led to a nine-point deficit after eight minutes.

Junior guard Kierra King had a driving layup, Trest made a short jumper and Lindsay Beach knocked down a three-pointer from the right wing to cut the deficit to four points with two minutes left in the half and kept it there with Trest’s three-pointer from the left corner as time expired. Trest scored a team-high 16 points, and senior center Becca Turney had 12 points and 11 rebounds.

“We hit a couple of threes, which helped us,” Waller said. “At the beginning of the game, we weren’t patient. I told them we had to keep this game in the 40s to win. We couldn’t be in the 50s or 60s – that’s Penn Hills’ game. That’s not our game.”

The sense of optimism at halftime quickly led to panic and frustration against Penn Hills’ full-court press in the third quarter, and the Indians took advantage of the Big Macs game plan of focusing its defensive efforts to stop Oliver and senior guard Jade Ely, who had 17 points. They decided to give open looks to the Indians’ role players and Bonner made them pay with two three-pointers from the left corner to spark the 16-2 run, which included six points from Oliver.

“Pressing is just the way we play,” Penn Hills head coach John Tate said. “If we’re going to go down, we’re going to go down our way. We want to defend, make people uncomfortable and make them play at a pace they might not be familiar with. Lou does a great job, but we didn’t think they had the offense to – if we got distance – to keep coming back and back and back.”

That strategy led to a 16-point lead after three quarters. Canon-McMillan made 8 of 12 free throws in the fourth to trim Penn Hills’ lead to 10 points with just over a minute to play, but it was too late.

“I told the girls that there’s good news and bad news – the bad news is we lost the game to a better team tonight and the good news is we continue to play,” Waller said. “We have a chance to go to the state championship. We’re going to take it one game at a time, and maybe we’ll see them again and we’ll be the better team.”