Peters Township finds offense, defeats USC
McMURRAY – The baskets inside of the Peters Township High School gymnasium might as well have been those where that you stand in line to pay a dollar for a chance to win a prize at fairs and carnivals.
If they were, the girls basketball teams Peters Township and Upper St. Clair would have wasted a lot of money.
With neither finding any rhythm on the offensive end of the court, especially in the first half, the Indians decided to turn to Plan B – play the best defense they could and hope shots would eventually start finding the bottom of the net.
Peters Township forced 16 turnovers, held their neighboring rival to 9-of-43 shooting and finally had its offense sparked in the third quarter to down Upper St. Clair, 58-28, in a Section 3-6A game Monday night.
“It always starts with defense, and we’ve been working really hard on it,” said Peters Township head coach Bert Kendall. “We want our points against to hang right around 40, because it we struggle offensively, then we can still make up for it.”
If struggled was what Kendall called the Indians’ offense Monday – Peters Township (3-0, 10-1) had only 20 points at halftime and held an 11-point lead – then Upper St. Clair coach Pete Serio might have had a hard time coming up with a word to describe what it was like when the Panthers had the ball.
Aside from a basket with 7:38 remaining in the second quarter, Upper St. Clair (1-2, 4-4) didn’t make a single shot from the field in the first half (1-of-18). The Panthers didn’t make back-to-back shots until the 4:57 mark in the third quarter.
“It’s been a problem the last two games,” Serio said of USC’s three-game losing streak. “When shots don’t fall, it gets deflating. As hard as we tried not to let it, it got deflating. We just didn’t shoot it well. But they are 16-year-old kids. It happens.”
Problems compounded for the Panthers when Peters Township finally began making shots in the third quarter, led by junior guard Makenna Marisa, who scored 11 of her game-high 23 points in the eight-minute span.
The Indians’ Isabella Mills also scored seven third-quarter points, including an old-fashioned three-point play that sparked a 10-point run. The 10 straight points had Peters Township up 39-17 with three minutes left in the quarter.
“That’s why they call them averages,” Kendall said about his team’s shooting woes in the first half.
“I told them, when I got into the locker room at halftime, that we can’t shoot as bad as we did in the first half, so just keep shooting. We were getting good shots, they just weren’t falling. We felt like if we kept executing our offense then we’d get the looks we needed and make those shots.”
The Indians didn’t have trouble finding the basket in the opening 4:08, when they jumped out to a 9-0 lead finished off by an Olivia Ziegler layup that forced a USC timeout.
Peters Township’s early lead was never threatened as the Panthers didn’t come to within five points the rest of the night.
“When you play a team as talented as Peters, and miss open looks, it’s tough,” Serio said. “The difference tonight was that that they have Makenna and we just couldn’t make any shots.”
Marisa’s nine field goals in the second half matched that of the entire Upper St. Clair roster for the game. She also pulled down 11 rebounds.
Anna Groninger led USC with seven points.
Balance remained a strength for Peters Township, which featured three freshmen playing significant minutes to complement Isabella Mills and Lillian Young. Mills scored 14 points and collected 17 rebounds. Young had 13 points.
“The older (players) are doing a good job of showing the younger ones the way,” Kendall said. “We have a real good mix. That mix of experience plays to our standard. We have two one-point wins this year. We aren’t going to fold under pressure. We have confidence.”