Feb 23, 2019 4 min read

IRWIN – Before pregame warmups, Latrobe students, wearing white, filled in the empty seats. Others dressed in black and orange struggled to find seats at a full-capacity Norwin High School gymnasium.

It was at that same time when Canon-McMillan High School assistant basketball coach Robert Baker gave the only message the Big Macs needed to hear.

“We made it here. Today’s the day the wall comes down,” Baker said.

The quarterfinal-round wall the Big Macs hit in each of the last two seasons had prevented history. And that wall was thought to be even sturdier this year with the opponent being second-seeded Latrobe, which hadn’t lost in 2019, or to WPIAL team all season.

Instead of taking out chisels, Canon-McMillan went straight for the sledgehammer.

Sending not-so-subtle messages that they weren’t happy to just be in the quarterfinals again, the seventh-seeded Big Macs played stingy defense on Latrobe standouts Reed Fenton and Bryce Butler and landed one knockout blow after another to defeat the Wildcats 83-62 in a WPIAL Class 6A game Saturday afternoon.

“One of the coaches I talked to about Latrobe said the biggest thing is your guys can’t be afraid,” Bell said. “I giggled. My kids aren’t afraid of anything.”

The win advances Canon-McMillan (16-8) to the semifinals for the first time in school history. The Big Macs will play section foe Mt. Lebanon Wednesday (8 p.m.) at Moon High School.

The Big Macs did it with defense, starting out with a box-and-one on Fenton to force others to try to beat them. Fenton, a Lehigh University recruit who averages more than 22 points per game, finished with seven. He didn’t score until a layup with 4:09 left in the third quarter.

Butler led Latrobe (18-3) with 17 points, which is below his season average.

“I told my coaches, ‘If we get beat, and Butler and Fenton beat us, then (athletic director) Frank Vulcano should call us into his office on Monday and fire us,'” Bell said. “We knew what they had. You don’t let them beat you. We watched a lot of film and realized Butler gets a lot of his points on passes from Fenton. If we took Fenton out with the box-and-one, we would indirectly, at least a little bit, take out Butler.”

Canon-McMillan didn’t let poor shooting, which sent them home in last year’s quarterfinal loss to Woodland Hills, get in the way this time. The Big Macs made six three-pointers in the first half, including a Tommy Samosky straightaway triple that began a 9-0 run to give Canon-McMillan a 27-17 lead early in the second quarter.

Samosky tied with teammate Luke Palma with 19 points, and Ethan Beachy led all scorers with 25 points. Drew Engel also reached double-digits with 12 points and Elliott Waller scored six points, grabbed 10 rebounds and had multiple assists.

“We wanted to prove to everyone we can win more than one game (in the playoffs),” Waller said. “It’s about playing together as one. Our team has been together for so long.”

Beachy gave the Big Macs their first 15-point lead when he made a three-pointer after a huge Waller block of Latrobe’s Trent Holler with 44 seconds left in the second quarter.

Canon-McMillan led 44-29 at halftime.

“Latrobe tries to land the knockout punch,” Bell said. “Our crowd was into it. Our kids were into it. We never let them get going.”

Latrobe didn’t cut the deficit to within 15 points until the opening possession of the fourth quarter. The Wildcats were unable to make open jump shots and failed to get up and down the court in their patented up-tempo offense.

“Nobody can play with us in the full-court transition game,” Latrobe coach Brad Wetzel said. “We couldn’t get the transition game going and aren’t the same team. It’s unfamiliar territory for us. We didn’t have an Option B. We play a certain way and it has to work. We couldn’t do it.”

Canon-McMillan never gave the Wildcats life in the second half by continuing to execute on offense and make foul shots. The Big Macs went 17-for-20 from the free-throw line in the second half and had a lead that at one point reached 26 points.

“It was about having intensity the whole game,” Palma said. “We stepped on their throats the whole game.”

“We weren’t supposed to win today,” Bell said. “We really felt if we could and the first punch the pressure might get to them. It’s character. It’s heart. When you are invested it’s hard to surrender. Our players have ‘it,’ whatever ‘it’ is.”