Lebo’s 3s down Canon-McMillan in semifinals
Luke Palma puts up a basket during Canon-McMillan's semifinal contest against Mt. Lebanon.
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Canon-McMillan’s Elliot Waller shoots over Mt. Lebanon’s Sean Loughran during Wednesday’s game.
Luke Palma (25) slices his way through Mt. Lebanon defenders Hayden Mitchell (4) and Michael Palmer (20)
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Canon-McMillan’s Drew Engel battles for the loose ball Wednesday night with Mt. Lebanon’s Hayden Mitchell.
Brian Gartley (11) wrestles the ball away from Drew Engel (10) during Mt. Lebanon's victory against Canon-McMillan.
Luke Palma puts up a basket despite the defensive efforts of Hayden Mitchell from Mt. Lebanon.
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Canon-McMillan’s Tommy Samosky attempts to drive past Mt. Lebanon’s Sean Loughran during Wednesday night’s WPIAL semifinal game.
CORAOPOLIS – For the Canon-McMillan High School boys’ basketball team, the goal was to shift the pressure toward Mt. Lebanon as the game progressed in hopes the third-seeded Blue Devils would crack.
But after Mt. Lebanon endured a mostly poor-shooting first half, with the exception of a handful of three-pointers, the offensive consistency for the Big Macs’ section rival could only go in one direction.
“I told them at halftime that I believed in them,” Blue Devils coach Joe David said. “The next shot is always going in. Forget the ones you miss and remember the ones you make.”
Forgetting about a sometimes dreadful first half, Mt. Lebanon finally took advantage of its open looks against Canon-McMillan’s zone with five three-pointers in the third quarter to eventually down the seventh-seeded Big Macs, 58-39, in a WPIAL Class 6A semifinal game Wednesday night at Moon Area High School.
Canon-McMillan (16-8), which still advances to the PIAA tournament, gave the Blue Devils open looks in the first half but they missed their first six shots in the first quarter and clanked their opening seven field goals in the second quarter.
“They were coming. We knew they were coming,” said Canon-McMillan coach Rick Bell. “We were real happy with it being 21-21 at halftime. I thought we should have had the lead. We wanted to make the game pressure get to them. We had to get that lead late. Unfortunately it didn’t happen.”
The Big Macs’ last lead was when Tommy Samosky made a three-pointer immediately after halftime.
It was all Blue Devils after that.
Mt. Lebanon (21-3), which advances to Saturday’s championship game against Butler, made five three-pointers in the third quarter during a 17-4 run. The third ended with Jake Hoffman nailing a deep three right in front of the Blue Devils’ raucous bench and student section with one second left, taking a 38-28 lead.
“It was absolutely a dagger,” Bell said. “It was huge.”
Hoffman led all scorers with 17 points. Blaine Gartley and Sean Loughran each reached double-digits for Mt. Lebanon with 15 and 12 points, respectively. The three combined for all 10 of the Blue Devils’ three-pointers, all in the first three quarters. Ten of their first 13 field goals were from behind the arc.
“I had to be careful not to over-coach because there are so many things to do against a 2-3 zone,” David said. “We were getting wide open looks and I just had to leave it be, hoping the ball would go in.”
The score could have been lopsided more quickly but Canon-McMillan (16-9) climbed back into the game after falling behind by eight points nearing the end of the first quarter.
Ethan Beachy made a three-pointer with 1:45 left in the first to spark a 13-1 run. Beachy finished the run more than four minutes later with a no-look, backdoor pass to Luke Palma to give the Big Macs a 18-14 lead.
Beachy led the Big Macs with 13 points, while Samosky scored 11. Elliott Waller had six points and 12 rebounds.
“Once they got a little separation in the third quarter we knew it was going to be a battle,” Bell said. “They get the lead and are going to hold the ball and make free throws. They have four guys that can score the basketball. There is no drop off with these guys. They have a lot of weapons.”