Dec 8, 2002 By Rob Burchianti 4 min read

Annie Malkowiak doesn’t like to lose, but even she had a hard time being upset after watching her Uniontown girls basketball team fall to City League power Schenley, 54-52, in a hard-fought, non-section battle at A.J. Everhart Memorial Gymnasium on Friday night. Britney Jackson scored the game-winning bucket on an inside power move with 10 seconds left to give the Lady Spartans the two-point victory and hand the Lady Raiders their first loss of the season.

Both teams are now 4-1.

“The good thing about my kids tonight is they were not out-played,” said Malkowiak, who is in her fourth year as Lady Raiders coach. “The other team just had more talent. Give credit to Schenley. They’re a good team with a nice basketball tradition.”

Uniontown junior star Jocelyn Chandler ripped the nets for a game-high 31 points and almost pulled out the victory for the Lady Raiders, but her 3-pointer in the closing seconds wouldn’t fall.

“She’s an exceptional player,” said Schenley coach Debbie Lewis, who guided the Lady Spartans into the PIAA Class AAAA quarterfinals last year, where they lost to eventual state runner-up Oakland Catholic. “It didn’t matter what we did, she kept finding ways to score. We just wanted to try to slow her down a little bit, because a player of that caliber is going to get her points.”

Chandler, who also had seven rebounds, is now just 37 points shy of 1,000 for her career. She was the only Lady Raider to hit double figures against Schenley, although Malkowiak was pleased with the rest of her players, especially in the absence of 5-11 senior forward Chrissy McLee.

“We played without Chrissy and when it came down to the end, we got out-muscled,” Malkowiak said. “But my kids played hard. These kids are fighters. And four of them played 32 minutes tonight.”

Juniors Sara Kovach and Jill Monahan followed Chandler in the scoring column with seven and six points, respectively.

“Sara did a good job underneath, and Jill did a lot of things well, too,” said Malkowiak, who has a very young roster.

Senior Emily Fisher and freshman Courtney Sanner rounded out the starting lineup and scored five and two points, respectively. Malkowiak used freshman Marissa Voytek, who scored one point, and sophomore Maggie Petruska off the bench.

Courteney Bruce paced Schenley with 13 points. Jackson was next with nine points, all coming in the final period, and Njaimeh Njie came off the bench to score eight points. Starters Ciera Johnson, Marisa Turner and Tina Brown each scored six points. Brown also had a game-high nine boards.

There were three lead changes and two ties in a back-and-forth opening period that ended with Schenley up 14-13, but the visitors pushed that lead up to 34-22 by halftime.

“In the first half we turned the ball over way too much and got pushed around,” Malkowiak said.

The Lady Raiders bounced back with a strong third period, out-scoring Schenley 15-3 to knot the score at 37-37 after three periods.

While Chandler accounted for 19 of Uniontown’s 22 first-half points, five different players scored in the third frame, including Monahan and Fisher, who both hit 3-pointers. The Lady Raiders finally tied it when Kovach made a steal at one end and hit one of two free throws at the other.

Chandler scored four straight points to give Uniontown a 45-41 lead with 4:39 left in the game, but Jackson scored the next five to put the Lady Spartans back in front.

Uniontown pulled even on Monahan’s jumper with 2:14 left before buckets by Leda Steele and Jackson made it 52-48 with 1:10 remaining.

The Lady Raiders weren’t done yet. Chandler hit a jumper from the corner, and, after a missed Schenley free throw, Kovach scored inside on a nice pass from Monahan to tie it at 52-52 with 30 seconds left.

That just set the stage for Jackson, however.

“We set that play up for her,” Harris said. “You’ve got to go to your horse.”

Jackson powered her way in for the winning two points and the Lady Spartans held their breathes as Chandler’s last shot missed the mark.

“We buckled down on defense and got more aggressive,” Malkowiak said of her team’s second-half rally. “They made the play they had to at the end though.”

Uniontown opens Section 2-AAAA play on Monday when it travels to Canon-McMillan.

“I think we have a lot of things to work on,” Malkowiak said. “But, overall, I’m happy with where we’re at right now.”