Connellsville grabs overtime victory
MONROEVILLE – Connellsville couldn’t see the basket for the Norwin trees, but Norwin was just as bad. Worse, in fact, as Connellsville survived a shaky outing to win its first-round WPIAL Class AAAA playoff game, 46-41, in overtime last night at Gateway. “It was a bad night for us,” said Connellsville Coach Nick Bosnic. “But it felt good to get a win with James Hairston in particular having a bad night.”
Connellsville shot 29 percent from the field, 45 percent from the foul line and was outrebounded 38-17 but found a way to win on a night when Hairston, the 6-foot-3 go-to man, made 7 of 21 shots and grabbed only two rebounds. Hairston did score the first four points in overtime for Connellsville and his dunk with 36 seconds left sealed the win.
“Everyone’s allowed to have an off night and that was the first one he’s had,” said Bosnic, who wouldn’t blame it on Norwin’s height or the exotic defenses it used to defend Hairston. The junior guard finished with 16 points to tie Norwin’s Joe Sprumont for game scoring honors.
“He’s played against big people before and done well,” Bosnic said. “I think it was the atmosphere. He was a little wound up and overanxious.”
The same could be said for Norwin, which made only 27 percent of its shots and turned the ball over repeatedly. But the second-place team from Section 1-AAAA used its height advantage to make a game of it.
Connellsville’s poor shooting allowed Norwin to hang around because of its rebounding edge, and Sprumont, a 6-9 senior, gave Norwin its first lead of the game, 37-35, with a basket off an alley-oop pass with 2:42 remaining.
After Connellsville’s Chad Burton tied the game off a Hairston block, Norwin tried to burn the clock but ended up turning the ball over with 1:37 left.
Connellsville then ran 1:30 off the clock before clearing a lane for Hairston to win the game in the final seconds. Hairston, though, pulled up before the foul line and badly missed a jumper right before time ran out in regulation.
Norwin took the quick overtime lead on 6-5 center Dillon Stein’s basket, but Hairston, playing with four fouls, drove the baseline to tie the game and then gave Connellsville a lead it wouldn’t relinquish on a fast break lay-up.
Hairston missed a pair of free throws with 1:20 left, but grabbed a long defensive rebound and sailed down the court and sealed the game with a dunk. Point guard Shane Kovack sank two free throws with 19.6 seconds left to end the scoring.
Connellsville, the WPIAL’s No. 2 seed, advanced to the WPIAL quarterfinals and the first round of the PIAA Tournament with the win. Bosnic was asked if his team can get away with any more sloppy games this season.
“No,” he said simply.
Bosnic was asked if he knew why his team shot so poorly.
“I don’t know,” he said. “If I knew I would’ve changed it. I just think that when Hairston’s not on his game, we don’t play with much movement. Nothing came easy.
“Another factor is that we haven’t played for two weeks. We were just rusty. Our spacing was bad; we couldn’t get our break working; we couldn’t even score on our 2-on-1s. We were just rusty.”
Connellsville even opened the second quarter with only four players on the court, and Norwin still couldn’t score. Connellsville rebounded and Bosnic called timeout. Norwin clamored for a technical foul, just as it had after Hairston dunked well past the end-of-first-quarter buzzer, but the referees didn’t oblige.
“At least it’s over with,” Bosnic said. “We survived.”
NORWIN 41
Mazzoni 1 2-4 4, Tray 1 4-4 6, Palaschak 1 0-0 2, Sprumont 7 2-5 16, Stein 3 5-7 11, Wielobob 1 0-0 2; totals 14 13-20 41.
CONNELLSVILLE 46
Kovack 1 4-4 7, Hairston 7 1-4 16, Marsinko 3 0-2 6, Burton 2 2-6 6, Bell 4 2-4 11; totals 17-9-20 46.
Score by quarters:
Norwin 7-13-9-8-4-41
Connellsville 12-11-9-5-9-46
3-point goals: Norwin 0; Connellsville 3 (Kovack, Hairston, Bell).