Allderdice puts end to Connellsville’s season
CARROLL TWP. – Connellsville left its “A” game at home and that’s a big mistake in the PIAA playoffs. As a result, the Falcons saw their basketball season come to a screeching halt with a 56-37 loss to Allderdice Saturday afternoon at Ringgold High School. “I don’t know what happened,” Falcons coach Nick Bosnic said. “They were exceptionally quick, they shot the ball well and their defense was baffling.”
The Dragons played a variation of a box-and-one, with Connellsville junior James Hairston drawing the man-to-man pressure, but according to Bosnic, it wasn’t the traditional box the Dragons ran.
“Confidence is a big part of the high school game and we didn’t start with it,” Bosnic said.
Still, the Falcons seemed to figure out something late in the second quarter and went on a 12-3 run to cut Allderdice’s 24-14 lead to a point, 27-26, at halftime. It looked like the Falcons had found their game, but it soon became apparent this would be the Dragons’ day.
Allderdice switched to a man-to-man defense and applied three-quarter court pressure to start the third quarter. The results were suffocating to the Falcons and convincing to the sparse crowd on hand.
The Dragons scored the first 11 points of the quarter to stretch their lead back to double figures, 38-26. Allderdice scored off the opening possession and scored easy baskets from three consecutive press-related Connellsville turnovers.
“Nobody pressed us effectively all year,” Bosnic said. “They got those two or three quick turnovers and easy baskets off of them and that took us out of our game a little bit. Plus, we shot the ball poorly. If we could have hit a couple of our outside shots, it might have pulled them out of their box-and-one. It just wasn’t our day.”
The Dragons didn’t let up, either, after scoring the first 11 points of the third quarter. Instead, they maintained the defensive pressure and ended the quarter on the good side of a 22-4 edge to push their lead to 49-30 after three. Each team scored seven points in the fourth quarter.
Hairston paced Connellsville with 18 points, to push his career scoring total to 1,458. Allderdice got 12 from junior Eugene Harris and 10 each from seniors Dominic Cravotta and Brandon Stewart. Just as impressive for the Dragons was the quartet of freshmen who saw considerable playing time. Allderdice may be only 14-13 on the season, but all of its youth should serve it well throughout this playoff run and in the future.
Allderdice coach Buddy Valinsky was quite proud of the game his team had played, perhaps more impressed with his team’s defense than its offense.
“People don’t realize that a team from the city (Pittsburgh City League) can play defense,” Valinsky said. “But over our last nine games, we’ve given up an average of only 45 points. That kind of defense is going to win games for you.”
“Their quickness surprised me,” Bosnic said. “But I was most impressed with their youth. If they can keep it together, they will be exciting to watch the next couple of years.”
Most impressive among the ninth graders was starter Deandre Langston, who scored eight points and had a handful of rebounds.
“We had gotten better every game for a while, maybe the 10-day layoff affected us,” Bosnic said. “Plus James sprained an ankle, but we’re not looking for excuses. We didn’t do anything differently than what we normally do. It just wasn’t our day.”
In looking back on this 24-4 season, Bosnic knows there is no reason for the Falcons to hang their heads.
“To have one starter back from a 9-15 team and to accomplish what we accomplished says a lot,” Bosnic said. “We didn’t get much work done in the off-season because a lot of our kids play other sports, but we got it all together pretty well.
“To see us improve in each game and to see the kids buy into what we were trying to do, that meant a lot to me and to our success. To see the kids overachieve and the team overachieve, as a coach you watch for that. Our kids never gave up. Even in the Penn Hills game, when we got down by 17, the kids never gave up.
“They battled back. They gave it their all this season.”