Dec 1, 2017 By Dave Stofcheck for The 3 min read

Brownsville head coach Mark Marino is tasked with trying to build a team around one player with significant experience.

Senior forward Shandon Marshall has started for the past two seasons, and he will be Marino’s foundation.

“We’re counting on him for some leadership,” Marino said. “He’s used to not only playing teams in our conference night in and night out, but he’s familiar with a lot of gyms and a lot the guys on other teams so we’re going to rely a lot on him.

“Shandon is very good going to the rim, and he’s developed a little bit more of an outside shot. He helped us a couple times last year by hitting some big three-pointers.”

After Marshall, Marino will be looking for players to round out the starting lineup.

Among them are Phil Pace, Brad Koval and Johnny Hovanec.

“Phil has a little bit of varsity experience,” Marino said. “He has good length and we’re hoping he can give us some help inside the paint and be someone we can count on offensively.

“Koval and Hovanec are two guys who played junior varsity last year, but really did everything right this summer. We’re looking for that to hopefully translate over to this season.”

Marino looks to the work his team put in this summer, and hopes it will pay dividends.

“For the first time in a long time we were able to get out this summer and we were able to do a lot of things,” Marino said. “We went to Navy’s team camp, and we went to Clarion’s team camp. We also played in the Bronson House summer league, and that has really, really helped a lot of the younger kids become more familiar with some legitimate basketball experience.

“When you look at our basketball IQ and our skill set, you don’t know how much will transfer over onto what’s shown on the court this year, but a lot of the guys were eighth and ninth graders who were able to get some good experience.”

Brownsville will compete in Section 4-AAA, along with Beth-Center, Burgettstown, Charleroi, Southmoreland, South Side Beaver and Washington.”

“You know Washington is going to be very good every year,” Marino said. “They have some depth and some really good players. Coach (Ron) Faust is obviously a veteran coach who knows how to get the most out of his team.

“Southmoreland lost a really big piece and probably the best player in the conference and we’ll have to see how they respond. South Side Beaver is young, but it returns a lot of players.”

Brownsville hosts a tournament to open the season and will face Yough Dec. 8. The Falcons open section play a week later at Washington.”

“We have a lot of question marks,” Marino said. “We have one guy coming back with extensive experience. How are our other guys going to fit in? We really want to see if we are a better team in December than we were in November.

“We really want to be playing our best basketball by the end of the season and hopefully that leads to a playoff experience.”