Feb 16, 2014 By Stephen Flinn for The Herald Standard 3 min read

McMURRAY — Brownsville battled Brentwood down to the wire in Saturday’s premilinary round of the WPIAL Class AA boys basketball playoffs, which was tied with a minute left. Ryan Novotny broke the tie in style with a game-winning shot with four seconds left that sent the Falcons to the first round with a 42-40 win at Peters Township High School.

“Coach had us freeze the ball to get the final shot. I wanted the ball in my hands,” Novotny said. “When I looked at the scoreboard, tied 40-40 with 13 seconds left, I said, ‘We have to win this game.’ “

Brownsville coach Brian Brashear explained what he said during the timeout.

“We wanted to make sure we had good floor spacing and we didn’t get bunched up. We also didn’t want to shoot too early,” Brashear said. “We wanted to isolate a few guys and try to get a shot in our favor. We wanted to attack the basket at the right time and the play worked in our favor.”

The game was still not over, though. The Falcons had to play defense for four more seconds. They forced a turnover with two seconds left to ice the game.

“On that last defensive play, I said to make sure that we contested every shot, but not foul anybody,” Brashear said. “We came out and played excellent on defense on that play.”

Brashear thought the win was a total team effort on both sides of the ball.

“Everybody played together today. We moved the ball around offensively,” Brashear said. “We played the zone defense really well and all those components put together was the key to the win.”

Brownsville will now face Beaver Falls on Wednesday at a site and time to be determined.

“Beaver falls is definitely going to be a formidable opponent. We know that going in,” Brashear said. “We just have to play with everything we have.”

Brownsville was led by Cole Novotny with 11 points and DeShawtae Bell with 10. Brentwood was led by Connor McWiliams with 16 points.

Brownsville could not find its shot early and fell behind 12-7 in the first quarter. Bell got hot for the Falcons in the second quarter, though, and scored 10 points to fuel a Brownsville 24-21 lead at the half.

Nick Despot scored two quick buckets underneath to start the third quarter and the Falcons took their biggest lead of the game, 28-21. They went cold from the floor through most of the third quarter.

Brentwood responded as McWilliams hit two three-pointers and a short jumper and Andrew Stofsky hit a three-pointer to give the Spartans a 34-30 lead midway through the third. The Falcons closed the gap at 34-33 at the end of the third quarter.

Brownsville got hot to start the fourth quarter and took a 38-34 lead before Bill Majeda tied the game for Brentwood 40-40 on a layup with a minute left before Novotny’s winning shot.