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C-M holds against NA for 1st playoff win since ’08

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WEST VIEW – It had been nearly 10 years since the Canon-McMillan boys basketball team won a postseason game.

Heck, it had been four years since the Big Macs had even been in the playoffs.

So, you’ll excuse Canon-McMillan if it was a little harried down the stretch of its 70-67 Class 6A first-round win over North Allegheny Wednesday night at North Hills High School.

The Big Macs built a 20-point lead early in third quarter, then held off a furious comeback by North Allegheny in the fourth quarter to get their first postseason win since 2008.

“It feels good,” Canon-McMillan head coach Rick Bell admitted, his voice raspy, likely from a fourth quarter that saw the Tigers force eight turnovers by the Big Macs and trim a comfortable 16-point lead entering the final quarter to single digits in the closing minutes.

North Allegheny (14-9), which had a huge size advantage over the Big Macs (18-5), went away from its strength in the final quarter, putting 6-7 center Isaac Barnes on the bench alongside 6-10 Zach Johnson.

And Canon-McMillan, which advances to face top-seeded Pine-Richland Saturday, had issues with the Tigers’ full-court press.

“That was the first time a press had bothered us since we played Washington,” Rick Bell said. “But they were athletic and it did bother us. Thankfully, we were able to hold on.”

The Big Macs did so on the efforts of seniors RJ Bell, Britton Breachy and Carson Miller.

Bell had 21 points, including 18 on six three-pointers.

Beachy, playing the point, had 16 points and, along with Miller, helped offset North Allegheny’s size advantage by crashing the boards.

Beachy had eight rebounds, while Miller, who had 10 points, added eight rebounds as well.

“We knew we were at a disadvantage with size, so we told the team that we would need to gang rebound,” Bell said. “They followed our game plan to a T. I just wish we would have made some free throws at the end.”

Miller got the fourth quarter started well with a quick layup and foul shot he converted for an old-fashioned three-point play. But, North Allegheny kept chipping away at Canon-McMillan’s lead.

Junior guard Curtis Aiken, a highly recruited Division 1 prospect, and Ray Sandherr did most of the damage for the Tigers in the final quarter.

Aiken, who scored a game-high 26, including his 1,000th career point in the first quarter, had five points in the final quarter, while Sandherr came off the bench to score 18, including 14 in the final eight minutes.

But every time one of those two would hit a basket, the Big Macs would at least get a free throw at their end to maintain some semblance of control.

An Aiken free throw with 36 seconds remaining put the Big Macs ahead 69-65, but Miller hit one of two foul shots with 34 seconds remaining to push the advantage to five.

And the Tigers couldn’t get their shots to fall in the closing seconds to complete their comeback.

Canon-McMillan staked itself to its big lead thanks to some hot early shooting.

The Tigers came out in a man-to-man defense and that seemed to suit Bell, Kenyan Lewis and Elliott Waller just fine.

Waller hit two three pointers in the first quarter and Bell and Fowlkes had three each during a 25-12 second quarter run that helped Canon-McMillan take a 43-26 lead into the half. The final three came on a RJ Bell 25-footer at the buzzer.

“That was a big three,” Rick Bell said. “We had seen them play both man and zone, but we were hoping they would come out in man. We felt like their big (guys) would have trouble guarding our bigs on the perimeter.

That proved to be the case.

And despite their furious comeback, the Tigers’ big men weren’t much of a factor. Barnes had five points and eight rebounds, none of which came in the second half.

North Allegheny coach Keith Noftz was unavailable for comment.

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