Feb 5, 2018 4 min read

CANONSBURG – Canon-McMillan High School’s first-year girls basketball head coach Shawn Urbano told his team after the game that they’ve seen this movie before.

The Big Macs should consider it a horror film.

Leading most of the first meeting with Peters Township Jan. 15, Canon-McMillan failed to hold on in the final minute of the game and suffered a 53-50 loss.

The Indians, in search of winning the outright section title, made Monday night a sequel.

Trailing by six points at halftime, Peters Township senior Lilly Young took control as director for the comeback by scoring 15 points in the second half as the Indians slipped past Class 6A Section 3 rival Canon-McMillan, 54-48.

The last two section titles Peters Township has won, in 2000 and 2016, the Indians were forced to share that honor. Two years ago, PT was sharing section reign with the Big Macs.

“It makes it 10 times better that we beat them on this floor to be the section champions,” Young said. “In the first quarter, I got a little angry and said to myself that I needed to find a way to help out. It seemed like we needed someone to step up, and I think it was my job, for once, as a senior, to provide that.”

Young did exactly that in the third quarter by scoring 12 of PT’s 18 points – Makenna Marisa scored the other six – as the Indians cut their deficit to one point, 41-40.

“She came up big,” said PT head coach Bert Kendall. “The way Canon-Mac plays defense, we practiced getting a lot of high-low looks. We struggled early getting to the high post, which didn’t allow us to get the ball to her down low. We made a tweak at halftime that worked out.”

That tweak led to Peters Township (9-1, 18-2) outscoring the Big Macs 32-20 in the second half, doubling C-M in the fourth quarter at 14-7 to complete the comeback.

Marisa made two free throws with 1:11 remaining to give the Indians a 50-48 lead they wouldn’t surrender.

Allowing teams to slowly crawl their way back into games has been a problem for Canon-McMillan (2-8, 10-9) after starting out the season by winning seven of its first nine games. The Big Macs have slipped out of playoff contention for the first time in two years.

“We went to (Peters Township) and had the lead with 30 seconds and couldn’t hang on,” Urbano said. “We were winning Thursday against Bethel Park until the final seconds. Tonight, it was the same scenario. I thought we played them tough again. We came in feeling that we could win this game. We’re not concerned with rankings. We felt we were just as good as they are. We have been trying to find ways to win these types of games.”

The Big Macs couldn’t stop the one-two punch of Young and Marisa, who were the only two to make a field goal in the final two quarters for PT and scored 30 of the Indians’ final 32 points.

“We all come together and realized we could do something great,” Young said. “We bought into five girls playing as one. There is a lot of unselfishness and it’s worked out really well. We play as a team. We trust each other and our coaches. It’s all one machine.”

Canon-McMillan took control of the back-and-forth game when Izzy Allen made a layup and three-pointer on consecutive possessions for the Big Macs during a 9-2 run in the final 2:34 of the first half.

But after winning four games this season by less than five points, Peters Township knew not to panic.

Marisa led all scorers with 27 points and sparked the Indians in the fourth quarter making four of five free throws and scoring eight points.

“We play with a lot of confidence and have been in a lot of close games,” Kendall said. “At the end of the day, we just execute. When we need something, it’s all five of them. It’s five girls working as a single machine. It paid off today. We stayed within ourselves, ran our offense and looked good in the second half.”

Having it roster dismantled by four major injuries, including two ACL tears and a broken ankle, Canon-McMillan relied again on Allen in her final home game. Allen scored 19 points.

“The difference was Peters Township’s experience,” Urbano said. “We made some crucial mistakes with the ball. We had a few misalignments on defense and miscommunication. And that’s because we’re young. (Peters Township) is a little more battle-tested and experienced. We are building a program while they are sustaining a very good basketball program.”