Marisa, Peters Township hold off Norwin for quarterfinal win
DORMONT – With 5:12 left in the fourth quarter, Peters Township High School girls basketball player Makenna Marisa bent over from the waist, while underneath the basket, in an attempt to get a few gasps of air.
With her face down to the floor for a few seconds, Marisa was recovering from a pair of her own steals, one that led to her own layup and another by Mackenzie Lehman.
Four minutes earlier, with Norwin’s Emily Brozeski draped over her back, Marisa went up strong for an old-fashioned three-point play.
Fending off a feisty Norwin team time and again in the second half, Marisa scored 20 points in the final three quarters and put undefeated Peters Township on her back to will the Indians to a 64-47 victory in a PIAA Class 6A quarterfinal game Friday night at Keystone Oaks High School.
“I was just like, I gotta keep going,” Marisa said.
Peters Township (28-0) will keep going, advancing to the semifinals for the first time since 1994. The Indians will play Upper Dublin, which defeated Abington in the quarterfinals, Monday at a site and time to be determined.
The win was the 18th for the Indians over a team that qualified for the WPIAL playoffs. They did so by holding off a furious second-half rally by Norwin (23-3), which trimmed its 18-point halftime deficit to single digits five times in the second half.
The last time the Knights cut PT’s lead to nine points was at 41-32 when Olivia Gribble made a three-pointer with 7:22 left in the fourth quarter.
That’s when Marisa made the pair of steals that gave the Indians a double-digit lead they held for a remainder of the game.
“(Makenna) wants this as bad as anybody,” said Peters Township coach Bert Kendall. “It’s her last chance. She has done these things all year. When the game was on the line tonight we wanted the ball in her hands. She really took control of that game.”
Marisa, who was held scoreless despite Peters Township jumping out to a 12-0 lead to start the game, scored seven points in the second quarter and 13 in the second half.
Norwin fell behind after struggling with the Indians’ size, especially Journey Thompson, and PT’s balanced scoring in the opening two quarters. Thompson, who finished with 16 points and 13 rebounds, took a half-court pass from Marisa and scored with five seconds left in the second quarter to give Peters Township a 26-8 lead entering the break.
The Knights immediately trimmed that lead with an eight-point run to start the third quarter.
“Basketball is a game of runs,” said Norwin coach Brian Brozeski. “We cut back into the lead early on in the second half but dug a hole a little too deep.”
After shooting 3-for-23 in the first half, the Knights started making shots in the second half and forced Peters Township into 11 third-quarter turnovers. Norwin first cut the PT lead to 30-21 when Gribble made a three-pointer with 4:08 left in the third quarter.
“We were saying on the bench there was no way they were going to beat us at our game,” Kendall said. “They are scrappy and run, but so are we. Any good team is going to make a run at you.”
The multiple attempts as a comeback was also shut down by Peters Township’s success at the foul line. In the second half, the Indians went 18-for-20, including Isabella Mills and Marisa making all of their combined 15 free throws.
Mills scored 11 points and Jordan Bisignani scored in double-digits for the second time in as many games with 13, including seven in the first quarter.
“We never doubt ourselves,” Marisa said. “Whenever a team is coming back we just have to gather ourselves and trust one another. We did that tonight and made some shots, which got us going again. We won’t give up. We want to go to Hershey. We are going to keep fighting for our lives.”