Monessen wins defensive struggle over WPIAL champion
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
DaWayne Howell (10) and Taylon Lowe (11) of Monessen battle Jeden Gales of Nazareth Prep for the rebound during PIAA Class A boys quarterfinal basketball action.
DaWayne Howell, Taylon Lowe
Monessen fans
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Monessen fans celebrate the Greyhounds’ victory over Nazareth Prep Friday night.
The Monessen bench celebrates as Dishon Howell knocks down a pair of free throws to seal a 50-46 victory against Nazareth Prep.
Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac
Devin Whitlock and Monessen play Vincentian tonight in a PIAA playoff game at Mt. Lebanon.
Eleanor Bailey / The Almanac
Marquell Smith (13) goes up for a layup against Jaden Gales (21) during Monessen’s PIAA quarterfinal playoff game against Nazareth Prep.
DORMONT – Defense ruled when Monessen and Nazareth Prep clashed in the PIAA Class A boys basketball quarterfinals on Friday night.
It was the Greyhounds’ stifling man-to-man against the Saints’ active zone in a low-scoring battle that went down to the wire.
When the dust had cleared, Monessen was the team still standing, thanks to an intense 50-46 victory that ended the season for the WPIAL champion Saints at Keystone Oaks High School.
Freshman Devin Whitlock led a well-balanced offense with 15 points and the Greyhounds hit four consecutive pressure free throws in the final 30 seconds to help propel coach Dan Bosnic’s squad into the state semifinals.
Monessen (18-9) will face Vincentian Academy on Tuesday with a trip to Hershey on the line.
Bosnic didn’t want to look that far ahead just yet.
“We’re just extremely proud of them and I want them to take this and enjoy tonight,” Bosnic said. “We’re going to refocus ourselves tomorrow and make sure that we prepare to be successful in this next basketball game.”
Success at the foul line by Monessen and failure there by Nazareth Prep played a key role in Friday’s game, especially in the fourth quarter.
With Monessen clinging to a one-point lead and 27.7 seconds left, senior Elijahwa Payne made two free throws to put the Greyhounds lead at 48-45.
Nazareth Prep’s William Taylor was fouled with 12.4 seconds remaining and sank one of two to make it 48-46, and Bosnic called a timeout.
The Greyhounds got the ball inbounds to senior Dishon Howell, who was fouled with 9.1 seconds remaining. Howell put in both free throws to seal it.
“It just reminded me of the last game,” said Howell, referring to two late free throws he made in a 63-62 win over Bishop Carroll on Tuesday. “Just try to focus. Don’t listen to the crowd, don’t listen to anything, just block everything out and just shoot them how you shoot them when you’re practicing.
“And they fell.”
Monessen converted on six of eight foul shots over the final eight minutes while the Saints missed six in a row before Taylor’s make.
The game was tied, 37-37, after three periods. Darnel Howell made one of two free throws at the 6:01 mark to put the Greyhounds ahead to stay.
Both teams were deliberate on offense, especially Nazaraeth Prep, which took over a minute off the clock in one failed possession.
“We’ve gotten better throughout the season with our man-to-man defense,” Bosnic said. “I believed that we were going to present them with a different type of pressure and different type of intensity that they might not have seen on defense.
“We were able to do that. I thought our kids did a great job of staying in front of the basketball and making them shoot challenged shots. As the game wore on we kind of wore them down.”
Saints coach Nehemiah Brazil preferred a lower-scoring game, but didn’t count on his team struggling so much on offense.
“They’re long and athletic, so they cover a lot of ground and they took up a lot of space,” Brazil said of the Greyhounds. “A lot of those shots that we didn’t finish was because there was a guy there that we weren’t expecting to be there.”
With points at a premium, Dishon Howell swished a 3-pointer, his first basket of the game, with 4:12 remaining to put Monessen ahead 41-37, and Darnel Howell’s drive and pass to DaWayne Howell for a layup put the Greyhounds up by six, their biggest lead.
Tre Harvey, who tallied a game-high 16 points, scored inside for the Saints, and Whitlock made one of two free throws to make it 44-39.
Nazareth Prep twice had chances to convert three-point plays but missed the free throw, and then Taylor misfired twice from the line with 2:20 left.
The Greyhounds’ defense hung tough the rest of the way with key plays by Whitlock and Dishon Howell forcing turnovers, and Howell’s follow of Marquell Smith’s missed layup with 55 seconds left gave Monessen a three-point lead.
Hassan Ismaeli’s driving basket cut the margin to one again with 36 seconds left, but Payne and Howell put the game away with their clutch free throws.
Nazareth Prep’s Eugene Goodwine followed Harvey with 12 points.
Payne, DaWayne Howell and Dishon Howell each scored eight points for Monessen.