Brookville Girls Get First PIAA Playoff Win in 33 Years

Chris Rossetti

Chris Rossetti

Published March 10, 2018 5:17 am
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CLARION, Pa. (D9Sports)The last time the Brookville girls’ basketball team won a PIAA playoff game prior to Friday night, head coach Mark Powell was in junior high.

(Photo: The Hager Paving Player of the Game Marcy Schindler of Brookville)

Thirty-three years after beating Conemaugh Valley in the 1985 2A playoffs, the District 9 3A champion Lady Raiders picked up another PIAA victory with a 53-46 win over District 10 runner-up Northwestern Friday night at Clarion High School.

“It feels awesome,” Marcy Schindler, the Hager Paving Player of the Game after scoring nine points and hauling down a team-best 15 rebounds said. “I never thought I would get here sophomore year.”

Listen to more of what Schindler had to say about the win.

All nine of Schindler’s points came after halftime and helped Brookville (19-5) expand upon a three-point halftime lead, 23-20.

Relisten to the game.

The Lady Raiders used a 12-4 run right out of halftime to get the lead to 35-24 with Morgan Johnson scoring four points during the spurt that started with a Kira Powell 3-pointer.

But Northwestern (15-10) pushed back and closed within five, 35-30, late in quarter before Morgan Johnson, who finished with a game-high 14 points on 7 of 12 shooting, scored with 30 seconds left in the frame.

“Anybody asked me what the game plan was, I said the same thing,” Mark Powell said. “It’s what we do every night. The kids just executed excellent. I’m really proud of those kids. What a group to have to break the drought.”

After Northwestern’s Monica Brown scored a 1:08 into the fourth quarter to get the Lady Wildcats back within five, 37-32, Brookville tried to put the game away by going on a 10-2 run that featured a big three by Schindler that pushed the lead back to double digits, 43-32, with five minutes left.

By the time Morgan Johnson scored with 4:22 to go, the Lady Raiders’ advantage was a game-high 13 points, 47-34.

“The kids have bought in to what we’re doing,” Mark Powell said. “They’ve bought in and the coaches have bought in. When you get the commitment from the coaches and the kids, this is what you end up with. I just couldn’t be any happier.”

Northwestern pushed back one last time going on a 10-2 run with Brown, who is headed to Edinboro next season, scoring six of the points, including a 3-pointer with 2:24 left that cut the Brookville lead to 49-42. Christie Sawin then hit two free throws with a minute left to close the gap to five, 49-44.

Brookville was a little fast in its offensive possessions during the Lady Wildcats run, but Powell said that is the identity of his team, which spends the entire game in a full-court press defense that leads to fastbreak opportunities on offense.

“We stay aggressive for 32 minutes,” Powell said. “That’s what we do. We live or die by it and there’s ups and downs and ebbs and flows through the game. We were able to get a nice stretch where we got that lead up and they made a couple of hoops. But was it really that close? I didn’t think so. I felt pretty confident shooting free throws.”

Brookville, which is under 60 percent on the season as a team from the free-throw line, made just enough charity shots down the stretch — 4 of 8 in the final 1:51 — to hang on in the end with Kira Powell, the coach’s daughter — hitting a crucial one with 20.9 left to make it a six-point game and then Schindler putting the game away with a free throw with 12.7 to play.

“It was pretty similar to the Karns City game (in the District 9 title game),” Schindler said. “We got a lead, and then, in the end, we kind of started to lose it. But, we still kept our heads in the end, and we managed to just run out the clock.”

The Lady Raiders defense did a fantastic job on Brown, who came into the game averaging 18.3 points per game, holding her to 13 points on 4 of 17 shooting including 1 of 11 from 3-point range.

“We had a week to prepare for this one,” Powell said. “We had a chance to watch them a couple of times live, and I thought the kids executed again exactly what we asked them to do. We made it tough on them. They didn’t have good looks all night from three. The overall effort was outstanding.”

Brookville limited Northwestern to 2 of 20 from 3-point range and 15 of 58 from the field.

“I think we really just played to stop Monica and Julia (Wheeler), their two shooters with our 51 defense,” Schindler said. “I think it really worked in preventing them from scoring.”

Madison Johnson, Morgan’s twin sister, added 13 points for Brookville on 6 of 12 shooting, while Kira Powell had six points and nine rebounds and Lauren Hergert five points and 10 boards.

Wheeler tied Morgan Johnson for game-high honors with 14 points for Northwestern.

Things don’t get any easier for Brookville, as the Lady Raiders face WPIAL runner-up East Allegheny, a 54-28 winner over Central-Martinsburg, in the second round Tuesday at a site and time to be announced Sunday. East Allegheny went into the WPIAL title game unbeaten before losing to Bishop Canevin, 56-52. But the Lady Wildcats are 25-1 on the season.

“This has been a special season, a special run,” Powell, whose team doesn’t have a senior on the roster and was 6-16 last year, said. “I can’t ask any more from the kids. They’re playing as a hard as they can.”

BROOKVILLE 53, NORTHWESTERN 46

Score by Quarters

Northwestern 9 11 10 16 — 46
Brookville 10 13 14 16 — 53

NORTHWESTERN — 46

Monica Brown 4 4-7 13, Kassidy Sherman 2 0-0 5, Christie Sawin 1 4-4 6, Courtney Robertson 4 0-0 8, Brooke Reiser 0 0-0 0, Julia Wheeler 4 6-7 14, Kayleigh Bucci 0 0-0 0, Courtney Ring 0 0-0 0. Totals 15 14-18 46.

BROOKVILLE — 53

Madison McAninch 0 0-0 0, Leah Kammerdeiner 0 0-0 0, Marcy Schindler 2 4-6 9, Morgan Johnson 7 0-2 14, Madison Johnson 6 0-0 13, Jenna Grant 1 0-0 2, Jillian Taylor 1 0-0 2, Lexis Hatzinikolas 1 0-1 2, Kira Powell 2 1-2 6. Totals 22 6-13 53.

Three-pointers: Northwestern 2 (Brown, Sherman). Brookville 3 (Schindler, Madison Johnson, Powell).

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