Thursday, March 14, 2002
The Red Hurricanes defeated State College 68-56 and will meet Mt. Lebanon next.
By BILL ALBRIGHT
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
CLARION, Pa. -- With New Castle's high-powered offense squaring off against State College High's "in your face" defense, it seemed like a matchup of an irresistible force against an immovable object.
Force prevailed over object, as New Castle defeated the Little Lions 68-56 Wednesday to advance to the PIAA Quad-A western semifinals, where the Hurricanes will meet Mount Lebanon, a 56-52 winner over Gateway.
"I just told the kids that I thought we played really well for three-and-a-half quarters," said New Castle coach John Sarandrea. "Sometimes it is less of a factor than others, but I thought that our full-court press was really a major factor in deciding this game."
Joseph leads way: As he has done so many times for the Hurricanes, Dom Joseph led the way with 25 points, but Sarandrea was quick to point out that it was the total effort by many of the other players, including Mark DeMonaco, Dante Spino, Leon Ward, Willie Morse and Hoover Gibson, that made the difference.
"He [Joseph] is our best all-around player, and the key to this game was getting him into the game early," said Sarandrea. "He has been our leading scorer for the past three years, and when he comes to play the way he did tonight, we are really tough to beat."
State (22-6) led 13-12 after the first quarter, but New Castle turned it on during the second eight minutes to take a 36-24 lead at the break before stretching its advantage to 56-40 after three periods.
New Castle (29-1) stretched its lead to 21 points during the first minute of the final period on a 3-point play by Joseph and two free throws by Spino, but that is when the pesky Little Lions gave notice that they weren't going to go away without a battle.
Lions rally: During the next six minutes, State put together a 16-3 run to cut the Hurricanes' lead to single digits, 64-56, with 1:24 remaining. However, that was as close as the Lions would get as New Castle scored the final four points of the contest.
"I was just glad that we had the cushion we did to sustain the run," said Sarandrea. "They were shooting free throws that could have cut it to six, and thankfully, they missed them."
In addition to Joseph's game-high 25 points, other Hurricanes hitting doubles were Spino with 13, DeMonaco with 11 and Ward with 10. For State, Brandon Ream paced the Little Lion offense with 19 points.
"I told the guys that we have a maximum of three games left, and they are going to get progressively tougher," said Sarandrea. "But I am proud of them and I told them that we want to hang around and take our best shot at them.
"Thirty games is a lot of basketball for these kids and I just want them to get everything they deserve from the season because they have worked hard to get to where they are now."