New Castle cruises to win

The Red Hurricanes rolled over Mount Lebanon, 60-44.
By BRIAN RICHESSON
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
MOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- The New Castle High boys basketball team won its 30th game Saturday. It would prefer to finish on No. 32.
The Red Hurricanes moved one step closer to a PIAA Quad-A state championship by defeating Mount Lebanon 60-44 in the quarterfinals at Robert Morris University's Sewall Center.
"That's a lot of wins," said New Castle senior Mark DeMonaco, who transferred from Shenango after his sophomore year. "I never thought it'd be like this."
Up next for New Castle (30-1) is a rematch with Uniontown (29-1), which advanced by beating Erie Cathedral Prep 48-45.
In the WPIAL championship game March 2, Uniontown handed the Red Hurricanes their only loss this season, 60-57. The teams will meet again Wednesday at 7 p.m. at a site to be determined.
Deserving: New Castle coach John Sarandrea wasn't about to give Uniontown any "bulletin board material," but he did say the two teams deserve the opportunity to battle for the western region title.
"This will be a fitting ending for somebody's season in the west," Sarandrea said. "These are the two best Quad-A teams in the western part of the state."
New Castle has chosen to look at Wednesday's game as an opportunity. If it can get by Uniontown in the western final, it will be tested for the state title game in Hershey.
"It adds value to either team to go through the hard route," Sarandrea said. "And maybe you can feed off of that hard-fought win -- if you're able to get one -- when you get to Hershey."
In the teams' previous meeting, New Castle fell behind by 13 points before rallying and then falling short. Sarandrea admitted that he has a lot of decisions to make before Wednesday.
"Last time we trapped them out of necessity. We were down by 13 points and flat-out had to because they were going to go into that delay mode," Sarandrea said of Uniontown. "We were going to either come back and win or we were going to lose by 20."
Early lead: New Castle, which defeated PIAA opponents North Allegheny and State College, earned its rematch with Uniontown by jumping out early on Mount Lebanon (20-10) and maintaining the lead throughout the game.
The Red Hurricanes had defeated Mount Lebanon 88-58 on Jan. 22 in, what Sarandrea called, their best game of the season.
"It's tough to play a team you've already beat," Sarandrea said. "We knew that we were not going to duplicate that performance [from Jan. 22]. It concerned me."
But DeMonaco played in the first half Saturday as if he wanted New Castle to match its earlier performance.
The 5-foot-9 guard scored 10 points in the first quarter -- 16 for the half -- while making four 3-pointers. He finished with a game-high 21 points.
"He had a super first half," Sarandrea said. "He wants to take the big shot, and we appreciate that."
Cruising: With DeMonaco as the engine, New Castle built an 18-8 lead after the first quarter and a 29-13 lead at halftime.
"His effort was outstanding, especially when it counted early, when we had to establish that their zone was not going to hurt us," Sarandrea said of DeMonaco. "Because of him we kept Mount Lebanon at a good distance most of the [game]."
Mount Lebanon made several small runs in the second half but couldn't get its deficit below 11 points.
New Castle also got big performances out of seniors Hoover Gibson and Dom Joseph.
Gibson, a 6-foot-4 center, had 14 points and 13 rebounds, while Joseph added 12 points, including eight in the fourth quarter to seal his team's victory.
richesson@vindy.com