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Free throws, turnovers costly for Monessen

2 min read
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PITTSBURGH – Two key factors in playoff basketball games are turnovers and free-throw shooting. If you limit the turnovers and make your free throws, then you can often win the close ones. If you do neither, then winning becomes much more difficult.

Unfortunately for Monessen, both aspects hurt the Greyhounds in their WPIAL Class A first-round matchup against Union Saturday afternoon at North Hills High School.

“We weren’t as strong as we needed to be in those areas,” said second-year Monessen coach Dan Bosnic. “I thought we were able to get the ball inside, but we turned it over.

With the free throws, it can be the difference in playoff games, and it was today. It was costly for us and hurt us in the end.”

The Greyhounds turned the ball over 22 times and only made 11 of 29 free-throw attempts.

Early on, the teams seemed to be in a feeling out process, and it led to moments of sloppy play.

Down 7-2 halfway through the first quarter, Union closed the period with an 11-2 run to take a 13-9 advantage. A major factor in the Union run was six Monessen turnovers in the quarter, and the Greyhounds turned the ball over seven more times in the second period.

Both teams turned up the defensive intensity in the second. There were only theee made field goals in the quarter. The Greyhounds outscored the Scotties 5-4 in the second, but they missed a golden opportunity to take control of the game.

Monessen struggled from the free-throw line in the first half as it made only four of 11 attempts, two of the misses being the front end of one-and-ones.

After a few halftime adjustments, Monessen scored the first four points of the second half to take an 18-17 lead, but Union slowly took control of the quarter, and the game, and the Scotties took a 31-23 lead into the final eight minutes.

Marquell Smith (11 points) and Carleton Jones (10) scored in double figures for Monessen.

Union’s Matt Stanley led all scorers with 13 points.

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