CLARION — Sydney Bordonaro took a step forward, then a hop step back and fired up an arcing 3-point shot just before the second quarter buzzer.

Swish.

The Burrell senior looked toward her bench after she made the shot with a knowing, confident gaze.

The Buccaneers had momentum, a 28-21 lead and the Karns City girls basketball team, which gave Burrell all it could handle in the first half, in a tough spot and with a lot of work to do.

The Gremlins could only pare the Bucs' lead down to as little as five in the second half in a 55-45 loss in the first round of the PIAA Class AA playoffs at Clarion High School Friday night.

“She hit that 3 at the end of the half,” said Karns City coach Dave Kerschbaumer. “Bordonaro was good at making us pay for the little cracks in our defense.”

Burrell (22-4) got 21 points from Bordonaro and 21 more from junior forward Natalie Myers.

Both have Division I basketball in their futures — Bordonaro is heading to Pepperdine University; Myers to Youngstown State University.

“We knew what we were getting into with those two,” Kerschbaumer said. “Those two just made more plays.”

Karns City (21-4) made a fair share of plays throughout the game.

LeeAnn Gibson, a junior forward playing with a plate and screws in broken finger on her left, non-shooting hand, scored 20 points and surpassed 1,000 points in her career in the loss.

She was 10-of-14 from the free-throw line.

Burrell was even better at the stripe.

The Bucs were 23-of-30 in the game and 14-of-16 in the fourth quarter to help nurse their lead.

“We won it at the line in the end,” said Burrell coach Meghan Ziemianski.

When told her team took 30 free throws and made 23 of them, she simply said, “Wow.

Ziemianski said her team hadn't faced an opponent as physical and aggressive as Karns City all season.

She was pleased by the way her team, inexperienced beyond Bordonaro and Myers, responded.

“You look for that, though,” she said. “Back in the day, Apollo-Ridge used to be like that. You go there and you just knew you had to be physical and play tough. We told them that was what it was going to be like.

“They thrived off of that,” Ziemianski added. “They got stronger. They got tougher. Even when Karns City did play like that, we didn't turn it over.”

Karns City thrived this season on forcing turnovers and converting them into points.

Those opportunities were virtually non-existent against Burrell.

The Gremlins also were a dangerous 3-point shooting team, but that also eluded them against the Bucs.

Karns City was just 3-of-15 from behind the arc.

Still, Kerschbaumer couldn't fault his team for the loss.

“There's nothing I can say about our girls. The effort was there,” Kerschbaumer said. “It was there all season. They played Burrell tough and I'm so proud of these girls. I told them they can walk out of here with their heads held high.”

Karns City will say goodbye to six seniors, three of them starters: Annie Hegedus, Shanel Preston and Emily LoPresti.

“We have girls coming back, but losing these six seniors — some of them didn't get to play a lot, but they came to practice and worked hard. Usually, you start with six seniors and then you have four and then by the time they are seniors, you have two or three. All six stayed from the beginning and stuck together.”

BURRELL 55

Elisa Oswalt 2-6 0-0 4, Sydney Bordonaro 4-13 11-14 21, Natalie Myers 4-13 11-12 21, Brooke Smith 3-7 1-2 6, Nicole Kristof 0-1 0-2 0, Bailey Taylor 1-2 0-0 2, Erica Finn. Totals: 14-42 23-30 55.

KARNS CITY 45

Alyssa Gibson 4-4 2-2 10, Emily Hegedus 3-3 0-0 7, Emily LoPresti 1-7 0-0 3, LeeAnn Gibson 5-7 10-14 20, Annie Hegedus 0-2 0-2 0, Shanel Preston 2-13 0-2 5, Saydie Moore 0-0 0-0 0, LeErin Jones 0-0 0-0 0. Totals: 15-36 12-20 45.

Burrell 13 15 5 22 — 55

Karns City13 8 7 17 — 45

3-point goals: Burrell 4 (Bordonaro 2, Myers 2); Karns City 3 (E. Hegedus, LoPresti, Preston)