Bittersweet night
PINE TWP — Pine-Richland's start was horrendous.
The Rams missed their first 11 shots from the field, had two starters go to the bench in foul trouble and trailed visiting Butler six minutes into their Section 1-6A boys basketball game Tuesday night.
Butler coach Matt Clement wasn't fooled.
“It's Pine-Richland. They weren't going away,” Clement said.And they didn't.The Rams came on strong instead, wiping out a 10-point deficit in the third quarter and rallied for a 65-61 victory.“We had to turn it up a notch,” Pine-Richland coach Bob Petcash said. “This is such a great rivalry. All of the kids on both teams are friends. It's fun competition.”Butler (3-2, 0-2) held the lead throughout the first three quarters. The margin peaked at 43-33 when Devin Carney sank one of his five treys with 3:36 left in the third quarter,Carney scored 28 points and now has 1,019 points in his high school career.“He's got as many different moves to score as any player I've seen,” Clement said.But they weren't enough on this night.Pine-Richland (2-2, 1-2) closed the third period on a 9-2 run. An Andy Swartout layup cut the Tornado lead to 47-45 at the end of the quarter.Andrew Alexander drained a trey to give the Rams their first lead of the night — 48-47 — with 7:06 remaining.A Carney trey gave Butler its last lead at 56-55 with 3:02 left. But an Alexander layup that could have been a three-point play turned out even worse for the Tornado. He missed the free throw, but Luke Shanahan stuck back the offensive rebound. Shanahan added another layup for a 61-56 Ram lead with 2:34 remaining.
“They got rebounds twice off missed free throws and put them back in. Those plays really hurt us,” Clement said.A tip-in of a missed shot by Raine Gratzmiller gave Butler hope, but Pine-Richland put the game away at the line. Swartout sank two free throws for a 63-58 lead with 46 seconds left.Alexander sank a pair for a 65-61 edge with 25 seconds left.“Those free throws were big. We can do better, though,” Petcash said of his team's foul shooting. “We missed too many.”Pine-Richland was 12 of 20 at the line for the game.Mattix Clement had 10 points and four rebounds for Butler while Gratzmiller had nine points and eight rebounds. Charlie Kreinbucher had 10 boards.Pine-Richland placed four players in double figures. Shanahan had 17 points and six rebounds, Alexander 15 points, five boards and three assists, Joey Dudkowski 13 points and six rebounds, Joey Petcash 11 points, five rebounds and three assists.The Rams had a 17-6 advantage in rebounding in the second half.“There's where the game was lost. That's the difference right there,” Clement said. “Rebounding is effort. We pride ourselves on that, but we got beat there tonight.”Coach Petcash acknowledged that “winning the 50-50 balls was critical for us tonight.”While Butler fell to 0-2 in section play with North Allegheny looming Friday night, Clement is nowhere close to pushing the panic button.“From one through five, this section is as tight and balanced as I've ever seen it,” he said. “You can win all your section games, you can lose them all.“So far, we've lost both of ours. But there's a long way to go.”BUTLER 61Raine Gratzmiller 2-4 5-6 9, Devin Carney 10-19 3-4 28, Mattix Clement 3-11 2-2 10, Colin Patterson 1-2 0-0 3, Charlie Kreinbucher 1-3 0-0 2, Madden Clement 2-4 0-0 4, David Leslie 2-3 0-0 5. Totals: 21-46 10-12 61.PINE-RICHLAND 65Eli Jochem 0-0 0-0 0, Andrew Alexander 6-8 2-3 15, Andy Swartout 2-6 2-2 7, Joey Petcash 4-14 0-1 11, Luke Shanahan 6-15 4-6 17, Hudson Seabolt 0-2 0-0 0, Dylan Siegal 1-1 0-0 2, Joey Dudkowski 4-10 4-8 13, Dylan Serafini 0-1 0-0 0, Nate Zasvasky 0-1 0-0 9 . Totals: 23-58 12-20 65.Butler 14 15 18 14 — 61Pine-Richland7 16 22 20 — 653-point goals: Carney 5, Mat.Clement 2, Patterson, Leslie; Alexander, Swartout, Petcash 3, Shanahan, DudkowskiJV: Pine-Richland, 63-41 (B: CJ Singleton 13; P-R: Nate Zavasky 22, Andy Swartout 13)Friday: North Allegheny at Butler
