Knoch defense impresses in consolation victory over Beaver Area
JEFFERSON TWP — More so than state-playoff seeding or sentimentality, Nina Shaw and Hattie McGraw were concerned with one thing Thursday night.
Momentum.
The two seniors collaborated for 18 of host Knoch’s 24 second-half points in a WPIAL Class 4A fifth-place consolation game with Beaver Area. On the other end, they helped hold the guests under 30 points in a 42-29 girls hoops victory.
Having notched a pair of impressive home wins since being bounced from the championship bracket by Quaker Valley last Friday, the Knights (17-9) are back trending in the direction they’d prefer.
The game was the last that Knoch’s senior class will play on its home floor.
“I don’t have any feelings about it,” said Shaw, who finished with 11 points. “I’m so worried about continuing to move forward that I’m not even worried about this. We’ve played good this whole entire season. There’s more to come.”
McGraw nodded, adding that shutting their gym’s lights out for the final time is something they’ll look back on when their postseason march is done.
“We’ve got to keep our drive,” McGraw said. “We’ve got to want to win games and we’ll make it far.”
The teams mustered just six points a piece in the initial eight minutes before a 7-2 second-quarter surge put the Bobcats (15-10) up by five with 5:20 to go before the midway point. They’d lose their edge for good three minutes later, when McGraw, Shaw, and junior Naturelle Ewing made shots on consecutive possessions to make it 18-15.
Over an 11-minute stretch that began then and carried late into the third frame, Beaver would make only one bucket. By that time they snapped out of the spell, the Knights were up by double-digits.
“They play good defense, so it’s a good little test for us before you get to the state tournament,” Beaver Area coach Greg Huston said. “They play good man-to-man. We’ve kind of been like that all year. We’ve been either hot or cold ... This game, we couldn’t get anything going.
“Layups, foul shots, threes, we couldn’t get anything in the hoop.”
“Beaver likes to play a game that’s going to be in the high 20s or low 30s,” Knoch coach Chris Andreassi said. “That’s their comfort zone ... Their defense is tough to crack sometimes. In the third quarter, I thought that was the key. At halftime, we decided to go into more of a motion offense against the zone and we got cleaner looks.”
The ball movement freed McGraw to sink three treys in the third. Her team outscored the Bobcats, 16-5, in that eight minutes.
“I know if I’m driving in, hey, Hattie’s always in my corner,” Shaw explained. “If I get stopped, it’s literally wide open.”
“I think it’s been like that since fifth grade,” said McGraw, who led all scorers with a dozen points. “And even, like, the same game plan. It’s brought up, like, ‘Hey, Nina, get to the hoop.’”
Thanks to the natural feel on that end, practices made up of different variations of shuttle and transition drills sharpen the defense.
“Our defense creates the offense,” Shaw said. “We get our stops, we run our break — everybody knows the spots to get to — and from there, we just play basketball.”
Andreassi predicted that his team will get either the District 9 or 10 champion in the first round of the PIAA tournament.
“It’s all momentum,” he said. “Who you play doesn’t really matter at this point, because you know you’re going to play someone good. You want to win the game and have momentum going into the state playoffs.”
BEAVER AREA 29
Chloe List 4 1-4 11, Lauren Hansen 4 0-0 8, Constantina Krzeczowski 7, Hailey Tooch 1 0-0 2, Emerson Connelly 0 1-4 1. Totals: 11 4-14 29.
KNOCH 42
Hattie McGraw 4 0-0 12, Nina Shaw 4 2-3 11, Megan Vasas 4 0-0 8, Naturelle Ewing 2 2-4 7, Adah Fuller 2 0-1 4. Totals: 16 4-8 42.
Beaver Area 6 9 5 9 — 29
Knoch 6 12 16 8 — 42
3-point goals: Knoch 6 (McGraw 4, Shaw, Ewing); Beaver Area 3 (List 2, Krzeczowski)
