Vikings come up short in 64-47 loss to New Castle
New Castle made 3-pointers at opportune moments Wednesday night, leading the Hurricanes to a 64-47 victory over Mount Pleasant in the WPIAL Class AAAA quarterfinals at North Allegheny High School.
“They made five 3-pointers on scramble plays and we lost by 17,” lamented Mount Pleasant coach Allan Bilitsky. “They say the ball bounces better for the better team.
“Funny, we played one of our better games.”
The Hurricanes (16-7) led 16-8 after the first quarter, but the Vikings kept it close in the second quarter and trailed 27-17 at halftime.
“We were winning in the first quarter. It was back and forth,” said Bilitsky. “We were down by 10 at halftime and they had nine points on three 3-pointers from three scramble plays.
“That team shot better threes than from two (inside the 3-point line), and a lot of the shots were contested. Number 11 (Sheldon Cox) and No. 3 (Michael Wells) shot the crap out of the ball.”
Cox scored a game-high 29 points, while Michael Wells added 26.
“We cut it to six in the third quarter,” said Bilitsky, whose Vikings trailed 46-30 after three quarters. “We had our chances. We missed some layups.”
“New Castle beat us, but we could played a little bit better,” added Bilitsky.
Bilitsky believes the future is bright for the Mount Pleasant boys basketball program.
“As I told my coach, this could be the team that builds a basketball program at Mount Pleasant. JJ (Jake Johnson) is a senior, but we have a lot of players returning. Jake Bungard will be back (from injury).”
Johnson led the Vikings (12-11) with 21 points. Jonas King scored 11 and Luke Brandner finished with eight.