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Canes tame Tigers
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The Red Hurricanes edged closer to a playoff berth Friday night with a narrow 38-37 victory over North Allegheny and still are very much alive for at least a share of the Section Championship. The Canes now 6-3 in Section 3 trail 8-1 Shaler by two games. The Titans visit the New Castle Field House Friday night. Section leader Shaler also has home games left with Pine-Richland (5-3) and North Allegheny (5-5). If the Canes win Friday over Shaler and defeat North Hills on the road and Butler at home they would finish Section play at 9-3. While Shaler would then be 8-2 and need to win both games over Pine-Richland and North Allegheny to keep from sharing the Section title with the Hurricanes. Nothing is ever easy with this year’s Hurricanes however. Even though they have won eight of their last 10 games by a average margin of seven points, losing only to Mt. Lebanon (14-6) and Connellsville (20-2) (the last close game the Falcons have had) the Canes rarely play well for an entire game or for two quarters in a row. The Canes opened against North Allegheny by missing their first six shots and trailed 8-0 after the first 3:22 of the game. Devin Taylor hit two free throws at 4:38 and hit a ‘three’ after the Canes’ trap forced a North Allegheny turnover to get the Canes back to within three, 8-5 at 4:24. Two free throws by Brian Bober made it 8-7 with 2:35 left in the first quarter. Neither team scored again in the period as the Canes missed six more shots. Fortunately the Tigers were shooting as badly as the Canes as they went the final 6:21 of the period without scoring. After one quarter the Canes trailed 8-7 and had only one field goal. Taylor grabbed a missed shot and slammed it home to start the second quarter giving New Castle a 9-8 lead. After a steal Keenan Moore scored at 6:10 to make it 11-9 Canes. The Tigers scored at 4:54 but Bober on an inside move put the Hurricanes back on top 13-11. Following another steal (the Canes had 12 steals on the night) Moore scored again making it 15-11 Hurricanes. Two free throws by Taylor at the 2:26 mark put New Castle ahead 17-11. Two free throws by North Allegheny were followed by a basket by Chris Cain and two more free throws by Bober and the second quarter ended with the Hurricanes holding a nine point lead, 22-13. New Castle’s shooting woes continued into the second half as they missed two point blank shots to open the third quarter. North Allegheny then hit a ‘three’ to get back to within six 22-16. Moore answered with a ‘three’ to extend the lead again. But NA hit two straight buckets to close to 25-20 at the 5:07 mark. Bober on a drive to the hoop made it 27-20 but the Tigers then scored four more points wrapped around a couple more Canes’ misses and edged to within three, 27-24 at 3:06. Taylor scored at the 2:50 mark to extend the lead but four more by NA and the lead was down to one, 29-28 with 2:10 left in the third quarter. Taylor scored again at 1:01 to up the lead to three and that’s the way it stood after three periods, New Castle 31, North Allegheny 28. New Castle put together three missed shots and two turnovers to start the fourth quarter while North Allegheny scored twice and the Tigers held the lead, 32-31 after two minutes of play. Moore then nailed a ‘three’ at 5:48 to put the Canes back on top, 34-32. One free throw by the Tigers at 5:33 made it 34-33 Hurricanes. The Canes then turned it over three times and missed two more shots while North Allegheny hit a bucket and made two free throws to grab the lead, 37-34 with 3:44 left to play. Taylor scored on a lay-up at 2:48 to narrow the gap to one point but he was hurt on the play and had to leave the game and did not return, appearing to suffer an injury to his upper leg. The Canes’ half court trap produced a steal by Moore and he drove the court converting the lay-up putting the Hurricanes back on top, by the game’s final score 38-37 with 2:31 left in the game. Each team then turned the ball over once during the next minute and a half finally with North Allegheny calling for a time out with 52 seconds to play. The Tigers got the ball in bounds but were trapped again and force to call another time out with 41 seconds left. This time with 21 seconds to play they missed on a shot and the Canes grabbed the rebound. North Allegheny quickly fouled New Castle at the 19 second mark but with only two team fouls in the half could not send the Canes to the line. The Tigers then proceeded to foul the Canes twice more during in-bounds plays and no time elapsed from the clock. Finally the Canes got it in bounds and were fouled again, this time with 17 seconds left, but that was only foul number six for the Tigers. Foul number seven came on the in-bounds with just 16 seconds left and the Canes’ best free throw shooter in Moore at 86 percent went to the line for a one-and-one. He missed the first and NA got the rebound. Play was frantic for several seconds with the Tigers getting into their half of the court but ended quickly when Donovon Jones grabbed a Tiger pass and flipped it to Cain and time expired. Devin Taylor let the Red Hurricanes with 15 points while Keenan Moore added 12. Only four Canes scored in the game with Brian Bober adding nine points and Chris Cain two. New Castle shot only 27percent from the field hitting only 14 of 51 shots and went seven of 12 from the free throw line. Taylor also added 12 rebounds of which seven were on the offensive boards.
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