COAL TOWNSHIP - Marian Catholic had the height advantage.
Line Mountain had the heart advantage.
The Eagles are moving on, and no one showed more heart than Kasey Long in Line Mountain's 38-32 PIAA Class A first round win over the Fillies Saturday afternoon at Shamokin Area.
Line Mountain will play Girard College High School, a 65-23 winner over New Media, in the second round, with site and time still to be announced.
Long, a junior, led all players with 13 points and added eight rebounds against the much taller Fillies.
"You can't think about size," Long said. "You have to go in and play your hardest. It's just about how big of a heart you have and how much you want it. (Height), we're used to it now, it doesn't really affect us as much."
Besides having the intangibles, Long hit the biggest shot of the afternoon for the Eagles.
Down five with just over five minutes to go in the fourth quarter, Long heaved a 3-pointer.
Her thought at the time - "Oh my god. I thought it wasn't going in for sure," she said following the game.
The result - a not-so gentle kiss off the glass and in to cut the Fillies' lead to two.
"I don't really keep track of the score," Long admitted after the game. "I know if we're losing or winning, but I was right there. They play really tough with you, right up in your sneakers the whole time. I thought, if she's going to let me open, I'm going to shoot it. It just happened to go in."
From that point on, the Eagles forced four turnovers and went on a 10-2 run to close the game.
"She was wide open, but I could see coming out of her hand that it was strong. It banked in, so... It's a shot we want her to take," Line Mountain head coach Mike Reed said. "They have the green light to shoot from the outside, that's what got us here. The bank, hey, they all count right now. That was a big boost for us. Everybody picked up in energy, and that kind of sealed it for us."
Line Mountain's game plan of pressuring the Fillies worked like a charm. The Eagles forced 24 turnovers, while at the same time didn't allow Marian anything easy under the basket.
"It put us behind the eight ball early on," Marian head coach Paul Brutto said. "I thought we were fortunate to be down only one at the half since we had 15 first-half turnovers. I thought we did a little better for big stretches of the second half, until the last two or three minutes and we panicked with the ball and made some bad decisions."
As it was, Gillian Ferko still scored 10 points to lead the Fillies in that category, but was held scoreless in the last quarter.
"We came out and everything we worked on in practice, on keeping a body on the big girl and staying out on the guards, we did it very well," Reed said.
When it counted most, nursing just a two-point lead, Line Mountain's Mikhail Whitcomb scored four of her eight points to seal the win and erase any of the bad memories the Eagles had of losing both the Tri-Valley League and District 4 championship games.
"We were worn down and tired, but we just kept fighting," Reed said.
"I'm so happy for them. It takes the sting out of the league championship and district championship knowing that we get to play another game."
For Marian, the loss was a bittersweet way to end its first appearance in the state playoffs since its state title in 2008.
"We had the lead midway through the fourth quarter, but it ended prematurely for (the seniors)," Brutto said. "They've gotten us farther than we have been the past three years. Any time you have seniors leaving, whether it's one, two, three or 10, it's always a tough scenario."
Game Summary
PIAA Class A First Round
MARIAN CATHOLIC (32) - Green 0 0-0 0, Faust 1 1-2 3, McLaughlin 2 0-1 5, Gutsie 2 0-0 5, Markiewicz 0 0-0 0, Shober 2 0-0 5, Ferko 4 2-4 10, Tristani 2 0-0 4. Totals 11 3-7 32.
LINE MOUNTAIN (38) - Long 4 4-4 13, Bethge 2 0-0 4, Swineford 2 0-2 4, M. Lagerman 0 1-3 1, K. Lagerman 1 3-4 5, Whitcomb 3 2-4 8, Fessler 1 1-2 3. Totals 13 11-19 38.
Marian 4 9 13 6 - 32
Line Mtn. 9 5 9 15 - 38
3-point FGs: McLaughlin, Gutsie, Shober, Long.