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McDannell picks up valuable face time for Huskies

By Michael Boytim

mboytim@altoonamirror.com

EBENSBURG — Superheroes often wear masks, but Tristan McDannell must be more of a Bruce Wayne type of guy.

The 5-foot-8 inch junior broke his nose recently and has been playing with the protective shield for the past four games, but Friday night in Bishop Carroll Catholic’s Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference battle against Forest Hills, he’d had enough.

“It’s kind of real hard to see with the mask,” McDannell said. “Sometimes it moves around, and you can’t see very well. I wasn’t feeling it, so I just took it off. (Heck with) the mask, I’ll play without it.”

With the mask on, McDannell managed just four points and missed both of his free throw attempts. Once it came off, he scored 19 points and helped the Huskies rally past the Rangers in the second half in a 62-45 victory.

“Mask on or mask off, he did well tonight,” Bishop Carroll coach Cosie Aliquo said.

McDannell’s performance is extremely important to Bishop Carroll’s success now that starting point guard Carson Ertter is out with a shoulder injury. Early in the game, he forced several steals, but the Huskies couldn’t cash in offensively.

With Adam Cecere and Quinn Spangler controlling the paint, Forest Hills held a 22-21 advantage at halftime.

That lead slipped away in the third quarter when Spangler got into foul trouble and Bishop Carroll began to heat up from the outside. McDannell made a pair of 3-pointers, and Scotty Semelsberger and Jordan Bobroski each had one during the third quarter in which the Huskies built a 41-33 advantage.

“Defensively we’re a lot better when all our bigs are out on the court,” Forest Hills coach Dom Vescovi said. “Once he came out and got in foul trouble, we weren’t able to be as aggressive, and that fed their press.”

In all, Bishop Carroll (10-3) forced 22 turnovers.

“Our press got some steals, and that was big,” Aliquo said. “We hit a couple 3s to extend the lead, and then that allowed us to go into our press which got some turnovers.”

In addition to McDannell’s 23 points, Alex Karlheim scored 18 points, including seven in the fourth quarter to help hold off the Rangers.

Josh Schrock led Forest Hills (9-6) with 17 points, and Cecere nearly had a double-double with nine points and 11 rebounds.

“It was physical game,” Vescovi said. “They are a good team. We are turnover prone at times, and they forced an uptempo pace and that cost us.”

FOREST HILLS (45): Shope 0 0-0 0, Chunta 4 3-3 11, Cecere 3 3-4 9, Schrock 7 3-4 17, Spangler 4 0-0 8, Myers 0 0-0 0, Spinos 0 0-0 0. Totals — 18 9-11 45.

BISHOP CARROLL (62): McDannell 7 6-9 23, Karlheim 6 5-6 18, Burk 4 0-0 8, Semelsberger 2 2-2 8, Bobroski 1 0-0 3, Gottshall 1 0-0 2, Dumm 0 0-0 0, Kuntz 0 0-0 0. Totals — 21 13-17 62.

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Forest Hills 14 8 11 12 — 45

Bishop Carroll 11 10 20 21 — 62

3-point goals: Forest Hills: none; Bishop Carroll 7 (McDannell 3, Semelsberger 2, Karlheim, Bobroski).

Records: Forest Hills (9-6); Bishop Carroll (10-3).

JV: Bishop Carroll won. High scorers–Pasquerilla, FH, 9; Bobroski, BC, 19.

Officials: Bill Zamboni, Mike McDermott, Mike Felus

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