Casses did his part with 47 points, but the Huskies couldn’t keep up in the paint with the Blue Jays and were outrebounded in a 76-65 loss at Mount Aloysius College.

“Being knocked out by this team last year — this just sucks,” Casses said. “I worked my whole season for this. Coming up short, it hurts a lot.”

Both Casses and Bishop Carroll got off to a slow start. The senior star was just 1-for-6 from the field in the first quarter and made his only field goal on a jumper with seven seconds left. By that point, the Huskies were down 22-7 thanks to plenty of second-chance points.

“That was one of our keys,” Bishop Carroll coach Cosie Aliquo said. “If we could rebound, we knew we’d be in it. If we didn’t, that meant we were going to be in trouble.”

Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski Bishop Carroll's Jace Casses puts up a shot by Conemaugh Valley's Lance Masser.

Lance Masser caused the most problems and finished with 18 points and 17 rebounds for Conemaugh Valley.

“Jace is a great player and we knew there is no stopping him,” Masser said. “It was just about controlling what the other players did. I think we did that well and came out on top.”

Conemaugh Valley, the defending District 6 champion, had their own star performance.

Blue Jays senior Jaylen Henry, a 1,000-point scorer, scored 26 points including Conemaugh Valley’s final eight points over the final 2:21 after Bishop Carroll cut what had been a 26-point deficit in the third quarter down to nine with 2:27 to play.

“I promised my whole family, I promised everyone we would go back-to-back,” Henry said. “So there was no losing. I put my heart and soul into this as much as I could. It’s never been done before in Conemaugh Valley history, so there we go.”

Casses rebounded from his slow start with 11 points in the second quarter before he caught fire in the second half.

“My shot wasn’t falling, and then I realized I could just take it to the basket,” Casses said. “That opened up some easy shots after that and I got up to 47, but we were just too far behind.”

Ethan Hill’s layup put the Blue Jays up 68-50 midway through the final quarter before Casses hit three consecutive unanswered 3-pointers.

“I thought we had a chance,” Casses said. “Shots were falling, and my team was playing really good defense. We just couldn’t make it the whole way back.”

Bishop Carroll had the ball down nine but missed a 3-point attempt that could have cut the deficit to six with two minutes left, and Henry took over the game from there.

Conemaugh Valley is the one team that has found success against Bishop Carroll in the Class 1A postseason the last couple years after the Huskies won a district title and made it all the way to the PIAA semifinals when Casses was a sophomore.

“The secret formula is literally just my boys paying attention to detail,” Conemaugh Valley coach Trevon Williams said. “We just do everything we can do to control the game. Jace Casses is a great basketball player. We can’t stop him from getting his points, but we can make all the other ones do their job.”

Bishop Carroll and Conemaugh Valley both advance to the state playoffs on Friday, March 6. The Huskies will play the second seed from the WPIAL.

“People wrote us off at the beginning of the year,” Aliquo said. “Just to get here is an accomplishment.”

BISHOP CARROLL (65): Casses 17 6-11 47, J. Phillips 0 2-2 2, Kirsch 4 0-2 8, Hall-Campbell 0 1-2 1, Lucko 1 0-0 2, Myers 1 0-0 2, Conner 0 0-0 0, Tremel 0 0-0 0, Holtz 0 0-0 0, P. Phillips 0 0-0 0, Isaacson 1 1-1 3, Stohon 0 0-0 0. Totals — 24 10-18 65.

CONEMAUGH VALLEY (76): J. Henry 9 7-9 26, Dietz 3 2-2 8, Weimer 2 0-0 6, Korhut 3 0-0 6, Masser 6 6-9 18, Buchan 0 0-0 0, Palmer 1 0-2 3, Hill 3 0-0 7, Toth 1 0-0 2, Blair 0 0-1 0, Burke 0 0-0 0, Levis 0 0-0 0, T. Henry 0 0-0 0, Kohler 0 0-0 0. Totals — 28 15-23 76.

SCORE BY QUARTERS

Bishop Carroll 7 13 18 27 — 65

Conemaugh Valley 22 18 18 18 — 76

3-point goals: Bishop Carroll 7 (Casses 7); Conemaugh Valley 5 (Weimer 2, Henry, Palmer, Hill).

Records: Bishop Carroll (12-13); Conemaugh Valley (18-6).

Officials: Sean Albright, Bill Pfeffer, Doug Steve.