New Castle Report

New Castle put its pressing defense to work early against Trinity as it
built a 27-3 first quarter advantage and cruised to an 85-56 WPIAL Class AAAA first round playoff victory at Aliquippa High School - the gym where the Red Hurricanes past two playoff runs have ended. The win advances undefeated New Castle (25-0) into a second round matchup with Gateway (17-8), the top team from Section 4.

"We made the decision that whatever undefeated has gotten us has come and gone," Sarandrea said. "(Being undefeated) got us a section title, it got us a good seed in the WPIAL playoffs, but that's all it's going to get us. As far as we're concerned, we're now 1-0."

Trinity's Dusan Vukojevic scored the game's first basket for the Hilliers
(15-8) just seconds into the contest, but then the Red Hurricanes' press took control by forcing 16 first-quarter turnovers en route to a 25-0 run. The Red Hurricanes consistently trapped the Trinity ball handlers against the sidelines, forcing Trinity into bad passes. Throughout the first quarter, the Hillier guards struggled just to get the ball across halfcourt.

"I think what happened was that they were a little nervous to start," New Castle coach John Sarandrea said. "That hurt them, obviously - 27-3 - any time you go down that much that early in a playoff game, you're going to have a hard time coming back. The first quarter was too much to overcome."

Trinity fought back in the second quarter, outscoring the Red Hurricanes, 23-18, but found themselves facing too large of a deficit. Trinity turned the ball over just eight more times in the game, but shot just 11 of 38 from the field. New Castle made 27 of 48 attempts.

"We were fortunate that we were able to have that big first quarter and then kind of coast from there," Sarandrea said.

Point guard Mark DeMonaco led three New Castle players in double figures with 22 points. Chris Cain scored 21 and Dom Joseph added 15 for the Red Hurricanes.

Vukojevic, Trinity's 6-foot-6 center, was a concern for New Castle's coaching staff early in the week, but foul trouble limited him to just six points.

"Their height had me quite nervous for about 10 days," Sarandrea said, "and rightfully so, because Vukojevic got into a little bit of foul trouble and wasn't able to play as well as he could."

Trinity was led by Eric Apodiakos with 12 points, Paul McCune with 11 and Justin Adley with 10.

"Normally, when you play a 15 seed, you're playing a team at .500 or a couple of games below - not 15-7," Sarandrea said of Trinity. "They're a team that (came in) playing really well, they won four of their last five ... I think it's a quality win."

Game Notes: Shooting guard Dante Spino aggravated an ankle/foot injury against Trinity, leaving him limping noticably following the game. "Dante Spino, who's had a tremendous year for us, has been fighting a bad ankle all season. There's a guy that's averaging double figures for you and he's not himself because of the injury." Sarandrea said that his playing status wouldn't be known for a few days.

With 2:06 remaining in the game, and with New Castle holding an 83-52 lead, the game clock froze. To fix the problem, the clock operator had to reset the numbers to zeros. As New Castle's score was then raised back to 83, one point at a time, Trinity coach Joe Dunn looked at the clock operator and exclaimed: "Can you make this any more painful?"

New Castle 85, Trinity 56

Trinity 3-23-17-13 56
New Castle 27-18-22-16 85

NC: Mark DeMonaco 7 5-7 22, Dante Spino 3 3-5 9, Hoover Gibson 2 0-0 4, Leon Ward 2 0-0 4, Chris Cain 10 0-1 21, Joe Carter 2 0-0 4, Dom Joseph 3 9-10 15, Vojtech Hybler 0 2-4 2, Keenan Moore 1 0-0 2, TEAM 31 19-27 85;

T: Dusan Vokojevic 1 4-6 6, Mark Kennison 0 1-2 1, Paul McCune 3 5-7 11, Eric Apodiakos 4 3-3 12, Justin Adley 3 2-4 10, Jonathan Weiss 1 2-2 4, Ean Miller 1 1-2 3, Chuck Weaver 0 1-2 1, Mike Kushner 0 1-2 1, TEAM 14 21-30 56.

Name	FG	FTA	FTM	3's	TP
Joseph	3	10	9	0	15
DeMonaco	7	7	5	3	22
Spino	3	5	3	0	9
Ward	2	0	0	0	4
Gibson	2	0	0	0	4
Cain	10	1	0	0	21
Carter	2	0	0	0	4
Currie	0	0	0	0	0
Hybler	0	4	2	0	2
Moore	1	0	0	0	2
Totals	29	27	17	3	85

score @ quarters	1	2	3	4
Trinity	3	25	43	55
New Castle	27	45	57	85

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