News

When all-state swingman David Jackson scored six of his team's first 10 points, the Kennedy Catholic students began chanting "You can't stop him."

Duquesne eventually slowed down the 6-foot-7 Penn State recruit. The problem was the Dukes did an even better job of stopping themselves.

Duquesne shot 7 of 19 from the free-throw line, and fell to nemesis Kennedy Catholic, 50-45, on Tuesday in a PIAA Class A second round boys' basketball game at New Castle High School.

"Without a doubt, we let one get away," Duquesne coach Montel Staples said. "We've been working on our free throw shooting, and it came to bite us in the butt again tonight."

Poor free-throw shooting has plagued Duquesne (18-12) all season. In the WPIAL Class A finals, the Dukes made only 11 of 23 in an overtime loss to rival Clairton. In the semifinals against OLSH, they shot 5 of 25 from the line, missing the final 11 of the game, but managed to escape with a victory.

This time, despite holding Jackson to one field goal during a 19:20 stretch spanning the first and second quarters, the Dukes couldn't overcome the failures from the line.

Duquesne missed 13-of-17 free throws at one point in the game. Senior forward Elijah Fields, who scored 17 points, went 2 of 8 from the line. Trailing, 45-43, with 1:02 to play, Duquesne had a chance to tie the game, but sophomore guard Rocky Washington missed two free throws.

"They really didn't shoot the free throws well," said Kennedy Catholic coach Tim Loomis, whose team went 11 of 22 from the line. "But we did the same thing to ourselves. The free-throw shooting was poor on both ends."

Still, Duquesne had a chance late. Layton Dunn made two free throws with 43.8 seconds to play to trim the deficit to 47-45. But the Dukes missed their final three shots, including a Dunn miss with 18.5 seconds to play, and Darrale Dunn's 3-point misfire with Duquesne trailing 49-45 in the final seconds.

"You can't shoot like that against a good team like Kennedy." Staples said. "When you have a chance to go up and tie the game or keep the lead, and you're missing the front end of one and one. What are you going to do. ..Unfortunately, we couldn't put the ball in the hoop. We took some ill-advised shots. I thought we panicked a little bit."

Jackson scored six points in the first 4:40 of the game and finished with a team-high 17 points, but he made only two field goals in the second half. He went 5 of 8 from the line in the fourth quarter.

Instead, Kennedy Catholic (22-6) got 14 points from junior guard Pat Mastrian and 11 from junior forward Chris Pasci.

"I thought if we could hold (Jackson) down, which I thought we did, and if we could get up and make our free throws, we would have them right where we wanted," Staples said.

Duquesne, trying to beat Kennedy Catholic for the first time in 13 years, led 34-32 after three quarters. But Kennedy Catholic, which plays undefeated Elk County Catholic (30-0) in the quarterfinals, opened the fourth quarter on a 9-3 run to take the lead for good. Pasci, who scored five points during the run, made two free throws to give Kennedy Catholic the lead for good, 41-37, with 3:40 to play.

Duquesne came out slow, going scoreless for nearly a seven-minute span in the first quarter to fall behind 10-2. But Fields scored seven points during a 13-4 second-quarter run and the Dukes led 17-16 on Fields' driving layup with 4:30 to play in the first half.

The score was tied 20-20 at halftime. Duquesne had a 34-30 lead in the third quarter.

"I thought we were ready to play," Staples said. "We had a bad night shooting from the free-throw line when we needed one the most."

• Most Read
• Most E-mailed
• Latest News