The highly-touted Mahanoy Area girls basketball team found Marian to be pretty stubborn Thursday night.

It was only through attrition that the Golden Bears managed to keep their Schuylkill League record unblemished.

Mahanoy trailed Marian through most of the first half, and led by a mere basket with three minutes to play.

The conservative game of keep-away worked for Mahanoy in the final moments, letting the Bears escape with a 41-35 win.

With Mahanoy slowing play down late in the game, Marian players fouled three times in hopes of getting the ball back. But Mahanoy capitalized on all those trips to the foul line.

“When you have just 35 points, you can’t have too many offensive stars,” said Fillies’ head coach Paul Brutto. “I was happy with our defense, especially at the beginning of the fourth quarter. We stopped them three or four times in a row before we made some headway the other way.”

With the Fillies down 37-31 with 4:04 to play, Isabella Schwabe made two consecutive baskets to bring Marian to within a bucket of tying things up.

“We rushed a little bit,” said Brutto. “The shots weren’t falling. That’s not a good combination of rushing when the shots aren’t falling.”

Although the scoring was close most of the game, Marian led the entire first period. Much of the success was attributed to a trio of first-half treys by Julia Kreisl, with two coming in the first quarter.

The lead changed hands four times in the second period, with the Bears leading at the half 20-19. They never trailed after that.

One reason attrition played a role is because of the Fillies lack of depth.

“We started out shooting the ball pretty well, then I think their legs went, and we don’t have a good rotation,” Brutto said. “The game went up-and-down. It’s a physical game and wears on your accuracy from distance; from the three-point line.”

One thing Mahanoy utilized in the start of the second half that seemed to work well was a full-court press.

“They tried to take the ball out of Em’s (Emily Shaud’s) hands and make her work a little bit,” noted Brutto. “They’ve done that for the last couple years. It bothers us a little bit; probably more than it should. Then we speed up a little bit, which is part of their strategy. Unfortunately, we kind of play into it, so we just got to be a little stronger mentally.”

That was exactly the strategy Mahanoy coach Thomas Scheeler was trying to employ.

“We just want to make their point guard (Shaud) work a little bit and tire her out,” said Scheeler. “She’s really good.”

Scheeler said he feels the big difference in this game compared to the first time Mahanoy played Marian - a 19-point victory - is that his key player Abby McGee is out of action with an injury. In addition, his team hasn’t been able to practice for five days.

But, he was happy with the way his team performed.

“Our girls just fought,” said Scheeler. “They just fought.”

ANOTHER MEETING POSSIBLE

... The win for Mahanoy puts its record at 8-0 in Schuylkill League play (15-1 overall). Marian is 13-3 overall and 6-2 in the league. There’s a possibility they’ll face each other in the District 11 Class 2A playoffs.

SOME STATS

... Marian controlled the boards, pulling in 28 rebounds to Mahanoy’s 22. For Marian, Shaud had 11 and Emma McClafferty grabbed eight. Madison Cavenas had nine rebounds for Mahanoy, followed by Jordan Karmonick with 11. In terms of scoring for Marian, Shaud had 10 points, scoring all of them in the first half, while Isabella Schwabe added 10, all in the second half. Julia Kreisl had nine points, all in the first half. Marian shot 13-for-41 from the floor.

MAHANOY AREA

Lawrence 2-1-2-6, Abrachinsky 2-0-0-6, Karnonick 6-2-3-17, Clark 1-0-0-2, Kramer 0-0-0-0, Bernardyn 2-0-2-2, McCleary 0-0-0-0, Cavenas 3-2-5-8. TOTALS: 14-7-12-41.

MARIAN

Kreisl 3-0-0-9, Shaud 4-1-2-10, Digris 1-0-0-2, Alansky 0-0-0-0, Murray 0-2-3-2, Schwabe 4-2-6-10, McClaffery 1-0-2-2. TOTALS: 13-5-13-35.

Mah. Area 10 10 14 7 - 41

Marian 11 8 10 10 - 35

Three-pointers: MA - Karmonick 3, Abrachinsky 2, Lawrence 1; Marian - Kresil 3, Shaud 1.