POTTSVILLE - “Keep grinding. Play hard.”

Those were the words Marian head coach Damian Fritz told his team when they trailed by 14 points late in the third period against North Schuylkill.

The Fillies’ late rally fell short in their 51-46 loss to the Spartans in Tuesday’s Schuylkill League semifinal playoff semifinal game at Martz Hall.

Down 38-24, Marian’s Carly Minchhoff drilled an NBA long three-pointer with 20 seconds left in the third period. Ashley Pleban followed suit with a trifecta at the start of the fourth to get the Fillies within eight points of a tie game.

The Spartans didn’t panic, though. Kamryn Mengel took a pass from Katelynn Hines for a layup, and Savannah Gawrylik’s putback jumped the Spartan lead back up to 12 at 42-30 with 6:30 left to play.

An 8-0 run by Marian – featuring a driving layup by Frankie Martinelli and four free throws by Minchhoff – closed the gap to 42-38 with still half a period to play. Following a layup by North Schuylkill’s Madeline Hall, Pleban’s trey brought the Fillies within three at 44-41.

But that would be the closest the Blue and Gold would get.

With a six-point lead and under two minutes to go, Spartan mentor Rich Wetzel had his offense kill some clock and eventually force Marian to foul. That sent the Spartans to the charity stripe, where they iced the game.

“When you ask your players to pull back the ball in a close game, they can find that hard to do,” said Wetzel. “It’s easier if you have a big lead, but we were winning by only four points.”

The strategy worked, sending the Spartans into the league finals on Friday. Wetzel, however, wasn’t pleased with the consistency of his team’s play.

“We were up and down the whole game. We wanted to keep them under 35 points. Our defense was great in the first half, but we gave them too many second shots in the second half.”

Whether it was nerves caused by playing on the hardwood of the iconic Martz Hall – or just poor execution – turnovers and missed shots plagued both teams for the first five minutes of the game.

Maddy Wetzel’s layup at the 4:30 mark broke the scoreless tie for the Spartans. Minchhoff’s jumper tied the game for Marian and from that point on, the Fillies would not tie the score again or ever take the lead.

Trailing by 10 at the half didn’t frustrate Fritz’s troops.

“We’ve been saying it all year long,” said Fritz. “Stay positive, play hard and good things will happen, and they did. We got ourselves into position to win the game, but we just ran out of time.”

Marian (18-5) liked its game plan, and Fritz thought they matched up well with the league’s wild card entry.

“Their pressure on the ball didn’t bother us much, and I thought we could use our height advantage against their 2-3 zone. We controlled the tempo pretty well too, but we missed too many shots early in the game.”

Minchhoff and Pleban each scored 13 points to pace the Fillies. Gawrylik had 15 for North Schuylkill (20-3), while Wetzel added 14.

LOST IN POSSESSION ... The game began with a combined seven turnovers and seven missed shots before a basket was scored at the halfway point of the first period.

COLD AS ICE ... Marian, the league’s Division 3 champs, shot 21% from the floor in the first half on 6-of-29, while North Schuylkill was 11-for-31 for 35%.

SEE YOU AGAIN ... North Schuylkill will play Jim Thorpe in the championship game at 6 p.m. on Friday. This will be the third time the teams have met this season, with Thorpe having won the first two games. The Olympians will look to snatch the title away from the Spartans, who are the defending champions.

UP NEXT ... Marian now awaits the start of the district tournament against a team yet to be determined.

NORTH SCHUYLKILL

Gawrylik 6-3-3-15, Wetzel 6-2-3-14, Mengel 3-4-6-10, Burke 2-1-2-5, Hall 2-0-0-4, Hines 1-0-1-3, Koutch 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 20-10-15-51.

MARIAN

Pleban 5-0-0-13, Minchhoff 3-5-6-13, F. Tikhtova 4-0-0-8, Martinelli 3-0-0-7, Digris 2-0-0-5. Lombardo 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 17-5-6-46.

North Schuylkill 11 13 14 13 - 51

Marian 5 9 13 19 - 46

Three-pointers – North Schuylkill - Hines 1; Marian - Pleban 3, Minchhoff 2, Martinelli 1, Digris 1.