With its 14-point lead shaved to five with just more than a minute to play, Latrobe had to buckle up and hold on down the stretch to win its playoff opener Thursday night.
The Wildcats made a bunch of free throws, yes, but they had something Mars didn’t with the game suddenly hanging in the balance: home-crowd advantage.
“We felt very fortunate to get a home game,” Wildcats coach Brad Wetzel said. “If we’re not playing on our home court, with the noise and everything, I’m not so sure we prevail.”
Latrobe fed off the energy from its fans and held back Mars, 57-46, in a WPIAL Class 5A boys basketball preliminary-round game that was as noisy as it was rough around the edges.
The Wildcats (10-12), seeded 14th, advance to play No. 3 Thomas Jefferson (20-2) at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the first round.
“Our guys earned this the last two-and-a-half weeks,” Wetzel said. “But we have to play better Tuesday to have any chance.”
Mars, the 19th seed in a 19-team bracket a year after reaching the semifinals, finished the season 9-14.
“It wasn’t real pretty, but it’s about survive and advance now,” Wetzel said. “Mars is a good team. Honestly, this was probably our worst performance in weeks, but we did just enough to win. Our heads weren’t in the game.”
Ian DeCerb had all of his 15 points in the second half, including 6 of 8 free throws in the fourth quarter, and 6-foot-7 Rob Young added 13 points, eight rebounds and four blocks in his second career playoff game. He played for Summit Academy last year.
“He’s really grown up,” Wetzel said of Young.
Sawyer Butina, Dom Scarton and Alex Amond had eight points each for the Wildcats, who scored 22 in the third after scoring 17 in the first half. They led 17-16 at the break.
Latrobe went the final 3:50 without a field goal but made 10 of 16 free throws in the fourth when both teams scored 18 points.
Latrobe was 13 of 24 from the foul line for the game but 8 of 14 in the final two minutes.
“It’s cliche, but it takes a team effort to win playoff games,” Wetzel said. “You need your ‘guys’ (key starters) to show up. But you also need your ancillary players to have an impact. You need guys who people reading the newspaper the next day say, ‘Who’s that?’ ”
In this case, the lesser-known contributor was Amond, who made a pair of layups and came up with a steal and assist (to DeCerb) in the fourth to keep Mars at bay and push the lead back to double figures.
“It was the rebounds, the steals, the fast-break layups,” Wetzel said. “We needed that from Alex tonight.”
Amond, active all night on both ends of the floor, was ready when his name was called.
“Protect the home floor,” Amond said. “We want teams to fear playing us here. I knew (Mars) would be game-planning for our big (name) guys. So, I was ready. We’ve fought too hard to not let them beat us. I give 110%, nothing less.”
Latrobe built a 39-28 lead after three quarters as Young, DeCerb and Dom Scarton hit 3s in the third.
Young’s block led to a jumper by Butina, and DeCerb’s 3 made it 38-24.
Andy Tatsch converted a three-point play and then assisted on Amond’s layup to give the Wildcats a 44-32 advantage with 4 minutes, 23 seconds remaining.
Austen Wroblewski, a 16-point-per-game scorer for the Fightin’ Planets, fouled out just 28 seconds into the fourth.
“When (Wroblewski) fouled out, that was a huge shot in the arm for us,” Wetzel said. “You feel for the kid. He’s a nice player. He’s their engine.”
Still, Mars quietly closed the gap. Brady Brennan completed a three-point play to get the Fightin’ Planets within 50-43 with 1:38 left in the fourth.
Kellan Garvin followed with a 3-pointer to make it 51-46 with 1:12 to go.
But Mars didn’t score again, and Latrobe made most of its free throws to cement it.
Mars, which beat Latrobe, 63-59, early in the season, did not have a player score in double figures.
Nick Santoro finished with nine points, Sam Miller added eight and Wroblewski had seven.
“Turnovers hurt us,” Mars coach Kobe Phillippi said. “That’s been our Kryptonite. When we win games, we have low turnover numbers. When we lose games, we have high turnovers. Latrobe played with physicality. They always do when you come here. (Young) has gotten a lot better from the first game when we saw him.
“They gave us some chances, but we didn’t take advantage.”