By JON GERAMITA
New Castle News

In the midst of a thrilling fourth quarter, Carly Schubert was forced to leave the game.

Schubert earned her fifth foul after she held Shenango High’s Brittany Mendel. To that point, Schubert, a senior forward for Mohawk, scored a mere four points and was never a focal point of the offense — rarely even touching the ball on most possessions.

But after her fifth foul, the Lady Warriors’ fans all rose to their feet, cheering loudly for the girl that had one of the best nights of her career.

The 5-foot-7 Schubert had 14 rebounds and played inspiring defense against the Lady Wildcats’ much bigger inside tandem of Mendel and Emily Makarevich during the Lady Warriors’ 40-39 road win last night in WPIAL Section 2-AA girls action.

With center Chelsea Brown in foul trouble all night, Schubert was forced to take control in the paint.

“(Mendel and Makarevich) are so tough to guard, but I just wanted to play good defense tonight and front them,” Schubert said.

For a team that was 1-6 entering the game, Mohawk played about as well as it could defensively and made some clutch baskets down the stretch.

There was Tory Laughner. With the Lady Warriors down 33-32 in the fourth quarter, her two foul shots gave Mohawk the lead with 4:16 left.

Then there was point guard Kelly Fox. Her shot from the top of the key gave Mohawk its biggest lead at 38-33 with 2:50 remaining.

“We hit shots when it counted,” Lady Warriors coach Mike O’Lare said.

All looked well for Mohawk (2-2 section, 2-6 overall). It had a 40-34 lead after Teresa Westover made 2 of 2 from the line.

But right after Schubert fouled out, Mendel cut the deficit to 40-36. The Lady Warriors turned it over on an inbound play, leading to Kara Monceaux’s 3-pointer with 22 seconds left.

After Fox missed a pair at the line, the Lady Wildcats had a shot to win the game with seven ticks remaining.

Like it had for the majority of the game, Mohawk’s defense smothered point guard Jessica Kusnierz up top, forcing her to take a desperation three as time expired. The shot sailed wide of the hoop.

“Defense won it for us tonight,” O’Lare said.

It reality, though, it should have never came down to the wire. Shenango was 12 of 28 from the foul line (2 of 10 in the fourth quarter).

“It doesn’t take a genius to see what killed us tonight,” Lady Wildcats coach Joe Gierlach said, whose team was also outrebounded 34-18.

Mendel and Carly Senko led Shenango (2-2, 6-4) with 13 points apiece. Senko was especially big in the first quarter, coming off the bench to score all seven of her team’s points.

The Lady Warriors were led by Alyssa Natale’s 12 points, with Westover having a great night off the bench with eight points and eight rebounds.

“We wanted to be 2-2 in section and we did it,” O’Lare said. “We set some realistic goals this season and this win will give us a nice feeling for this week.”

Gierlach feels like his team should have capitalized on its height advantage as well as the many free throw opportunities.

“We expected to win,” he said. “We needed to hold serve at home.”