The Neshannock High girls basketball team couldn’t solve the New Brighton defense last night.

The Lady Lions played a triangle-and-two defense and held the Lady Lancers to 13-for-59 shooting in a 34-30 WPIAL Section 2-AA girls basketball victory. The 30 points were a season-low for Neshannock, which came in averaging 53 ppg.

New Brighton (4-3 section, 5-9 overall) outrebounded the Lady Lancers (5-2, 12-3), 40-22.

“We only had seven offensive rebounds, too,” Neshannock coach Luann Grybowski said. “As bad as all the numbers were for us, we still had a chance to win the game late.

“I tried everything. We went fullcourt, we went halfcourt, we played man. We did a little of everything. Even when we got steals we missed layups; it wasn’t pretty at all.”

Riverside (5-1, 12-2) and Beaver Falls (5-1, 9-5) share first place in the section with the Lady Lancers a half-game back.

“Now we have to win out and hope someone knocks off Riverside and Beaver Falls,” Grybowski said. “We definitely have to take care of our business down the stretch though.”

The Lady Lancers trailed 32-30 with 56 seconds left. The Lady Lions added a field goal on their next possession to go up four markers. Neshannock misfired on a 3-pointer in the game’s waning moments and a putback at the buzzer was off the mark as well.

Marianne Piatek paced the Lady Lancers with 10 markers. Chelsea Kauffman and Ericka Warvell, who came into the game averaging 16.3 and 16.0 points, respectively, were the targets of a triangle-and-two defense by the Lady Lions. Kauffman went scoreless and Warvell scored 6 points.

Kaitlyn Hopkins scored 22 points for New Brighton, 10 in the second quarter. She netted 14 of her points off the offensive boards.

“She’s the big kid in the post,” Grybowski said. “We knew we had to contain her. I told the girls if you don’t box anyone else out, you have to keep her off the boards and we didn’t.”