By Andrew Koob
New Castle News

CANONSBURG — Jimmy Medure was not going to have his Neshannock tenure end at Canon-McMillan High School. Not again.

The Neshannock High boys basketball senior forward was a part of the Lancers football team that had its season end at that same site in the WPIAL Class A semifinals to Clairton in November.

So, with the season on the line, Medure took it upon himself to extend the Lancers season with a 16-point, 18-rebound performance in a 58-42 victory over Bishop Canevin in the first round of the WPIAL’s PIAA Class AA play-in bracket last night.

“We were coming into this game, knowing we could be one-and-done,” Medure said. “So we all got after it. Coach stressed that, with no practice, we had to work extra hard today. I just figured I had to get after it.”

A total of 13 of his 18 boards came on the offensive end as Medure added four assists and a block to his night. The point total marks a season-high and the highest since a 17-point performance in a loss to Mohawk last year.

“Jimmy’s been playing great the last couple weeks of the season,” Neshannock coach John Corey said. “Against Greensburg Central Catholic, he didn’t score at all for us and we need him to be that inside presence that he was tonight. Tonight was spectacular, we don’t necessarily need that effort for him. If we’re shooting the basketball well, we don’t need him to have 16 points. But there shouldn’t be a game where he has a goose egg. I think he was motivated, obviously (Monday’s) loss upset him, as well as it did us, but he kept telling me this wouldn’t be the site that both of my senior year sports ends.

“Just a great effort by him, you could tell it was in his eyes that he was coming out on a mission. He definitely succeeded.”

Ethan Moose also dominated the scoreboard and the rebounding total, scoring a game-high 19 points and grabbing 17 boards.

While Medure and Moose stuffed the stat sheet, the other 12 Lancers to check into the game brought much-needed energy in the victory.

“We had two guys that played tremendous tonight. We had 12 other guys that stepped on the floor and played really solid,” Corey said.

“Obviously Medure and Moose’s effort was spectacular. The effort by those two was tremendous, but overall we had great energy from everyone that stepped on the floor. The last time that we were here at Canon-Mac, it ended our football team’s season. With Jimmy, he talked repeatedly since last night about ‘I’m not letting Canon-Mac be the site of me losing football and basketball.’ I just thought overall we played really well tonight.”

Overall, the Lancers (17-7) outrebounded Bishop Canevin 46-18 and 21-8 on the offensive glass.

Reed Relosky tallied all of his team-high nine points from beyond the arc.

Neshannock came out sluggish defensively, trying to work over screens and failing to close out. Corrections were made at the half and the Lancers opened the third quarter on a 13-5 run and outscored the Crusaders 15-7 in the third quarter.

“We struggled tremendously guarding the basketball in the first half,” Corey said. “(Walter) Bonds did a great job of attacking us and getting into the paint. He was distributing the basketball, so we tried to shore that up as the game went by. But I thought we were awful in that first half guarding the ball. That was a big part of us being able to pull away in the third quarter, we played a little bit better offensively. Jimmy and Ethan had a great third quarter, but also we just guarded the ball a lot better. Just sat in the stance and kept Bonds out of the paint.

“The third quarter has been one of our better quarters throughout the year. It’s usually a good quarter, we’re usually coming out of the halftime ready to go. Tonight, we came out at halftime and I voiced my displeasure for some of the things that we were unable to do defensively in that first half. To our guys credit, they fixed it and I thought we played really well. Donald Colucci, Frank Fraschetti, I thought those guys played really well throughout the game defensively and gave us good efforts.”

The win comes after a 59-49 loss to Greensburg Central Catholic on Monday that knocked the Lancers into the play-in bracket. Postponements due to weather over the weekend forced Neshannock and the Crusaders (17-8) to play their second game in as many days.

“With no preparation time and just kind of guessing what your opponent will throw at you, you have to work extra hard and buckle down,” Medure said. “I think that’s what we did across the board. We got it done on the boards and done on the scoreboard.”

Neshannock secured a bid in the PIAA Class AA bracket, their second straight, with the victory, but does not yet know its seed. That will be determined tomorrow night at a time and site to be determined against a familiar opponent, Section 1-AA foe Lincoln Park, who defeated OLSH 50-47 last night.

Lincoln Park won the first two meetings, 68-40 and 77-60.

The winner of that meeting will be awarded the fifth seed for WPIAL Class AA, while the loser will settle for the sixth and final seed.

“With the bad weather and the cancellations and all of that stuff, this was game we couldn’t prep for beyond talking to different coaches throughout the area and researching the Internet,” Corey said. “With Lincoln Park, we pretty much know what we’re going up against. Obviously it’s a good basketball team, I’m sure they didn’t expect to be playing in a play-in game (tomorrow) night, so we know they’ll be motivated. We look forward to that challenge.”

(Email: A_Koob@ncnewsonline.com)