POTTSVILLE - Marian has faced many obstacles this season from injuries to new personnel on the court.

Perhaps the Fillies' biggest challenge of the '15 season was in the second quarter during their Schuylkill League semifinal clash with North Schuylkill.Marian found itself trailing the Spartans by 14 points early in the contest.The Fillies played resilient basketball the rest of the contest, and came up just short against North Schuylkill, 47-42.Marian dug itself an early hole by not scoring for a six-minute span in the first quarter. The Spartans took advantage and extended their lead to 14 points the largest of the game. However, Marian closed out the second quarter on an 11-0 run to make it a five-point game heading into halftime."I'm really happy with our effort," said Marian head coach Paul Brutto. "We really could have just folded there and I think a fair share of people thought it was a blowout at that point. I have to give the kids a ton of credit for battling back."Marian was within two possessions for most of the second half, and had four opportunities to tie or go ahead but couldn't capitalize.The Spartans' Carly Gregas was a key reason down the stretch as to why North Schuylkill walked out of Martz Hall with a victory.North Schuylkill scored 26 of its 47 points it the paint and Gregas thrived in the paintfinishing with 16 points, eight rebounds, and four blocks. Gregas, Tiff Lapotsky, and impressive freshman Avery Jordan combined for 38 of the Schuylkill 47 points."Gregas is a tough senior who is athletic as anyone in the league at her size," explained North Schuylkill head coach John Rizzo. "She's a tough match up because of her desire to play well on both sides of the ball."We knew they (Marian) would defend the perimeter well and that they would key on Lapotsky," explained Rizzo. "We knew our bigs had to step up, and I don't know if we got that (many points in the paint) this entire season out of our bigs. We never thought that would happen."The Fillies narrowed the Spartan lead to just one point with three minutes left on the clock. A ton of hustle plays that won't show up in the box score from Abbey Whildin, Tina Capparell, Madison Stoyer, and Gianna Agosti were critical down the stretch which made the final three minutes of the game quite the thriller. Brenna Karnish scored a team-high 13 points, as Whilden and Vanessa Whitecavage combined for 17."We just talked about playing better team ball on offense (during halftime)," explained Brutto. "We got some nice shots when we executed our offense, and when we didn't (execute) we got some bad ones and turned it over."Unfortunately for the Fillies, the Spartans did just enough down the stretch including making five of seven foul shots during the final three minutes of the contest to squeak by."I think all of our kids were confident. We had one senior on the court all night, and those are both positive things," said Brutto. "We always want to get to that next championship level game."Reflecting on whom we had on the court and how much we were down, I'm happy with our performance, if not the outcome. We're excited about what's still in front of us as much as we're disappointed about tonight."MARIANWhildin 3-1-2-8, Whitecavage 3-2-2-9, Correale 0-0-0-0, Shaud 0-0-0-0, Agosti 1-2-2-4, Capparell 1-0-0-3, Karnish 6-2-6-13, Stoyer 0-5-10-5. TOTALS: 13-12-22-42NORTH SCHUYLKILLMarone 0-3-7-3, Lapotsky 5-0-1-10, Shinkus 0-0-0-0, Stokes 3-0-0-6, Gregas 7-2-5-16, Snyder 0-0-0-0, Jordan 3-4-6-12. TOTALS: 18-9-19-47.Marian 7 11 12 12 - 42No. Schuylkill 14 9 9 15 - 47Three-pointers: M - Whildin 1, Whitecavage 1, Capparell 1, Karnish 1; NS - Jordan 2.