POTTSVILLE - With over 500 career wins in his three decades as a head coach, Marian's Paul Brutto knows what a great team looks like.

With league, district and state titles under his belt, Brutto also knows the kind of effort it takes to win a championship.Friday night in the Schuylkill League girls final at Martz Hall, Brutto got to witness both those things.Unbeaten Minersville supplied the greatness, defeating Brutto's Fillies, 55-44, for its second league title in the last three years.Playing in one of its few competitive games all season, the Miners (24-0) turned to its 1-2 punch of "Miss Outside" Abby Schoffstall and "Miss Inside" Emily Mealey to hold off the Fillies.Schoffstall scored 21 points thanks to a combination of accurate perimeter shooting and slashing drives to the basket. Mealey controlled the paint as she scored 20 points, grabbed 13 rebounds and blocked four shots."Minersville is a great team," praised Brutto. "What are they, something like 45-2 the last two seasons?"They are loaded. They have an outstanding point guard, a strong post player with size inside, two great outside shooters, and another girl who is a super athlete. There are no weaknesses in that starting lineup."While the greatness Brutto talked about was in reference to Minersville, the championship effort wasn't."I'm so proud of the effort our girls gave," he said. "We played a team beat us by 34 points earlier in the season and then lose arguably our best player - or at the very least one of our top players - in the second quarter, and we still battled them tooth and nail the entire game."We showed so much resiliency and toughness tonight. I can't say enough about our kids. They gave a championship effort without winning the championship. Sometimes that's just how it works out."The Fillies were hanging with Minersville throughout most of the first half and trailed just 23-19 midway through the second quarter. That's when disaster struck for Marian as standout center Savanna Kurzinsky fouled out of the game after picking up a rash of fouls in the blink of an eye. Kurzinsky left the game with 2:36 still left in the opening half.By halftime, the Miners had built a comfortable 32-19 lead.Despite playing the second half without Kurzinsky, Marian (21-3) made several runs, twice getting to within six points in the third quarter and then hanging within 10 points most of the final period."Marian is a very good team and we had no thoughts that this game was going to be anything like the regular season game," said Minersville coach Jared Homa. "We expected to get a great game from them and that's exactly what we got."But I thought our girls did a great job of matching their energy and then finding a way to answer every run they made."Marian got off to a great start as Vanessa Whitecavage scored eight of her 16 points in the first quarter. Brenna Karnish took over in the second half as she scored 11 third quarter points and finished with a team high 17 points."This is something for us to build on," said Brutto. "You're never happy with a loss, but I was happy with what I saw from our girls tonight."We will have to get through two very challenging games in the District 11 playoffs first, but if we do, maybe we'll get another shot at them two weeks from tonight."GOING, GOING, GONE... Kurzinsky picked up her third foul with 2:57 left in the second quarter. Brutto debated for a second whether he could afford to pull his star center off the court. He decided to pull her but by the time the substitute reached the scorer's table the ball was back in play. Kurzinsky got her fourth foul on the ensuing Minersville possession and then was called for a technical after reacting to the call. The three quicks fouls happened in the span of just 21 seconds.BLOWOUT CITY.... MInersville entered the game with an average margin of victory of 35.6 points.KARNISH GOES CRAZY... Marian's Karnish had an incredible third quarter, scoring 11 points, grabbing two rebounds and making a steal. Karnish flashed some incredible versatility as well as she was charged with guarding talented point guard Schoffstall on the defensive end of the court and then posting up the powerful Mealey on the offensive end.MARIANWhitecavage 5-3-4-16, Kurzinsky 2-0-0-5, Karnish 4-9-11-17, Stoyer 0-0-0-0, Raabe 0-0-0-0, Correale 0-0-0-0, Erbe 0-0-0-0, Agosti 1-1-2-4, Joseph 0-0-0-0, Schwabe 0-2-2-2. TOTALS: 12-15-19-44.MINERSVILLENarwicki 1-0-0-3, Krision 0-0-0-0, Graeff0-0-0-0, Schoffstall 7-5-5-21, Bentz 1-0-0-2, Tellez 0-0-0-0, Lowe 0-0-0-0, Mealey 7-6-9-20, Kroznuskie 1-2-2-4, Wigoda 1-3-6-5, Huntzinger 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 18-16-22-55Marian 12 7 12 13 -44Minersville 17 15 10 13 - 55Three-pointers: Marian - Whitecavage 3, Kurzinsky 1, Agosti 1. Minersville - Schoffstall 2.