Mahanoy Area head coach Tom Scheeler didn’t hesitate.

And the Golden Bears didn’t waver.

Mahanoy Area overcame a sluggish first half to shoot its way past Marian 45-26 on Monday night to maintain its spot atop the Schuylkill League Division 3 standings.

“We’re not bashful,” Scheeler said of the Golden Bears’ propensity to shoot from beyond the arc.

Scheeler watched his team struggle from three-point land in the first half before heating up over the final two quarters.

It was a familiar script for the Mahanoy mentor, whose team drained 15 three-pointers in a win over Tamaqua last week.

“We shoot pretty well. We can shoot it,” said Scheeler. “The other night I think we hit our first five. And we’re not bashful. Even there in the fourth quarter I guess it was, we said we want to pass the ball, but if we get our shots, we’re taking them. And Jordan (Karmonick) hit one, Megan (Babinsky) hit one. We’re not stopping playing. We’re gonna work, but if we get our shots, we’re taking them.”

Karmonick, who had eight 3’s against Tamaqua, was the catalyst again for the Golden Bears against the Fillies, hitting all three of her shots from beyond the arc in the second half and finishing with a team-high 11 points. Megan Bisco added 10 points – all in the second half.

“They’re big. We don’t match up size-wise,” Scheeler said. “They present problems for us, but we present problems for them, too, because then they have to come out on us. And all of a sudden the shots open up.”

As Mahanoy caught fire after shooting 8-for-29 in the first half, Marian struggled to find its rhythm. The Fillies (13-5, 7-2) went 4-for-18 from the floor in each half.

“It’s the second game in a row we shot real poor,” said Marian head coach Paul Brutto, referring to a 49-33 loss to Minersville on Friday. “We had some good looks. We had some right at the beginning of the second half; maybe we could have made a little dent. But none of them went in. And they can shoot. They got on fire in the second half. They struggled a bit at first, but in the second (half) they knocked down almost all of them.”

Babinsky (eight points) and Emily Lawrence (five points) connected from beyond the arc to close out the first half and push the Golden Bears’ lead to 19-10 lead at the intermission.

The Fillies missed their first four shots to open the third quarter before Emma McClafferty’s (five points) basket made it 19-12 with 5:45 remaining in the third.

But Marian wouldn’t get any closer. Mahanoy responded with a 6-0 run, holding the Fillies scoreless for nearly four-and-a-half-minutes.

“When we don’t hit shots, then teams collapse,” said Brutto. “And that complicates it. And that’s where we’re at. They gave us the open looks on the outside trying to take those kids away, and when you’re not hitting them, they can just sink in even deeper. We just gotta get some balance. You can’t win playing one-dimensional. We gotta hit some shots so we can open things up for the big kids.”

Emily Shaud scored a team-high 11 points for Marian.

UP NEXT

… Marian returns to action tonight at home against Weatherly. “We (just) probably saw two of the best teams in AA in the state,” Brutto said. “. I just told them, you got two choices, basically, to cave in and call it a season kinda deal because you lost two big games. Or rebound, and keep working to get better.”

ANOTHER ONE

… The two teams will play again on Feb. 6.

MAHANOY AREA

Babinsky 3-1-2-8, Abrachinsky 0-0-0-0, Bisco 1-7-8-10, Karmonick 5-0-0-11, M. Byrne 0-0-0-0, Lawrence 1-2-4-5, McGee 3-1-2-7, Cavenas 2-0-0-4, Scheeler 0-0-2-0. TOTALS: 15-11-18-45.

MARIAN

Kreisl 0-0-0-0, Shaud 3-3-6-11, Erbe 0-0-0-0, Agosti 2-0-2-5, Alansky 1-0-0-3, Schwabe 0-2-2-2, McClafferty 2-1-4-5, Reinoehl 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 8-6-14-26.

Mahanoy Area 9 10 7 19 - 45

Marian 5 5 4 12 - 26

Three-pointers: MA – Karmonick 3, Babinsky 1, Bisco 1, Lawrence 1. Marian – Shaud 2, Agosti 1, Alansky 1.