HAZLETON With under a minute to play and the Marian Fillies trailing Old Forge by three in a PIAA Class A second round playoff game, senior sharpshooter Gabby Green drove toward the basket, put up a shot that went in and looked to be fouled on the play. One of the trailing officials blew a whistle, called a travel and waved it off.

So instead of possibly tying the game with a free throw, the Fillies were forced to foul and Rhyan Barnic made good on key free throws in the waning seconds to give Old Forge a 43-39 triumph and a spot in Saturday's quarterfinal round."I didn't see it that way and it was obviously a back-breaker," Marian head coach Paul Brutto said afterwards. "You don't know if she (Barnic) is going to make the foul shots, but it certainly changed the complexion of what you have to do. It was just a tough call in a tough spot."Trailing by six (27-21) and with Old Forge already in the bonus as far as fouls were concerned, the Fillies (25-3) did all they could to get back into the contest. Abbey Whildin hit a couple of buckets from underneath and Savanna Krusinsky added another and the Fillies trailed 29-27 with 4:45 remaining. The Lady Devils (22-3) went on a seven-point run to go up by nine and watched Barnic almost single-handedly do it from the foul line the rest of the way. She made seven free throws in the final stanza.On the night, the Devils shot 27 free throws to just 10 by the Fillies and it proved to be a key factor in the final outcome."It was more of a ticky-tack kind of reffing game than we aren't used to in the Schuylkill League, but at times we did foul them," Brutto noted. "They were aggressive driving to the basket and were a little quicker than maybe we anticipated. We couldn't really press them the way we would have liked, between foul trouble and just that they did a good job against it."We didn't shoot well. We had a lot of open looks early on, especially inside. We missed a could chippies and then we missed some wide open threes."We were down nine with two minutes left and we get it down to that possession and that says a lot about the character of our team. We didn't play our best game, but I thought it was as good an effort that we could give."Krusinsky scored the first points of the game to give the Fillies a 2-0 lead. The Devils answered with three straight easy layups having no problem with the Marian press and led 6-2 midway through the first quarter. The Fillies tied it up but six straight points by Old Forge gfave it a 12-6 lead after one.There wasn't much offense in the second period as both team's threw tough defenses at each other. The Fillies held a 6-5 edge and trails 17-12 at intermission.Old Forge only made four field goals the entire second half and even though the Fillies pulled within one a couple of times, they were never able to draw even or take the lead.An unusual 15 turnovers by the Fillies didn't help either."They got a couple of breakaways in the first half," Brutto said. "Instead of trying to chin the ball, we tried to dribble and they stripped us and things like that. Some careless ones where we just threw the ball to them. Their defense was tough to attack at the same token. When we attacked it intelligently we did pretty well against it."But we dug ourselves a hole and every time we got to the edge of getting out of it, something would happen where we were back in it. It was just one of those games where we didn't execute the way we would have liked."Brutto said all year he's been saying the Fillies weren't a good half court team."We needed transition points and we got them here and there, but not near what we have gotten most of the year and that hurt us."Barnic finished with a game-high 13 points for the Devils. Krusinsky was the lone Marian player in double figures with 11.MARIANGreen 3-0-0-8, Whildin 3-1-2-7, Sofranko 1-0-0-2, Nemeth 1-0-2-3, Krusinsky 4-3-4-11, A. Fannick 3-1-2-8, Whitecavage 0-0-0-0, Karnish 0-0-0-0, Baranko 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 15-5-10-39.OLD FORGECarey 1-3-4-5, Nemetz 1-1-2-3, Zambetti 0-0-0-0, Bieryla 4-0-0-8, Barnic 1-10-14-13, Vieira 2-0-0-5, Pascoloni 2-1-2-6, Tansley 0-3-5-3. TOTALS: 11-18-27-43.Marian 6 6 9 18 - 39Old Forge 12 5 10 16 - 43Three-pointers: M - Green 2, Nemeth 1, A. Fannick 1; OF: Barnic 1, Vieira 1, Pascoloni 1.