District 9 Basketball Recaps from Wednesday night brought to you by D9Sports.com
DUBOIS CENTRAL CATHOLIC 47, OTTO-ELDRED 28
DUBOIS, Pa. -DuBois Central Catholic, the eighth seed, outscored ninth-seeded Otto-Eldred 32-13 in the second half to get a 47-28 win in DuBois in the opening round of the District 9 Class A playoffs Wednesday night.
The teams were tied at 15 at halftime, but DCC (16-8) started to take control in the third quarter outscoring the Terrors (14-9) 15-7 thanks to eight points from Christian LaParne, who had a game-high 24 points, including 17 in the second half.
Joey Varischetti added 15 points for DCC, which also got 11 rebounds from Thomas Grecco.
Dylan Closed led Otto-Eldred with 10 points, while Jordan Sherwood had eight.
DCC will face top-seeded Elk County Catholic for the third time this season in the quarterfinals. That game will be at St. Marys High School, at 7:30 p.m. Friday. It will be the Crusaders 5th game (out of 25) at St. Marys High School this year.
ST. MARYS 68, PUNXSUTAWNEY 66
ST. MARYS, Pa. – Brady Bauer exploded for 33 points, as second-seeded St. Marys held off visiting and third-seeded Punxsutawney, 68-66, Wednesday night to reach the District 9 Class AAA title game for the first time since winning it all in 2011.
Bauer scored 21 of his points after halftime helping the Dutch (15-8) hold off a second-half charge by Punxsutawney (14-9), which trailed 35-27 at halftime.
Punxsutawney, which got 27 points from Brandon Matthews, outscored St. Marys 27-18 in the third quarter to take a 54-53 lead after three. Matthews scored 12 of the 27 in the quarter while hitting three 3-pointers.
Jeff Wehler chipped in 11 points for St. Marys with Matt Marconi and Parker Housler each adding 10.
Devin Kelly contributed 11 points for Punxsy.
St. Marys will face top-seeded and defending champion Clearfield in the title game. It will be the first times the teams have met in the title game since 2000, when St. Marys won, 50-34. The game will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Clarion University’s Tippin Gym.