Guillory's 26 leads Moon to win over West Allegheny on Senior Night

MOON TWP. — It was senior night in Moon Township as their high school basketball team honored seniors Maxwell Depner and Luca Michnowicz. They were honored, in part, with a competitive 54-45 victory over West Allegheny that clinched a playoff spot for one last chance at a WPIAL title.

“It wasn’t pretty,” said Moon head coach Gino Palmosina. “At the end of the day, we’re in (the playoffs). It’s a brutal section, night in and night out, so we’re fortunate enough to get this team back to the playoffs and hopefully make a run.”

Moon scored the first point on a foul shot by Elijah Guillory, who would end up as the game’s leading scorer. The game started slow beyond that, with a three-pointer by West Allegheny’s Justin Manns being the only basket from the floor for the game’s first three minutes. Around the five-minute mark Guillory hit Moon’s first basket from the floor to tie the score up at three.

West Allegheny scored the next two baskets to retake the lead at 7-3. A three-point play by Guillory brought Moon back within a point, but they’d still trail for almost the rest of the quarter. Almost, because with 9.3 seconds Micheal Santicola got to the line after a blocking foul on a fast break where he’d knock both foul shots in to give Moon a 12-11 lead at the end of the quarter.

There wasn’t much separation between the two foes in the first quarter, with a five-point 11-6 West Allegheny lead being the largest margin and Moon never leading by more than a point. That lack of separation stayed true to start the second, when the lead changed twice in a two-minute span.

Moon though, trailing 14-13, went on a 7-0 run in the next two-minute span to take a 20-14 lead that lasted the rest of the half. An exclamation point was put on this run off a three-pointer from Guillory which led to a West Allegheny timeout.

The timeout heated up the West Allegheny offense, but failed to cool down Guillory, who had 13 points in the first half, which was half of his team’s total points. Moon entered halftime up 26-22.

Guillory was the game’s leading scorer at the half with 13 points but West Allegheny’s Brandon Bell wasn’t far behind him with nine of his own. The two juniors were the driving force for both teams in the first half on senior night.

“Just moving without the ball, creating my own shot and being aggressive from the start,” said Guillory on what worked for him offensively during the game.

Guillory scored the second half’s first four points to extend his total to 17 and the Moon lead to eight, the largest such lead by either team at this point. West Allegheny though would go on a 6-0 run to get back within a basket at 30-28.

They’d earn their first lead of the second half with approximately 40 seconds left off a layup to go up 34-33 and end the quarter with that lead. This was capitalized by a 12-3 run to end the third quarter and was primarily led by Bell and Manns who both crossed into double-digits scoring during the run.

Three minutes into the final quarter it was the senior, Depnar, who scored the first basket of the final frame and gave Moon a slight 35-34 edge with approximately five minutes to go.

That basket kicked off a 11-0 run which included three-points off of two consecutive technical foul calls on West Allegheny. Those two technical fouls were the first of three for West Allegheny in the final quarter, with the last one coming in the game’s closing seconds.

Moon also held West Allegheny scoreless for almost all of the final quarter, not surrendering a basket until the 1:21 mark when Bell hit a three-pointer.

“We told (Moon) after the third quarter that this game can come down to eight minutes,” said Palmosina. “Whoever defends, rotates correctly, gets stops, I think is going to win the game.”

At that point, West Allegheny started to foul as they trailed 44-37. A four-point play by Bell after a foul brought West Allegheny within five at 45-41, but Moon continued making their foul shots and held on to a close 54-45 victory.

Guillory was the game’s leading scorer with 26 points on the night. He was joined in the double-digits by West Allegheny teammates Bell (20) and Manns (13).

Moon will next travel to Mars this Friday at 7:30 p.m. They have one more game left in the season after that, a home game against Mt. Lebanon. As for West Allegheny, they’ll close the season at home against South Fayette this Friday at 7:30 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Guillory's 26 leads Moon to win over West Allegheny on Senior Night