Shady Side boys basketball opens section play with win vs. Burrell

By: George Guido
Friday, December 16, 2022 | 9:55 PM

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Shady Side Academy began formal defense of its WPIAL Class 3A crown Friday night with a 59-50 victory over Burrell at Mellon Gym.

The Bulldogs (5-1, 1-0 Section 3-3A) led the entire way but couldn’t shake the Bucs (2-4, 0-1) until the final minutes of play.

Eli Teslovich led Shady Side with 25 points, and Ethan Salvia had 15. The Bulldogs had a 46-33 lead with 6 minutes, 36 seconds left in the game on a Nate Malloy put-back, only to see the Bucs cut the lead to 50-46 with 3:24 to go.

“A win is a win, so you always take that,” Shady Side coach David Vadnais said. “It wasn’t pretty, but I give Burrell a lot of credit. They could have given up early in the game, but they kept climbing back. It’s early still, so we’ll continue trying to get better.”

The Bucs had three chances to narrow the four-point gap but couldn’t get any closer.

Teslovich came up big down the stretch, scoring 11 if his team’s 18 points in the fourth quarter.

“After the third quarter, I knew I needed to turn it up a bit,” the junior guard said. “I locked in and took what they were giving me. They were giving me the lanes, so I took it and finished my layups. This was a total team effort tonight.”

Burrell fell behind 7-0 a little more than two minutes into the game and 13-2 with 3:09 to go in the first quarter.

The Bucs cut the lead to single digits several times before the half, but sophomore Tucker Bitar picked up his third foul with 6:40 to go in the half and had to sit.

Bitar had only two free throws in the half but more than made up for it in the second half, scoring 20 of his 22 points.

“We needed him to step up. He’s had a little rough start this year,” Burrell coach Mike Fantuzzo said. “I know he’s played against some of these guys before, and he wanted to show them what he could do. He stepped up and showed us a side of him that we hadn’t seen before, and I hope he shows us more of it.”

Meanwhile, Shady Side center Nate Malloy had three personals and had to come off the floor. But Ben Michaels came off the bench and picked up seven points and six rebounds for the Bulldogs.

“That was huge for us,” Vadnais said. “Ben’s been working extremely hard in practice. Benny started off strong for us, and we just kind of went with him the rest of the game.”

Junior Macky Bennis kept Burrell within striking distance and finished with 16 points and seven rebounds. His basket with 3:24 to go put the Bucs to within four before Salvia hit a big 3-pointer with 59 seconds remaining.

Esau King-Burchak had nine rebounds for the Bucs. Mallory collected 11 for the Bulldogs.

“This is a game that could have easily gone the other way in the fourth quarter. We made a couple key shots and executed on offense,” Vadnais said.

Shady Side committed one turnover in the second half.

Tags: Burrell, Shady Side Academy