By DAN IRWIN
d_irwin@ncnewsonline.com

HERMAN — Summit Academy has served notice. It’s ready to make a run to the playoffs.

Not only did the Knights take over sole possession of third place in WPIAL Section 2-AA with a 63-60 win here last night over Shenango, they also reclaimed what they believe is a key piece to the postseseason puzzle.

That would be Terrance Davis, who returned to the lineup after missing three games due to injury. Davis contributed 14 points, including 12 in the second half, to finish as one of five Summit players in double figures.

“Davis was real eager to get back into the game,” assistant coach Art McCray said. “He’s been out for a while. He missed a couple of games — matter of fact, he missed the three games that we lost.

“We lost to Riverside by three, Mohawk by two and Neshannock by two, so he’s real eager. He felt that if he’d played those games, it would have been a different outcome.”

The Knights (6-3, 9-8) fell behind 18-8 after one quarter, with Shenango’s 6-foot-5 junior forward Rich Gaston accounting for eight of his team’s markers. Gaston, though, picked up his second personal foul late in the period, then collected his third with 5:10 to go in the half.

Gaston, who is averaging 19.2 ppg., sat out the rest of the second quarter, and scored only six more points before fouling out with 1:56 left in the game.

Shenango’s other big man, 6-5 Mike Murcko, equaled Gaston’s 14-point output, but also battled foul trouble, getting his fourth personal with 5:28 to go.

“Rich got in foul trouble, and that hurt,” said Shenango head coach Bob McQuiston, whose team fell to 4-4 and 12-7. “I’m not going to say what I’m feeling right now about those fouls, but you’ve got to overcome that.

“Actually, I thought we still did OK offensively. Defensively, though, we gave up too much penetration. We have three keys — rebounding, taking care of the ball and penetration. We didn’t rebound, we turned the ball over and let them have too much penetration. When you don’t do your keys, you’re not going to win.”

McCray acknowledged that Shenango’s foul trouble helped spur his team’s comeback.

“We were able to go to the line early, and he (Gaston) had to come out,” he said. “We tried to take advantage of that. We didn’t settle for the jumper when they got in foul trouble, we just kept attacking, and try to keep going to the line.”

Summit pulled to within one, 29-28, on a 9-0 run that closed out the first half. A Davis layup with 24 seconds left capped the rally.

With the third period winding down and Shenango still up by one, Davis drove the bucket with 47 seconds left, and again with seven ticks showing, to put the Knights up, 46-44, going into the final frame.

A Henry Brown layup to open the fourth period extended the lead to 48-43, but the Wildcats battled back to knot it at 55-all on an Andrew Watson trey with 2:26 to go.

Laron Green’s layup 15 seconds later put Summit ahead to stay, and Davis helped seal the win with another layup and a 3-for-4 stint at the foul line down the stretch.

A Green free throw with 25 seconds left was the game’s final point, although Shenango would have a couple of chances to change that. Bryan Chieze came up empty on a 3-point try, but Watson rebounded, only to lose the ball out of bounds with three seconds left.

Shenango forced a turnover on Summit’s inbounds pass and, after a timeout, put the ball in play with one second left. The buzzer sounded, though, before Chieze could get off one last shot from beyond the arc.

“I’m proud of the effort tonight,” McQuiston said. “This is a tough place to play. We had our chances, things just didn’t go our way tonight.”