Uniontown upends Laurel Highlands

Class 4A No. 2 Mustangs beaten as neighborhood rivals go 2 OTs

There were a lot of big names in the lineup when Uniontown visited rival Laurel Highlands on Tuesday night in the first of their two meetings this season.

Levi Garner wasn’t one of them. But he may have had more to do with the outcome than anyone on the floor.

Garner came off the bench and hit two critical baskets, one to tie the game and the other to give Uniontown (14-1, 5-0) the lead for good as the Red Raiders upset Class 4A No. 2 Laurel Highlands 61-57 in double overtime in a Section 3 clash.

They were the only four points he scored in the game.

“Levi Garner played against Belle Vernon and won the game coming off the bench when K’Adrian (McLee) got in foul trouble,” Uniontown coach Rob Kezmarsky said. “(Tuesday) K’Adrian had the game of his life, and when he fouled out, Levi didn’t pout on the bench. He came in here and helped win the game.”

Uniontown now holds a 67-49 edge in the rivalry between the two schools that are located less than a mile apart. The Red Raiders victory also snapped Laurel Highlands’ 24-game section winning streak dating back to a 65-52 loss to Greensburg Salem on Feb. 4, 2020.

“It was a big win,” Uniontown sophomore Calvin Winfrey said. “We came into the game just knowing we had to stop Rodney (Gallagher) and Keondre (DeShields) and slow them down. We stopped them basically and just did our thing.”

Deshields finished with 19 points but fouled out with 3:40 remaining in the second overtime with the score knotted 54-54. Gallagher led all scorers with 21, but like DeShields and the rest of the Mustangs, his shooting was off most of the night.

Laurel Highlands (11-2, 41) finished 4 of 15 shooting from the field in the fourth quarter and overtime and 19 for 57 (33.3%) for the game.

“I thought we got enough good shots,” Laurel Highlands coach Rick Hauger said. “I’m going to venture to say we had our worst shooting night of the year.”

Laurel Highlands was especially poor in the second quarter when it went 2 for 13 from the floor, which allowed Uniontown to come back from as many as 10 down in the first quarter to take a 29-26 lead into intermission. McLee was nearly unstoppable in the paint in the period as he finished with 11 of his 15 points in the second quarter, most either on short layups or putbacks.

Even though Laurel Highlands wasn’t making many shots, it made enough to stay in the game. In a game that featured 12 lead changes and six ties, the Mustangs came back themselves from down 46-39 with 5:51 remaining in regulation to take a 51- 49 lead on DeShields’ last basket with 50.3 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

But Notorious Grooms, who finished with 10, hit the back end of a two-shot foul with 19.5 seconds left to tie it up and send it to overtime.