Click here to subscribe today or Login.
In a sheer state of disbelief, or maybe shock, Da’Mir Faison fell to the floor.
His Hazleton Area teammate Josh Samec hung his head.
And their coach, Mike Joseph, seemed to be walking in a trance, after suffering the kind of devastating loss no words can begin to describe.
It all looked too familiar to Bruce Leib.
“Penn Wood, ‘89,” Leib said, moments after watching fron the stands as the Hazleton Area boys basketball team he once coached suffer another difficult state semifinal loss.
Back then, Leib and his teams suffered their share of state heartbreak.
His Cougars lost to Williamsport by four in the state semifinals in 1995, after beating Kobe Bryant and Lower Merion earlier in the tournament. They lost the state championship game to Erie Cathedral Prep in 1993, the first year the Hazleton Area juncture was formed. They lost a couple of PIAA quarterfinal games in the 1980s, playing as the Hazleton Mountaineers.
Yet, it’s that 66-64 loss to Penn Wood in the 1989 PIAA Class 4A semifinals that still haunts Leib, nearly 30 years later.
“That game came down to the end and the ball was stolen. That’s how this one kind of went,” said Leib, who left the Hazleton Area program following the 2005-06 season when Joseph took over. “They (the Cougars) played great. I’m proud of them. They both pretty much came down to the last shot. Really tough.
“That’s how it’s going to feel for Mike and these kids.”
The Cougars seemed stunned when their 3-point shot for the win Saturday bounced off the rim, leaving District 1 champion Lincoln celebrating a 76-74 overtime victory and a spot in Wednesday’s PIAA Class 6A championship game.
And it left the Cougars feeling sick over dreams that were lost.
“It’s devastating,” Hazleton Area senior Jeff Planutis said after scoring a game-high 25 points. “I just really wanted to win. It didn’t work out.”
Many times it doesn’t.
Wyoming Valley Conference teams have a long history of disappointment in the PIAA basketball championships, going back to when GAR lost two state finals with Bob Sura in 1990 and 1991 and another with Billy Callahan, John Snyder and Greg Skrepenak in 1986. Not every team can match Bishop O’Reilly’s back-to-back Class A state titles in 2004 and 2005.
“It sucks,” scoffed Da’Mir Faison, a Hazleton Area junior who scored 17 points. “A lot of things I would have done differently — turnovers, missed free throws that would have locked away this win. It’s something you can’t do anything about.”
It’s something the Cougars will remember, maybe forever.
They’ll also reminisce about this:
Twenty-six victories and two defeats, a District 2 championship, a Wyoming Valley Conference championship and a state spree that took Hazleton Area to a state semifinal round that only two other teams in school history have accomplished.
“There were huge expectations on this team,” Joseph said. “Aside from one quarter against Reading and maybe the last couple minutes against Lincoln where we didn’t do what we needed to do, we were that close to perfection. It was as great a season as I’ve ever had with group of guys I’m proud of.
“They took the city of Hazleton and me on a ride like I’ve never been on in my life.”
Think that won’t matter in a year, five years, 25 years from now?
Leib was talking about the joy all those guys from Hazleton Area’s state runner-up team from 1993 shared at their silver reunion in February, when they shared old stories about the heroics of Chris Long, Hassan Abdullah and John Dacastino as if they played yesterday.
“I still keep in touch with them,” Leib smiled. “Chris Long came in from Kansas, Paul Shershen was there. It was nice.”
It’s something that may not sink in for senior starters Planutis, Josh Samec, Joey Grula along with juniors Faison and Sparky Wolk for awhile.
But soon enough, the sting of falling short of the state championship game will fade into a special place where they will all relive the camaraderie and friendships and successes made.
“I love every one of these guys on the team,” Samec said. “It’s been a wild ride. I’m not happy it’s over.”
For the Cougars who turned this season into their personal treasure, a lifetime of joy is only beginning.