The Penn Manor boys' basketball team came out flat and lethargic and played its worst first half of the season in a nonleague game against Trinity.

The team went into the intermission trailing 31-16, only to respond with a second half more typical of what coach Charlie Detz stands for, but ultimately Trinity's foul shooting at the end proved to be the difference in the Shamrocks' 70-64 win.

 The Comets (6-2) briefly took a one-point lead with just more than four minutes remaining in the game, but Trinity sank 11 of 14 foul shots down the stretch to secure the win.

Penn Manor also took a hit when junior forward Dan Elliot, who scored all of his 18 points in the second half, fouled out with 25 seconds to go and his squad trailing by three, 67-64. The Comets missed their last three field goals and the Shamrocks (3-3) escaped Millersville with the hard-fought victory.

"The first half we did not play well on either end of the court," Detz said. "There was no intensity level and no pride on the defensive end. We stood around and watched guys make plays. It was a bad half of basketball against a good Trinity team."

 Trinity's Eric Kindler was the story in the first quarter. The center scored his team's first seven points as the Shamrocks took a 7-4 lead. The Comets struggled at both ends of the floor, leaving Kindler (game high 24 points) and Mike Diminick wide open for jumpers. The home team also missed all five of its free throws in the quarter and three-point specialist Keith Eshleman missed badly on all four of his shots from long-range. The lead was seven, 15-8, after one quarter.

Penn Manor pulled within four, 16-12, early in the second quarter, but then went ice cold for the next seven minutes, struggling to hold on to the ball and launching careless, off-balance shots. Bryan Weaver sank one of two free throws to pull the team within six at 22-16, but Trinity went on a 9-0 run to end the half, including a desperation three-pointer from 40 feet at the buzzer that found the bottom of the net.

"We need to do the little things in order to win," Detz said. "We need to attack on offense and defense and when you don't do that, you look like we did in the first half."

Senior Patrick Welsh and Elliot were pushed by Detz at halftime to take over the game, and the two were key factors the rest of the way. Elliot scored 12 points in the third quarter, and Welsh added six as the Comets cut the lead to one, 40-39. Sam Cornell chipped in 10 points for Penn Manor.

"Everyone stepped up in the second half," Detz said. "I challenged them at the half after we told them what we saw in the first half. They did everything I asked of them in the second half and they brought up the level of intensity that was missing the first half. Those two baskets at the end of the quarter by Trinity proved to be the difference in the game."

A 7-0 run early in the fourth quarter helped Penn Manor tie the score, but the Shamrocks refused to lose focus, matching the Comets basket for basket. Penn Manor twice took one point leads in the final quarter and tied the score five times, the last at 61-61 on Elliot's last basket of the game. Four foul shots by Trinity around a Penn Manor miss gave the Shamrocks a 65-61 lead, and Welsh (18 points) hit one foul shot to pull within three at 65-62. The team, though, had to foul the Trinity players and the Shamrocks came through from the charity stripe.

"You never want to lose any game, but this is a good teaching loss," Detz said. "It shows the guys that when we play with intensity and control ourselves, good things happen, and that was our second-half basketball.

"We expect to win every game, and know we can match up with anyone. We will learn a lot from this game and use it as focus for our section game with McCaskey Tuesday. Our goal is still to win the section championship."