City of Basketball Love

Danny Holdsman (@DHoldsman)
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The Palestra has seen its fair share of 3-point heavy games this year, as Penn’s Steve Donahue has put a new emphasis on the long ball.

But it might be a group of high schoolers who put on the most dominant long-range showing in the Quakers' usual home gym.

Neumann-Goretti made the long ball look easy, shooting an astounding 13-of-18 from beyond the arc en route to an 89-55 win against Archbishop Ryan in a Catholic League semifinal.

“When we play like that, we share the ball and take the open shot--we talk about all the time, the best shot being the open shot--and we play that way, we’re pretty hard to defend,” Saints coach Carl Arrigale said.

The victory sends the Saints to the PCL finals and leaves Ryan to face Gratz in a play-in game for a spot in the AAAA state playoffs.

It’s the eighth consecutive season that Neumann-Goretti will be playing for the PCL title, having won six straight from 2009-14 before Roman snapped that streak last year.

“We don’t practice every day to come in second place,” Arrigale said. “It’s going to be a tough game no matter who it is, that’s the advantage of playing first, we can get to relax, watch the game now after we took care of our end, the game’s a long way away, we’ve got three or four days to get ready for the game. “

Arrigale’s squad will face familiar foe Roman Catholic, a team that they beat handily by a score of 85-68 in regular season action. However, the Cahillites were not the only team that had trouble keeping it close against the Saints.

Neumann-Goretti cruised to a perfect 13-0 in league play without much resistance. In fact, Archbishop Wood was the only team in the PCL able to stay within single digits of Arrigale's team.

“We weren’t supposed to come in first place, so that put a chip on our back,” senior guard Zane Martin commented. “That made us work harder in practice. [Coach Arrigale] got on us in practice. We weren’t supposed to come in first place at all. We were supposed to come in third, but we’re undefeated now and going to the championship.”

Martin poured in 30 points in the commanding win and missed only one of his six attempts from beyond the arc. He also dished out four assists.

Of Martin’s 30 points, the last one was most special for him. His foul shot with under a minute remaining placed him in the prestigious 1,000 point scorers club for his high school career.

“That’s why he was still in the game,” Arrigale said. “I normally wouldn’t have him in the game at the end, but he played at the end, I was tired of listening to him, I’m happy he could get it over with.”

Martin, who said that he did not even expect to reach 1,000 after barely seeing the court his sophomore season, was thrilled that he was able to get in done in Philadelphia’s most historic basketball venue.

“It was really big for me to get it here. I wouldn’t want it at any place except for the Palestra,” Martin said.

While Martin was seemingly unable to miss, the guy that initiated the Saints’ offense was junior lead guard Quade Green.

Green, ranked as a top-50 junior in America, opened the game with three consecutive treys and kept rolling from there.

“It picked us up,” Martin said of his teammate’s early shooting. “Down at the other end, just picked up the defense, we know that we’re here now, we’re ready to play once he makes that first shot. He mostly makes all the first shots...so that’s good for us, gives us momentum to begin the first quarter.”

The future high-major talent finished the game with 31 points and went 6-8 from 3-point range. Green added seven boards and five assists to his total as well.

Although Green and Martin did have their share of wide open shots, the majority of their attempts were well-contested.

“I believe everyone out there gave 100 percent, but when they’re shooting like that, it’s hard to stick around with them,” Raiders’ senior guard Austin Slawter commented.

Ryan head coach Joe Zeglinski, who is in his first year coaching the Raiders, knew that the odds were against his squad and the Saints’ shooting performance would certainly not help their chances.

“I told our guys that’s a really good team,” Zeglinski said. “If we play our best and they don’t shoot well, we’ll be in the game and could have a chance. When they play like that and we play our best, I don’t know if we’re even hanging around. I don’t know what their field goal percentage was, but they didn’t miss many shots. Once they get rolling, they’re tough to stop.”

Zeglinski was correct when he said didn’t miss many shots.

The Saints shot 28-of-40 (70 percent) from the field, including the aforementioned 13-of-18 from downtown.

The Raiders, on the other hand, went 21-of-43 (48.8 percent) from the field and only 6-of-19 (31.6 percent) from 3-point territory.

The primary production for Zeglinski’s group came from Slawter, who had team highs in points (16) and assists (four). He also tied the team high for rebounds, with five.

The Raiders are in ‘do-or-die’ mode for the remainder of the season, beginning with Gratz. The two programs will square off for third place in District 12 AAAA, which would grant them a berth to the state playoffs.

As for Neumann-Goretti, Monday night’s PCL championship game will be a rematch from not only last year, but also the 2014 and 2013 finals. The most recent of which was won by the Cahillites.

This has been a historic rivalry. In terms of overall league titles, Roman has 29 to Neumann-Goretti’s 20. For Arrigale, a win Monday would be his 11th title, the most in league history. He is currently tied for 10 with Dennis Seddon, a former Roman coach.

Arrigale kept it simple when discussing the upcoming showdown.

“If we win, we win, if we lose, we lose,” he said, “but I guarantee we’ll be ready.”