City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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As Archbishop Carroll senior’s Ryan Daly’s last-chance shot ricocheted off the backboard and rolled away, as the Palestra’s final buzzer sounded, Roman Catholic's Tony Carr collapsed to the ground, Cahillite classmate Nazeer Bostick rushing over to embrace his teammate and close friend.

The two of them huddled on the floor for a minute, with a few other teammates coming over to celebrate as half of the packed house in the Cathedral of College Basketball roared in approval of the 32-minute Catholic League tournament battle their team had emerged from victorious.

And that was just for the semifinals.

“We just worked so hard and we just tune in every day in practice and to just finally get the results again, it’s just a great feeling,” said Carr, who like Bostick was a huge part of Roman’s league championship run a year ago. “I mean it feels better than last year, fighting back with your brothers, being down early and just gutting out to get the win.”

In one of those games that someone had to win, and someone had to lose. Roman Catholic just happened to be on the right side of the ledger. Thanks to the heroics of Carr and some tough defense down the stretch, the Cahillites advanced to Monday’s final with a 64-63 win.

Carr, one of three Cahillites headed to Penn State in the fall--Bostick and Lamar Stevens are the others--dumped in 15 of his game-high 24 points in the second half to help Roman advance to the Catholic League final for the third straight year. The star point guard finished 9-of-15 from the floor, pulling up and hitting shot after shot down the stretch, including a crucial 3-pointer with 2:15 remaining that made it 63-61 after Carroll had briefly taken a one-point lead.

“I just didn’t want to let my team lose,” he said. “I feel like I’m the leader on this team, so down the stretch I’m just trying to do whatever I can do to get the win.”

Bostick, who earned the nickname “Horse” last year for his yeoman-like effort around the rim, finished with 14 points and eight rebounds for Roman, who will take on Neumann-Goretti in the championship.

Stevens added 13 and seven in his first Palestra appearance. The 6-foot-6 wing, who spent the last two seasons at the Haverford School and was playing in front of easily the biggest crowd of his life, showed some nerves in missing two 1-and-1 opportunities in the final minute, but he’ll get another chance for redemption in the final.

“I thought the atmosphere was crazy,” he said. “We had a great student section, Carroll students came out and the place was rocking...it was special.”

On the other bench, it was Carroll seniors Josh Sharkey, John Rigsby and Ryan Daly that did their best to will their team to victory. Sharkey, bound for Samford, finished with 15 points, seven rebounds and three steals and Rigsby had 16 while the Hartford-bound Daly led the Patriots with 21 points.

But the two combined for just four points, all by Daly, in the fourth quarter.

“As the game wears on, the game wears a little tighter, and you’ve got to execute more against a team like that, execute better,” Carroll coach Paul Romanczuk said. “We didn’t get a lot of easy hoops--we live off transition, a little bit of transition, and we couldn’t really get out in transition on them. We’ll get an offensive rebound here and there, a put-back, but we didn’t get a lot of that tonight, and that’s a credit to Roman.”

Daly, the Catholic League MVP, had a chance to win it after Sharkey grabbed the last of Stevens’ missed foul shots with under 20 seconds to play.

A foul call gave Carroll the ball on a sideline inbounds play with a little more than a dozen seconds left; Sharkey got the ball and drove baseline, kicking the ball out to Daly. The 6-4 guard drove right on Bostick and spun around as he stepped back to create some room, but his 17-foot shot from the right wing was no good.

“They denied Ryan the basketball, the ball was supposed to come into Ryan initially,” Romanczuk said. “But we were able to get Josh on the move there, we still ended up with a shot--not exactly how we drew it up, obviously, but you have the player of the year taking a shot to win it, you feel pretty good, and he’s come through more often than not.”

Carroll’s season is far from over. The Patriots will take on Public League AAA runner-up Imhotep Charter in a District 12 seeding game, and will play in the PIAA Class AAA tournament as either the No. 3 or No. 4 seed out of the district.

But they know that they could also be playing on Monday night, after a game they led 36-33 at halftime and 53-49 after three quarters.

“I couldn’t be prouder of a group of guys, they’re the epitome of great teammates that love each other, they don’t just say brothers and family, they walk it and they live it,” Romanczuk said. “I’m just so heartbroken for them, I feel like I’m a lucky guy and I’m coaching a bunch of champions and I’m just heartbroken for them right now.”

Waiting for Roman in the finals is a Neumann-Goretti squad that’s been there the last eight years, but had a string of six straight trophy ceremonies snapped last year by Carr, Bostick and company in a 64-59 classic at the Palestra.

The Saints made it look easy in their own semifinal, downing Ryan 89-55 and knocking in 13 triples along the way. One can safely bet the Cahillites won’t make it anywhere as easy on Monday.

“They’re a great team, this is going to be a war,” McNesby said. “ It’s going to be a great, great, sold-out Palestra and it’s going to be an awesome game. I’m proud of these guys and how they’ve grown and as a team and how they’ve developed as young men. Nothing more than just let’s tip it up, let’s go.”