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PIAA Class AAA: Neumann-Goretti threepeats in dominant fashion

03/19/2016, 1:30am EDT
By Michael Bullock

Zane Martin (above) had 33 points in his final Neumann-Goretti appearance, leading the Saints to their third straight PIAA Class AAA Championship. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Michael Bullock (@thebullp_n)
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HERSHEY — Waiting for head coach Carl Arrigale to join them in their Giant Center locker room before they really cut loose, Neumann-Goretti’s basketball-playing Saints had a plan in place when their remarkably successful skipper finally arrived.

Yep, the ice bucket still was sporting plenty of the wet stuff.

And while the game plan was to lay in wait for the suspecting Arrigale to enter before unloading the jug’s chilly contents, a giddy bunch of Saints failed in their first attempt to drench their head coach. Honestly, it was the only thing N-G didn’t convert all night.

Or so it seemed.

“We picked the wrong guys to do it,” cracked laughing senior Zane Martin.

With Martin bucketing 33 points and Quade Green nearly popping a triple-double (25 points/9 rebounds/8 assists), hot-shooting Neumann-Goretti spent Friday night peppering Mars 99-66 en route to its third straight PIAA Class AAA boys’ basketball championship and its sixth state title in seven seasons.

In addition, Neumann-Goretti’s 99-point effort was the most scored by Arrigale’s Saints in any of their six championship appearances. Last season’s 69-67 win over Philly Catholic League playmate Archbishop Carroll had been the largest output.

Plus, until Friday night, no Pennsylvania side ever scored 99 points in a state championship game. The previous best was the 94 points Elk Lake rolled up in 1977 when the great Bob Stevenson fueled a devastating Warriors attack.

“That’s big, being part of history,” senior guard Vaughn Covington said. “That’s big.”

Rasheed Browne checked in with 18 points and dropped seven more dimes, while Covington tacked on 11 points as Arrigale’s Saints (27-4) shot 60.3 percent from the floor (38 of 63) and 45.8 percent from the arc (11 of 24).

Neumann-Goretti was even more efficient before the break, canning 60.6 percent of its first-half field goal attempts (20 of 33) and 60 percent of its looks from deep (9 of 15).

(See also: Photo Gallery)

“We shot the ball like that most of the year,” Arrigale said. “We really did, we shot the ball well all year — except for like one week. I don’t want those guys known for that week we had. We shot like that a good, good portion of the year.

“The ball moved and we made shots.”

“Today was gonna happen,” Green said.

“We finally came together our last game and we did it tonight.”

No wonder the Saints were sitting on a 53-33 lead at the break — even though Covington and junior big man Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree (9 points/8 rebounds) spent lengthy stretches on the bench with foul difficulties.

When they're hitting shots like that, an already-dangerous group with five Division I level starters becomes nearly unbeatable.

“They’re everything we thought they were going to be," Mars head coach Rob Carmody said. "What’s impressive about them is they share the ball, it’s not like they have one guy who’s doing it, their whole team was involved and active.

"We’re not the greatest defensive team in the world, but we’re pretty good and they made us look like we were standing in mud most of the night," he added. "When they’re shooting the ball like that, they have to be one of the best teams in the country. Not in the state, they have to be one of the best teams in the country because they have everything: they’re strong, they’re physical, they’re big, they’re athletic, they’re long. You have to hope that maybe one or two things doesn’t go well, but everything worked for them tonight and hat’s off to them.”


Rob Carmody (above) had 20 points for Mars. The sophomore has multiple high-major Division I offers. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

John Castello collected 21 points and the coach's son, super sophomore Robby Carmody banked 20 for Carmody’s Fightin’ Planets (23-7), who were making their first state final appearance.

“I started off a little slow, but I got it going,” said Martin, the 6-3 senior who will continue his hoops career at Towson University . “Once I seen that first three go in, I knew it was gonna be that type of game.

“I just tried to feed off of it and get my teammates involved, things like that, and I wound up having a game like this. So I’m very appreciative.”

Up 29-23 after one quarter — Martin pocketed 11 points and Green tacked on nine more — Neumann-Goretti was still holding a six-point lead (32-26) with 6:13 to go when Covington headed for the bench with his second foul.

Cosby-Roundtree had been there since late in the first after picking up No. 2.

Regardless of the personnel — Emil Moody and Mike Milsip came on — Arrigale’s Saints were able to expand their advantage to 17 points (45-28) by the 3:24 mark by complementing their remarkably efficient work from the perimeter with a lethal transition game that was operating at mach speed throughout.

“I think that’s their duty to come off the bench and give us sort of a push,” Martin said of Moody and Milsip. “I think that’s what they’re supposed to do.

“They really didn’t do it so much during the year, but they came up when it really counted. Really, really appreciate that.”

Mars never got closer than 14 the rest of the way.

“That was big. That was big,” Arrigale added. “Emil really gave us a big lift the last two games. I’m proud of him for that.”

“When we got up 20, from there it was curtains,” continued Green, who collected a team-high 19 points before the break — one more than Martin.

And playing from in front certainly favored Arrigale’s bunch.

“We wanted to get a lead,” Arrigale said of the Planets, who last led 16-14 on Alex Gruber’s short jumper with three-plus minutes in the first quarter. “I knew they were dangerous and I knew they could shoot.

“If we allowed them to be patient and get the right shot, I knew they would make them,” Arrigale continued. “If we could get ahead, I thought they would shoot a little quicker and then it would work in our favor.”

Well, Neumann-Goretti was able to jump in front.

And, obviously, the Saints were able to continue to build their lead. That said, they also were startled the Planets decided to run with them.

After time, of course, Mars had no choice.

“I was real surprised,” Martin said. “I thought they was going to try to slow down the tempo and shoot a lot of threes, which they did, but just try to slow our tempo down.

“As Coach Carl was telling us all week, we’re gonna have to make them play at our pace. And that’s what we did,” Martin added. “We tried to speed the game up and get them on their heels early.”

With the game at Neumann-Goretti’s favored jet-quick tempo, eventually it became a mere formality that the Saints were going to hoist yet another trophy.

Another gold-tinted one at that.

“Winning never gets old, but this is definitely a surreal feeling,” a candid Covington admitted. “Going out knowing this is my last Neumann game in a Neumann uniform is just a surreal feeling. It feels a lot different than the other two.”

Style of play was one reason.

Margin of victory was another — especially since the Saints won by a deuce last season in the showdown with Archbishop Carroll and squeezed past Susquehanna Twp. two years ago in a final that required overtime to settle.

“It’s big for me,” Martin concluded. “I just came to Neumann-Goretti to be a winner and I’m leaving as a winner, so I think it was good for me going to my college level.

“That was big to finish, just to be a winner."


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