City of Basketball Love

Austin Petolillo (@AustinPSports)
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A night that honored the winningest Archbishop Wood class that featured six seniors was spoiled by three Roman Catholic underclassman.

Sophomore Lynn Greer III, juniors Seth Lundy and Hakim Hart -- as well as senior Allen Bertrand -- scored all of Roman’s points in its win over Archbishop Wood as they took down the Vikings 75-73 on Friday night.

“We knew that it was their senior night and we knew that we had to come out and give it our all,” Lundy said. “We knew that they were going to come out here and try to win, no one wants to lose on their senior night and they had a lot of them so we knew coming in this game that it was going to be a good one.”

The 6-foot-6 junior wing from Paulsboro N.J. paced the Cahillites with a career-high-tying 30 points, equalling his output from a January outing against Archbishop Carroll. He also notched a double-double, hauling in 13 rebounds.

Roman was also propelled by Greer’s 21 point night and 12-point efforts from Bertrand, a Towson commit, and Hart.

Griffin’s rotation is not a typical one. Usually only running six guys out there, Roman relies on their four stars for most of, if not all of the scoring while senior forward John Kelly and junior guard Louie Wild make plays that don’t get the attention of the scorers table.

“It’s everybody, it’s a group effort and we preach a lot of things that don’t show up in the box score so the points are great but it’s the little things,” Griffin said. “It’s John (Kelly) hard hedging and talking on defense, it’s Louie (Wild) switching the screen at the right time so the little things matter, I think the scoring organically happens as the game flows.”

Had Archbishop Wood (13-8, 7-4) won the game, the Vikings would have moved into the third spot and slid Roman (15-5, 10-2) down to fourth. Instead, the Cahillites held on, with one game left in their regular season.

One of the Vikings seniors that showed out on senior night in front of a sold out crowd was Andrew Funk.

The 6-4 Bucknell-bound guard scored a game-high 35 points.. But it seemed like for every Funk basket, Lundy answered back with one of his own.

At around the 4:00 mark in the four quarter, Funk took it to the rack and gave the Vikings a 60-59 lead

“To be honest, I wasn’t even looking at it like a scoring battle,” Lundy said. “I just knew I was feeling it and doing what I had to do to make my team win, what he did tonight was really good but like I said, we came out on top so that’s all that matters.”

The 6-foot-6 junior wing from Paulsboro N.J. dropped a season and career-high in points with 30 today. He had 30 points in their game against Archbishop Carroll on Jan. 26.

“Seth is a warrior, we have multiple guys on our team who display that type of toughness,” Roman Catholic head coach Matt Griffin said. “When Seth gets it going, he’s fun to watch.”

Lundy currently holds offers from schools such as Oregon, Penn State, La Salle, Temple and St. Joe’s and has interest from Villanova, Virginia, Notre Dame and Maryland. Butler assistant coach Emerson Kampen was in attendance.

“He’s just an overall high character kid, great kid in the locker room and it shows on the court,” Griffin said. “This game was all about poise and we have been here before and he was able to execute and knock down big time shots down the stretch and I’m very proud of the way he competed.”

In a game that was back and forth pretty much the whole time, Archbishop Wood had a chance to win the game in the final 10 seconds, down by two when senior guard and Quinnipiac commit Tyree Pickron shot a 3-pointer from the corner but missed.

Wood senior center Seth Pinkney then corralled the offensive rebound and kicked out to Funk who pump faked, stepped back and had a clean look from the right wing with two seconds to go, but was a little wide to the left.

While Lundy got fooled on the pump fake, his defense did take a full second off the clock.

Then he couldn’t help but watch.

“I don’t like when it’s close,” Lundy said. “That last shot my heart dropped but when it’s close games like that, I don’t freeze up, I just stay focused and locked in and I keep going.”

Aside from Funk’s big night, Pickron scored 14, junior forward Julius Phillips had nine and senior guard Andrew LaFond had six while getting the start.

Up next for Roman is their regular season finale against Saint Joseph’s Prep on Sunday. Archbishop Wood has two more games left on the docket, both away from home as the Vikings take on Lansdale Catholic on Sunday and Archbishop Carroll on Monday.

The last time Roman won the PCL title was in back-to-back seasons in 2015 and 2016 when current Penn State players Tony Carr and Nazeer Bostick were on the team. Fellow Nittany Lion Lamar Stevens wasn’t part of the 2015 team but was there for the 2016 title as a senior. Both championships came against rival Neumann-Goretti.

Last season, Roman went back to the Palestra, though this time falling to Neumann-Goretti in the semifinals.

With the game being so close to playoff time, Griffin knows that his team’s game against Archbishop Wood was a potential taste of what the Catholic League playoffs would bring.

“We know that this season is going to come down to three games and this game got us ready for a playoff environment, great coaching and great players,” the second-year coach said. “We’re grateful to come out with the win but it’s more what did we do well and what do we still need to work on.”