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Butler, O'Hara snap six-year playoff drought against Ryan

02/15/2018, 1:15am EST
By Josh Verlin

Antwuan Butler (above) and Cardinal O'Hara won the program's first playoff game since 2012 on Wednesday night. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Antwuan Butler and Jason Harrigan have had success on the basketball court together before.

Two years back, with Butler a sophomore and Harrigan the head coach at Del-Val Charter, the pair were instrumental in the Warriors’ Public League championship and run to the PIAA quarterfinals. Harrigan took the head coaching job at Cardinal O’Hara immediately following; when Butler found himself a free agent this spring after Del-Val’s closing, it only made sense that he re-join his former head coach at the Delaware County school.

O’Hara was still looking for a spark, something to get the program moving in the right direction again, towards the top of the toughest league around. Last year, the Lions were winless in Catholic League play, a far cry from relevancy.

Thanks in large part to Butler’s arrival, O’Hara has found its spark. The Lions qualified for the PCL playoffs for the first time in six years, and guaranteed their stay wouldn’t be too brief, beating Archbishop Ryan 58-47 on the road on Wednesday night in opening-round play.

“It’s a great one for the program, the school itself,” said Butler, a 6-0 point guard who’s signed with D-I Austin Peay. “Good kids, top-ranked kids (will) want to come here if they know that we’re winning, that’s all kids worry about is winning.”

The No. 9 seed in the league’s 10-team playoffs, O’Hara (11-11) went 5-8 in the Catholic League regular season, though three of those losses -- to La Salle, Neumann-Goretti and Bonner-Prendergast, all at home -- came by a combined eight points.

It was a major step up from that 0-13 run a year before, even if there were still plenty of frustrating moments for Harrigan, dealing with a team that starts three sophomores and a senior in Butler who was feeling his way into a new school.

“I feel like throughout the year, we played tough against the big-time teams, and people were saying ’you guys are playing better’ but when you don’t win, you don’t feel that gratification,” Harrigan said. “We beat [St. Joe’s] Prep and that was huge for us, but having some of the other teams on the ropes and not closing them [out], it’s like almost there, almost there. I always said I just wanted them to feel what it feels like to win those big games.”

Wednesday night’s win was no doubt the biggest for O’Hara in at least half a decade. The Lions’ last Catholic League playoff win came against Conwell-Egan in 2012; in the five years that followed, they won a total of seven games in the league.

Butler led the way with 24 points, all of which came in the second half; he was slowed in the opening 16 minutes by three early fouls, but got things going with a bucket to open the third and stayed in downhill mode the rest of the way.

The O’Hara point guard also played a big role in the Lions’ ability to seal the win late, going 10-for-10 from the foul lint in the fourth quarter; he also finished with seven rebounds and two assists.

“[First half] I was trying to play to not foul, just stay in the game,” he said. “Second half, I was just able to play defense like regular, being able to play offense, attack the basket hard.”

Butler was enthused by the play of his team in the first half as they carried the load without him, taking a six-point advantage at the midway point. Sophomore guard Eli Smith was a major reason why, chipping in 11 of his 17 points in that stretch; senior guard Garrett Ripp had two first-quarter three-pointers and eight overall, all in the first half.

“If (Eli) wasn’t scoring, we might have been down going into the half,” Butler said. “It builds trust into the team and we see other players can score for us and take us on their back. And I’m just here to close out games, to keep us composed and keep everything content with the team.”

Only one Archbishop Ryan player, junior guard Ja’Quill Stone (10 points), got into double figures. The Raiders (11-12), who were just 2-of-18 from beyond the arc, fell behind 10 points in the first quarter and were never able to re-take the lead.

O’Hara moves on to face the Catholic League’s regular-season champions, Bonner-Prendergast (12-1), on Friday at Bonner in the quarterfinals. The winner will play in the Palestra in the PCL semifinals on Weds., Feb. 21.

While the Lions have their work cut out for them in Isaiah Wong, Ajiri Johnson and the rest of the Friars, they know they’re capable of pulling out the win.

Just this past Sunday, in the regular-season finale, O’Hara gave Bonner all it could handle before finally losing 67-63. The Lions led for much of the second and third quarters, but couldn’t quite close it out on their home court.

“We can beat them,” Butler said. “It’s just, we’ve got to box out the whole game, we just can’t let them get too many offensive rebounds.”

If that happens, O’Hara would win multiple playoff games for the first time since the late 90s, not to mention become one of the surprise stories of the entire area high school season. And Harrigan won’t have to say his team is ‘almost there’ anymore.

“They get to enjoy this moment and now they’ve got 48 hours for Bonner and that’s what it’s all about, them having the opportunity for this moment and the opportunity in front of them,” Harrigan said. “So I’m just really happy for them.”


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