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District 12 6A: Roman's big three lead way to city title

03/03/2022, 10:30pm EST
By Joseph Santoliquito

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)

Xzayvier Brown has created a new position at Roman Catholic. The 6-foot-2 junior point guard plays the role of “whatever,” as in whatever needs to be done, he’ll do it. Rush the boards to rebound, done. Run the offense and facilitate, no problem. Shoot from the outside, check. Drive to the basket, okay.

It means he’s given up a little here and there of his game for the greater good of the Cahillites.

On Thursday night at West Philadelphia High School, Brown did “whatever,” scoring 16 points, running the Roman offense, crashing the boards when needed, driving to the basket, and nailing a few 3-pointers in Roman’s 78-47 victory over Lincoln to win the PIAA District 12 Class 6A championship.

Roman (19-4) was led by Cincinnati-bound Daniel Skillings’ game-high 28 points, followed by Khalil Farmer and Brown’s 16 points each. Lincoln (14-7) was playing without two star players, its leader, tiny dynamo junior guard Rashan Locke-Hicks and senior forward Aymere Thomas, who are both ineligible to play in the PIAA postseason due to PIAA transfer rules, since both transferred into Lincoln this year.

No one could fill the void, though Lincoln got a great performance from smooth lefty senior forward Khrys Murray, who scored 27.

This was a consolation prize for Brown and his teammates, who lost to eventual Philadelphia Catholic League champ Neumann-Goretti in the Catholic League semifinals.

Xzayvier Brown (left) and Daniel Skillings hold the District 12 6A championship plaque. (Photo: Joseph Santoliquito)

The District 12 title game allowed Brown to do what he does best—everything. With Skillings and the Hofstra-bound Farmer, the Cahillites have two leading stars.

“It’s why I say my role is ‘whatever,’ like do whatever I have to do to win,” Brown said. “Some nights that may be facilitating more, some nights that may be scoring more, and sometimes it may just be about being a vocal leader. I’ll do whatever it takes to win.”

Brown missed three weeks this season with a sprained left ankle. That allowed sophomore Toby Ojukwu to gain valuable experience during Brown’s recovery, giving Roman coach Chris McNesby that much more experienced backcourt depth as Roman begins its PIAA 6A championship run.

“I can care less about how many points I score,” said Brown, who holds offers from Marquette, Fordham, Cleveland State, St. Joe’s and Drexel, and whose stepdad is SJU assistant Justin Scott. “Like in this game, we knew Lincoln would be physical. They’re from ‘the Pub,’ and those games are always intense. We just had to get the jump on them.”

That started with Skillings and Roman jumping out to a 11-0 lead.

“’X’ is a team player who sees the court very well and does whatever he has to do to win,” Skillings said. “We know how he can play, if he needs to score, he’ll step up. If he needs to rebound, he’ll do that. I think what’s unique about him is that he’s always having fun and stays poised when he needs to be.”

McNesby likes Brown’s leadership. He’s Roman’s unsung player who is willing to do the dirty work.

“Dan was named [Catholic League] MVP, but in some ways Xzayvier does all of the ball handling, he makes sure guys get the ball where they need to get it, and he can assist and rebound,” McNesby said. “He fits well. A great player, but he’s an even better kid. X is our leader. He really is. When he’s our leader with the ball in his hands, he’s really good.

“He reminds me of Tony Carr. He plays with good pace, he controls the game when the ball is in his hands. Any coach will tell you any good point guard helps you sleep well at night.”

With the win, Roman will play the winner of Friday night's game between Haverford High and Downingtown West, which will determine the 11th and 12th seeds out of District 1. Lincoln will play the loser of the District 1 5/6 game between Garnet Valley and Plymouth Whitemarsh.

Roman blew the game open in the third quarter with a 34-point explosion, making 11 of 13 shots, getting many baskets on layups. The Cahillites 34-point outburst was more than what they scored in the first half combined.

“That’s my fault,” Lincoln coach Mel Lindsey said. “This one is on me. I saw film of Roman and I thought if we went man and executed, I thought that would give us a shot. Maybe I should have stayed zone, but with Skillings, and Khalil and ‘X,’ they would have methodically beat us by 15. My goal was to challenge them and speed them up a little.

“We’ll go right back to work. We have the states ahead of us. We’ll look for the next fight, we’ll look for rumbles, that’s what I like.”

What Lindsey also had to like was Murray, one of the city’s more underrated players. He scored 10 of his team-high 14 points in the fourth quarter in the Railsplitters’ loss to Imhotep Charter in the Public League championship on Saturday, and followed that up with another sterling performance.

What’s more is when the game was completely out of hand, Murray continued to play hard.

“This is only our second loss with Khrys, and when he came back, that started our winning streak,” Lindsey said. “I like mad players, and Khrys plays mad all of the time. Khrys is all fight. I have a lot of kids with high skill sets. But we need players like Khrys who play mad.

“With Rashan and Aymere out, we’ve had the next-man-up mentality. We’ll go right back to the gym and get back to work (for the state tournament).”

By Quarter
Lincoln:   8   |  12  |  14  |  13  ||  47
Roman:  17  |  15  |  34  |  12  ||  78

Scoring

 Lincoln: Khrys Murray 27, Naseem Wright 6, Tamir Powell 6, Rodney Shelton 2, Malachi Montgomery 2, Naeem Colston 2, Tahir Davis 2

Roman Catholic: Daniel Skillings 28, Khalil Farmer 16, Xzayvier Brown 16, Quadir Brown 7, Shareef Jackson 6, Ryan Smith 2, Naim Chandler 2, Toby Ojukwu 1

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter here.


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