City of Basketball Love

Ty Daubert (@TyDaubert)
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BETHLEHEM — A stagnant offense plagued Math, Civics & Sciences throughout the PIAA Class 3A state quarterfinal. 

Whether it was foul trouble slowing them down, turnovers or blocked shots, a number of mistakes prevented the MCS from running its free-flowing offensive game plan against District 2 champion Holy Redeemer.

Ultimately, the Mighty Elephants never really found their rhythm.

“We just came out really flat today,” MCS coach Lonnie Diggs said. “It’s a big game, and we came out flat. It’s my job to motivate these guys and have them ready to play. I didn’t do my job today.”

A late-game push by the District 12 champs brought the score closer, but MCS fell to Holy Redeemer 56-48 on Wednesday night at Freedom High School in the end. The Royals advance to play Devon Prep, a 60-53 winner over West Catholic, in the semifinal round on Saturday, while also eliminating the Mighty Elephants from the state tournament.

“We’re at a point where this is our 12th straight year making a state quarterfinal,” Diggs said. “So if we don’t win here, it’s a failure of a season for us. We expect to win these games. We’ve won them in the past. We didn’t win today, and credit to Holy Redeemer. They played well, and I think they controlled the tempo of the game pretty much from the outset.”

The Royals (24-4) rolled past MCS (21-9) behind double-digit scoring performances from center Matthew Prociak (18) and guards Zachary Perta (17) and Justice Shoats (15). Senior guard Jaheim Bethea led the Mighty Elephants with 11 points, while Holy Redeemer held leading MCS scorer Trent Middleton to eight points.

“I feel like I had to (look to score) a little bit, because we were kind of going slow,” Bethea said. “And they were playing a zone, so we had to put pressure on it.”

The Mighty Elephants did jump on top right away as center Khalif Crawley scored five early points on a 3-pointer and a layup. But Holy Redeemer then grabbed the lead in the first as the 6-foot-6 Prociak buried two 3s in a row, the second of which was from well beyond the arc, as the Royals went ahead 12-10 at the end of the period.

The errors began to pile up in the second for MCS, committing three traveling violations in the quarter while fouling on the other end. The Royals struggled to take advantage in their offensive possessions as well, taking a 20-16 lead into the break. 

“We never really got in a flow,” Diggs said. “There were a lot of fouls, a lot of walks, a lot of different stuff that stopped us from getting in a rhythm. We like to play in transition, but the way the game was called today didn’t allow us to do some stuff we like to do.”

Perta started off the third quarter with a 3-pointer for Holy Redeemer and closed it out with two free throws that extended the lead to 37-24. Prociak tipped in two offensive rebounds in that stretch, while Shoats finished a tough layup in traffic to help the Royals pull away.

As Holy Redeemer tried to eat some clock in the fourth, the Mighty Elephants did start chipping away. A 3-pointer from Middleton midway through the last period cut the deficit to five points, while Bethea scored around the rim to help MCS hover around. 

However, the comeback attempt didn’t have enough force behind it as Perta knocked down three of four late free-throw attempts to ice the game.

“We were just fortunate, smart enough to hang around there and hold on to that lead and keep a couple plays going for us to keep that little bit of a cushion,” Holy Redeemer coach Paul Guido said after making the semifinals for the first time in program history. “Because we knew they were going to be coming and they were going to make that push, so we wanted to kind of keep that cushion throughout and maintain that throughout.”

While MCS didn’t ever fully find its groove, the late effort was certainly present.

“I think the last two or three minutes,” Diggs said, “we started trying to play with some fire. But for 28, 29 minutes, I think we just played really flat as a team. If we played the way we played in the last three minutes, we might’ve had a different outcome. That’s just how it was.”

As Diggs mentioned, the recent success from the MCS program has set a high standard. A quarterfinal loss was a disappointment for a team with championship expectations. The Mighty Elephants last won it all in 2019, when they were playing in the 2A bracket; they were in the 2A quarterfinals two years back when COVID shut the postseason down, and lost in the semifinals last year, their first in the 3A classification.

Even so, Bethea said he was proud of what his Mighty Elephants teammates displayed on Wednesday and all throughout the season.

“We fought hard,” the senior said. “I still love them to death.”

By Quarter
Holy Redeemer:     12  |   8   |  17  |  19  ||  56
MCS:            10  |   6   |   8   |  24  ||  48

Scorers
Holy Redeemer: Matthew Prociak 18, Zachary Perta 17, Justice Shoats 15, Darryl Wright 2, Jacob Hunter 2, Chris Papciak 2

MCS:Jaheim Bethea 11, Khalif Crawley 9, Trent Middleton 8, Chauncey Presley 8, Aasim Burton 6, Niare Poplar 4, Isaiah Griffin 2