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Coleman-Newsome's buzzer-beater lifts Carroll past Prep in PCL opener

01/03/2023, 10:00pm EST
By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)

RADNOR — If Tuesday night’s Catholic League opener between Archbishop Carroll and St. Joseph’s Prep was any indication of how the league slate is set to play out over the next four weeks, the PCL’s in for a wild ride.


Dean Coleman-Newsome (above) played hero as Carroll won its PCL opener on Tuesday. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

A back-and-forth contest with talent all over the court went down to the final possession, as Carroll senior Dean Coleman-Newsome capped off one heck of an individual fourth quarter with a reverse layup just ahead of the buzzer, delivering a 70-68 win for the Patriots on their home court. 

“Catholic League, Catholic League, everyone talks about it like it’s some amazing league,” Carroll coach Francis Bowe said afterwards. “And it is. This is awesome.”

Coleman-Newsome’s heroics ended with a shot he barely got off. 

Prep denied the 6-foot-3 guard from taking an inbounds pass at the top of the key with 8.1 seconds remaining in a tie game, so instead it went to Su’Meer Alleyne, the junior wing between the free-throw line and the 3-point arc, right in front of Carroll’s bench. Free of the double-team, Coleman-Newsome took a handoff from Alleyne and split the defenders, briefly losing control of the ball, gathering it up just in enough time to scoop the ball up with his right hand and deposit it over his head, off the glass, and through the hoop.

 

The layup was the final of Coleman-Newsome’s 23 points on the evening, though he entered the fourth quarter with just nine and Carroll down six. Back-to-back Coleman-Newsome 3-pointers pushed Carroll back in front, 59-57, with 4:18 to play, the second of which came as he trailed the break, the ball barely touching his fingers off the feed from freshman Ian Williams before launching from deep on the wing, the result nothing but net. 

“Yeah, they preach confidence in us, so if you hit one, Coach Mike, the whole staff has been preaching confidence and shooting the ball. I hit one, I knew we were down, needed a spark, I’d just gotten a steal a couple plays ago, so I felt confident enough to knock it down.”

It was Carroll’s 13th and final 3-pointer of the evening, on 33 attempts (39.3%); senior guard Seamus Rogers (10 points) had three of his own and sophomore Jake West (8 points) hit a couple, as did senior wing Blake Deegan (6 points), while Alleyne hit one as he finished with 10 points.

Williams, a 5-9 point guard who’s been Carroll’s starter since the first game of the season, was stellar with 10 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, acting in his first Catholic League game like he was playing his 30th. That was especially clear when he knocked down both halves of two 1-and-1s in the final minute, each time putting Carroll up two points before Prep answered down at the other end.

“Being a freshman, having that kind of poise is outstanding,” Bowe said.


Ian Williams (above) knocked down four clutch free-throws in the final minute of Carroll's win. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

“I thought he handled himself incredibly,” Coleman-Newsome said. “It’s his first experience being out here, and I told him I trust him, so when he goes out there he knows that we’ve got his back, and he has our back, so that’s a huge load off of me, not having to bring the ball up every time and handling a lot of other things that I usually handled before, so I appreciate him a lot.”

Coleman-Newsome’s night and his teammates’ shooting helped offset a big effort inside from Prep junior Tristen Guillouette. The 6-9 post, who’s got four inches and a good bit of heft on anybody in the Carroll frontcourt, worked his way to a 20-point, 12-rebound double-double; the Patriots did their best to front him and prevent him from catching around the rim, but had to live with several lob entries for easy layups.

“Our main focus was cutting off the ‘3’, so we were okay with letting him score — not as much as he wanted, but letting him get off a little bit,” Coleman-Newsome said. “Our main thing was [to] front the post, see if you can get a tip-out in the back, and if they lob it over, so be it.”

Junior guard Jalen Harper (12 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 blocks) also had an outstanding evening for Prep, which doesn’t have a senior in its starting lineup. Junior guard Matt Gorman added 11 points, and sophomore Jordan Ellerbee chipped in nine off the bench.

Both Carroll (8-2, 1-0) and Prep (5-2, 0-1) are expected to be right in the thick of things in the 14-team Catholic League, of which a dozen programs should be in contention for the 10-team playoff, which will be as competitive as it’s been in recent memory. Even though both have rosters full of future college talent, including Division I offers in multiple classes, that’s not enough to separate them from the rest of the bunch, who all have similar situations; therefore, each game this season will have more weight than ever before.

“Everything. It means everything,” said Bowe, whose team plays at Archbishop Wood (0-1) on Friday. “You want momentum, you want to feel good, you want to feel you belong, and this win helps us belong. [But] we can’t be done, we can’t be satisfied.”

The Hawks, who returned four starters from a year ago, have much-raised expectations after winning just two PCL games last season, head coach Jason Harrigan with a top six that can stack up with the rest of the league after getting thrown into the fire a year ago. But they still have two sophomores in the backcourt in Olin Chamberlain Jr. and Jaron McKie, and road games in the PCL are never easy.

“Last year we had two one-point losses and an overtime loss,” Harrigan said. “[I’m] trying to make sure we don’t put ourselves in that situation, make sure we’ve got a lead where somebody can’t beat us on something like that, and it starts with attention to detail, understanding the scouting report and what your assignment is.

“That’s a great Catholic League game, our guys fought to the end, made plays [...] always believed they could win the game,” he added. “It’s a lesson learned; it hurts because you need every win you can get around here, but at the end of the day, we didn’t win, so we’ve got two days to get ready for [Archbishop] Ryan.”

By Quarter
Carroll: 13  |  22  |  13  |  22  ||  70
Prep: 20  |  19  |  15  |  14  ||  68

Shooting
Carroll: 23-58 FG (13-33 3PT), 11-16 FT
Prep: 24-54 FG (6-16 3PT), 14-18 FT

Scoring
Carroll: Coleman-Newsome 23, Rogers 10, Alleyne 10, Williams 10, West 8, Deegan 6, Ralls 3

Prep: Guillouette 20, McKie 12, Harper 12, Gorman 11, Ellerbee 9, Chamberlain Jr. 4


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