City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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SPRINGFIELD — Etched in black on a white grease board in the Cardinal O’Hara boys’ basketball locker room stood three words Wednesday night: “Work as one.” It’s a mantra that the Lions needed a cathartic jolt to reach a month ago.

It’s what carried O’Hara to a 69-60 victory over visiting Bonner-Prendie in the opening round of the Philadelphia Catholic League playoffs.

The Lions used the balanced scoring of Iona-bound Izaiah Pasha and Josh Coulanges, who each scored a team-high 18 points, and 16 from rapidly emerging junior Pearse McGuinn, who added strong interior defense, while Aasim Burton dropped in 11.

Seeded No. 7 entering the tournament, O’Hara (16-7) will now advance to the Catholic League quarterfinals, where the Lions will play at Roman Catholic on Friday night at Holy Family (7 p.m.), while No. 10 seed Bonner-Prendie (12-10) will have to wait for the PIAA District 12 Class 5A playoffs.

O’Hara and Archbishop Carroll will be fighting for the last Catholic League berth in the District 12 Class 4A playoffs, according to Lions’ coach Ryan Nemetz. O’Hara currently has the edge in points, but a Carroll upset over defending Catholic League and PIAA Class 4A state champion Neumann-Goretti in the quarterfinals coupled with an O’Hara loss to Roman would give Carroll the district slot.

If O’Hara and Carroll were both to win, O’Hara would remain ahead. If both were to lose, O’Hara would clinch the final District 12 Class 4A playoff out of the Catholic League, with Neumann-Goretti already in.

But O’Hara would not be anywhere if not for a serious accountability session Nemetz had with his team after a 61-55 loss to West Catholic on January 25.

“We lost a tough game and I remember everyone being angry afterward and I explained to the guys that this is their team, and I opened it up for everyone to express what they were thinking,” Nemetz recalled. “There was a lot of yelling and screaming, but everyone got it out. They said what was on their minds. I wouldn’t call it an ‘intervention’ as much as it was an accountability session.

“Everyone had to be held accountable for what they were doing. It’s something I would say really brought us together. Everyone got a chance to bring out what was really on their minds. It allowed us get on the same page together.”

That was certainly at work against Bonner-Prendie. O’Hara trailed once, 2-0, then the Lions proceeded to score the next 11 points, and the Friars were forced to play catch-up the rest of the game. The closest Bonner-Prendie got was 18-16 after a Kevin Rucker Jr. free throw with 5:21 left in the first half.

From there, O’Hara went on an 11-4 run to secure the lead and keep the Friars away before a Deuce Ketner slam with 2:23 left brought Bonner-Prendie to within 59-51.

The Lions had a tough time dealing with Ketner, who finished with a game-high 24. But missed free throws and some late carelessness with the ball thwarted the Friars’ chances of climbing back into the game.

Pasha finished it by scoring the Lions’ last six points.

“Every game we’ve lost, we learned a lot from it,” said the 6-foot-7 McGuinn, who is getting attention from Lafayette and Penn. “It’s been a problem finishing games. The biggest thing for us is sticking together. We used to get into arguments with each other, and now we’re sticking together.

“As the end of the season has come, it’s really been coming together. We’ve always had the mindset. We’ve always had the skill set. We battled Neumann-Goretti and Roman and should have won those games. We didn’t stay together.”

On the court, McGuinn has become more of a force. He scored 12 of his 16 points in the second half and he came from nowhere to swat Bonner-Prendie’s Reggie Selden’s shot from behind with 4:32 left to play and the game still hanging in the balance.

Coulanges showed he could be an outside threat. He scored 11 of his 18 in the first half, before handing off the scoring to McGuinn and Pasha in the second half.

“We were getting stops on defense late in the game, and I think the most important thing is we stayed composed, and that starts at practice,” Coulanges said. “We moved the ball and we trusted each other. We were having problems earlier in the year staying together.

“We would have arguments and stuff like that, and we began being more positive with each other.”

Pasha points to the meeting last month for the turnaround.

“It was important that everyone got everything out that was on their minds,” he said. “That meeting brought out anger and certain things we felt within the game and with each other. I like ‘accountability session,’ that’s a good way to put it. That meeting after the West game allowed us to come together and get on the same page.

“When we’re on the same page, I really believe we can beat anybody.”

At times this season, O’Hara has shown that it can be a dangerous team.

By Quarter
Bonner-Prendie:   11  |   9   |  16  |  24  ||  60
Cardinal O’Hara:  16  |  13  |  20  |  20  ||  69

Scoring
Bonner-Prendie: Deuce Ketner 24, Kevin Rucker Jr. 15, Jamal Hicks 9, Nelson Lamizana 8, Reggie Selden 2, Tommy Venditti 2.

Cardinal O’Hara: Izaiah Pasha 18, Josh Coulanges 18, Pearse McGuinn 16, Aasim Burton 11, Christian Cervellero 6.

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.