City of Basketball Love

Matt Gaffney (@GaffReports)
—

Good high school basketball teams have star players.  

Championship-caliber teams, though, seem to always have “glue” guys who elevate their teams when their teams need a lift the most and the other team least expects it.

West Catholic is fortunate to have both kinds of players.

In Adam “Budd” Clark and Zion Stanford, the Burrs have stars — two D-I caliber players  who can take over games as they did on Saturday in the 3A quarterfinals when they combined for 47 points in their win over Executive Education Charter. 

Tuesday night at Governor Mifflin High School near Reading in the PIAA 3A semifinals against Trinity, it was the role players’ turn to make an impact as West Catholic’s MJ Branker and Micah Waters Jr. stepped up with multiple big plays throughout the game.

As a result, the West Catholic Burrs are headed to the PIAA state championship for the first time in school history following a pulsating 52-49 win over Trinity. They will face Deer Lakes from District 7 on Saturday at 2:00 in Hershey.

Waters came off the bench to score 11 points, including three 3’s, while Branker had 10 tough, hard-earned points in the paint despite being plagued by foul trouble in the second half. 

West Catholic needed every single point because the Shamrocks jumped all over the Burrs with an 8-0 spurt to start the game, prompting coach Miguel Bocachica to call a timeout. That’s when he called on Waters.

The sophomore came off the bench and calmly buried two 3’s before he could even break a sweat. Waters’ second trey made it a 10-8 game and gave West Catholic a bit of energy while simultaneously calming his teammates down.

For the sharpshooter, he was singularly focused on the task at hand.

“We just had one job tonight and that was to get the ‘dub’ and head to the Giant Center,” said Waters.

“I stayed calm until the buzzer hit and once the buzzer hit, I was just glad we got it.”

Bocachica knows what type of young player he has in Waters and knew his time was coming.  

“When a kid works like Micah Waters works, you just kind of wait for those moments.  You don’t know when those moments are going to come. But they come. And it came today,” said the West Catholic coach. “He works extremely hard. He’s a wonderful kid in terms of character. I trust in him and I believe in him.”

Trinity’s active zone defense helped limit West Catholic’s dynamic tandem Clark and Stanford to 13 points each. The Shamrocks alternated between a 2-3 and a 3-2 that effectively cut off driving and passing lanes.

At times, it worked as Stanford would find a crease in the middle of the zone and score at the rim. Other times, the Burrs simply dialed up the long ball and shot over the lengthy Trinity defense, connecting for six 3-pointers.

Trailing 47-42 in the fourth quarter with less than five minutes to go, Branker and Waters got to work on saving the Burrs’ season.

First Branker scored to cut it to three with 4:40 left. After getting a couple of stops on defense, Waters' third trey tied the game at 47 with 2:58 remaining.

“I just wanted to see the seniors win. I’m playing for them,” said Waters. “I want them to win.

Owen Schlager, Trinity’s talented sophomore who finished with 11 points, broke the tie on a put-back. After a defensive stop, Trinity regained possession and was looking for a knockout punch that never came.  

The Temple-bound Stanford (13 points) was fouled after a steal. He made the first free throw but missed the second. Guess who was there for the offensive rebound and go-ahead bucket and 50-49 lead with 2:05 to go in the game.  Branker, of course. Despite coming up big throughout the game, he had one more big play left in him to seal the deal.

The score remained at 50-49 with less than eight seconds left when Trinity’s Schlager missed a contested drive and Branker came down with the rebound. Naturally, the ball found its way into the hands of Waters, who hit both free throws to ice the game.

Branker and Waters’ crucial plays not only earned their team a trip to Hershey but a place in the West Catholic history book as well.  Before West Catholic closed out their historic win, Trinity was close to punching their own ticket to Chocolate Town as they took a 40-37 lead into the fourth quarter. 

The Shamrocks’ Trey Weiand lived up to his name as he was absolutely lights out, splashing five 3’s on his way to a game-high 17 points. It was a championship-level individual performance as each of his field goals seemed to answer a potential momentum shifting play by West Catholic. Weiand’s performance left an impact on his coach.

“You want to talk about a kid rising to the occasion, you just saw it there,” said Trinity coach Larry Kostelac Jr., regarding Weiand. “He just did a tremendous job as he’s done all year.”

Though they came up a bit short, the pride long-time Shamrocks coach has in his team was evident.

“I’m just proud of the way our kids played all year long and represented our school and our program to the nth degree. They gave it their all and fell a little bit short. It stings like crazy right now and we all feel bad – and we feel bad because we care. It was extremely important to everyone on that bench. Tomorrow, though, the sun is going to come up and we are going to move on. Our kids did a great job and I couldn’t be prouder.”

“I thought we played a heckuva basketball game against a great team. They’re very, very good.”

 said Kostelac. “To be in a position that we were, where we had an opportunity to win and it just didn’t go down. What are you going to do? Those things happen. Bottom line is everybody wants to win but only one moves on to the next round and this year it wasn’t us.”

West Catholic was once again at a disadvantage height wise, but they played bigger than their size and limited Trinity’s second chances despite contending with Trinity’s 6-11 Mike Bednostin and 6-7 Adelphe Cisse. 

A big reason why West Catholic was successful was due to Branker’s play and his willingness to do the dirty work down low. The 6-5 senior battled relentlessly all game despite picking up his fourth foul two minutes into the fourth quarter. He played smart down the stretch as he avoided fouling out.

Branker did whatever his team needed and it’s something Bocachica appreciates.

“MJ has been up and down for the most part this year, but he’s always stuck with me with the entire way,” said Bocachica. “I’m tough on him because I expect a lot out of him. But he responded. I’m just proud of him and I’m glad today happened for him.”

“I just want to help the team out in any aspect,” said Branker. “Coach said we need rebounding so I got the job done and got the rebounds. And on the offensive end, I was just trying to do my best to score and help the team out even more.”

Even though the journey has one more stop, Branker is cherishing the moment.

“It feels amazing just being able to take a step up each year,” said Branker. “I feel like nothing can stop us and we just want to keep going at this point.”

The  Burrs "do whatever it takes" attitude shouldn’t surprise anyone who has seen West Catholic play this season. They know what they need to do to win especially in a win or go home situation in the state playoffs. Bocachica passionately reminded his team what the stakes were before the start of the fourth quarter: “It’s win time!!” 

“It’s do or die for our seniors. I want them to go out as winners,” said Bocachica. “I want the last time they put a West Catholic jersey on to know they won the basketball game.”

“It’s unbelievable man, for us, it’s the first time in our history so it’s a very exciting time. I’m in my fifth year now and there’s been a lot of ‘firsts’ but this is the biggest one for the program. I’m excited. I’m super happy for the kids because it’s going to be a moment they’ll carry with them forever.”

By Quarter
West Catholic 13 | 15 | 9 | 15 | 52
Trinity           16 | 8 | 16 | 9 | 49

Scoring
West Catholic: Clark 13, Stanford 13, Waters 11, Branker 10, Walker 5

Trinity: Weiand 17, Schlager 11, Cisse 8, Brown 7, Bednostin 6