City of Basketball Love

Jerome Taylor (@ThatGuy_Rome)
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PHILA, Pa. — Composure and maturity made all the difference for Roman Catholic.

With under a minute to go in the fourth quarter and down by four, Archbishop Carroll implemented a press to get a turnover and hopefully extend the game. 

It almost worked. 

Roman struggled to break the press and was forced to make a cross-court outlet pass to Travis Reed. The senior not only secured the contested catch and got fouled but helped secure the victory as well. 

“We really challenged him, and he responded to be our tough warrior guy,” Roman head coach Chris McNesby said. “Even the simple play of getting that 50-50 ball just brought that toughness for us.” 

Reed and some other cool-headed seniors led Roman to a 49-42 victory over a young-but-hungry Carroll team on Friday night. 

Three games on the league table may separate the teams, but you couldn’t tell on the court, especially early. 

“[Carroll] is a young, dangerous team with a bright future,” McNesby said. “I knew late in this year, as they started getting more games under their belt, they were going to be dangerous; it was not a surprise that it was close.”

To start the second quarter, Luca Foster (8 points), Darrell Davis (11 points), and Nasir Ralls (12 points) hit consecutive threes that helped Carroll take a 25-20 lead going into halftime. 

That’s when Roman’s leadership stepped up. 

“In the beginning of the game, we weren’t really as together,” Reed said. “At halftime, we had a discussion [in the locker room] with each other, like ‘we’re the better team, but we can’t discredit [Carroll] because it can go downhill.’”

Defensively, the Cahillites held Carroll to five points in the third quarter and used an offensive run of their own to take a 36-30 lead. 

Reed was impactful on both ends in the quarter, with a steal and five points. He finished with a game-high 13 points.

The Frankford transfer has spent the season getting used to Roman on the court and off. In his words, he used to be able to “leave the house anytime” to get from Mayfair to his old high school on time. 

Now he’s got to plan for traffic and a 25-minute daily commute. On the court, he’s going through his first bout with the grind of the PCL season. 

“Coming into Roman, I knew [the PCL] was going to be a different feel [from the public league],” Reed said. “You can’t discredit anybody because everybody is good somehow.”

Fortunately for Reed and Roman, they had the support of Robert Cottrell (8 points) and Hunter Johnson (8 points), two other seniors who came up clutch on Friday night in a PCL matchup that highlighted the parity in the league this year.

Cottrell made it a two-possession game after scoring a reverse layup with 1:30 remaining, and on the following defensive possession, caused a Carroll turnover by swiping at the ball and forcing it to go out of bounds. 

“Rob’s a big player. Once he gets going, that’s when the whole team gels together,” Reed said.

Meanwhile, Johnson was money at the stripe to close out the game, going 4-for-4 at the line in the game’s final frame. Reed added one foul shot after he was fouled.

Roman will continue to rely on their upperclassmen to maintain sole possession of the one-seed heading into the PCL playoffs, and they have a tough stretch of three straight road games to end the regular season, starting with Bonnor on Monday, St. Joe’s Prep on Friday, and a regular-season finale with Archbishop Ryan.

By Quarter
Archbishop Carroll:  8 | 17 |  5  | 12  ||  42
Roman Catholic :  12 | 8 |  16  |  13 ||  49

Scoring
Archbishop Carroll: Nasir Ralls 12, Darrell Davis 11, Luca Foster 8, Munir Greg 6, Drew Carrao 3, Ian Williams 2

Roman Catholic: Travis Reed 13, Kabe Goss 10,  Robert Cottrell 8, Hunter Johnson 8, Sammy Jackson 6, Sebastian Edwards 4