City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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The odds are not in La Salle’s favor, but the Explorers still have a chance.

Ryan Ansel’s group sat at the bottom of the Catholic League standings a couple weeks ago, taking losses in their first seven PCL games. There were a few close calls, including a couple costly late turnovers in a four-point loss to Devon Prep and an excruciating one-point loss thanks to a double-clutch, buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Archbishop Carroll.

But the schedule eased up, and the lessons learned in those earlier losses seem to have been paying off. A 60-50 win over West Catholic on Monday night was the third in four games for the Explorers, who suddenly find themselves in a fight for one of the final two PCL playoff spots with two games to play.

“We’ve stuck to what we’ve been preaching, and it just took time,” the first-year head coach and former Swarthmore assistant said. “We have a new group just learning to win. It takes time to figure out.”

The Explorers (8-12, 3-8) figured it out in real-time against the Burrs (5-15, 3-8), who jumped out to an 18-4 first-quarter lead. It looked ugly for the hosts, who not only allowed West Catholic to bury four open first-quarter triples but also saw leading scorer Nick Parisi pick up two fouls within the game’s first two minutes and change. 

Parisi came back on the final play of the first quarter and immediately contributed a 3-point play, a park that set La Salle on the comeback trail. The 6-foot-3 shooting guard also hit two three-points early in the second quarter, the second one a four-point play, to help La Salle close the gap and only trail by two going into the break.

After half, however, it was the Liam Hawley and Joey O’Brien show. 

The senior point guard and sophomore wing combined for 21 second-half points, including 12 in a crucial third quarter that saw the Explorers outscore the Burrs 18-7 to go up 43-34 going into the fourth. Parisi, who finished with a team-high 17 points, only needed to take three shots in the second half as his teammates stepped up.

“I think we found our rhythm, started to hit our shots, started to get stops on defense,” Hawley said. “After that, we just flowed and kept rolling.”

Hawley, who plays both basketball and baseball for the athletics powerhouse, did a good job against the Burrs’ press, weaving his way through the defense and providing a steady hand if any of his teammates ever got trapped. He finished with 12 points, six rebounds, three assists and two steals, though it was his ability to handle tempo and pressure that most stood out.

“He’s been huge and I think he now has probably over 100 assists with like 30 turnovers on the year,” Ansel said. “There’s some athletes that are guarding him, pressing up on him, doubling him, but he’s really become a great leader and found ways to break pressure, even if it’s 1-on-2 sometimes, because of his toughness and his strength.”

O’Brien, a football standout who played freshman hoops a year ago but sprouted to 6-4 in the offseason, came in as the Explorers’ fourth man off the bench but ended up contributing 14 points, five steals, four rebounds, three assists and a block to the effort, staying on the court for most of the second half. 

The latest member of the athletic O’Brien family — his older sister, Taylor O’Brien, starred on the court at Plymouth Whitemarsh and later at Bucknell and Florida State — also had the biggest ‘wow’ moment of the night, a 360 layup attempt that he didn’t quite finish off.

“If he did that three times, he makes two out of three,” Ansel said. “He’s just sort of scratching the surface at this point.”

“Every time he gets on the floor, it’s electric,” Hawley said. “He can jump out of the gym, he gives us great minutes off the bench.”

The Explorers never faced a serious charge from the Burrs in the fourth quarter, though Naseem Perez scored all 11 of his points in the final 8:01 to help keep them within striking distance. Micah Waters and Tariq Jennings added 10 each for West Catholic.

The road ahead is still difficult for both. La Salle and West Catholic are tied with Cardinal O’Hara for 10th place in the 14-team league, a half-game behind Devon Prep (7-11, 3-7). Both La Salle and West Catholic have tough closing stretches; La Salle hosts Neumann-Goretti (8-2) and Father Judge (8-3), West Catholic goes to Archbishop Carroll (6-5) and Archbishop Wood (9-2). 

Cardinal O’Hara goes to winless Lansdale Catholic on Friday, giving the Lions a prime opportunity to pick one up on the field. Devon Prep plays at Neumann-Goretti on Wednesday; if the Tide don’t pull the upset, they’ve got to take care of Conwell-Egan (2-9) to get its fourth win. La Salle and West would need to pull a big-time upset to keep pace. 

Devon Prep and O’Hara end the regular season at Devon Prep, so only one of those two will get to five wins; whichever one does will almost certainly be safe. But if La Salle can somehow pull an upset in one of its last two games, and ends up in a tie with either Devon Prep or Cardinal O’Hara, they’d lose the head-to-head tiebreaker. West, which beat Cardinal O’Hara, has an advantage.

Long story short — the Explorers need to win, and they need some serious help. 

“We’ve tried to stay focused on what we can control in the present moment,” Ansel said. “Once they start thinking ahead, they lose sight of what we have to do in the moment. [...] We can’t control Neumann today, we can only control what we do today.”

By Quarter
La Salle College:  7   |  18  |  18  |  17  ||  60
West Catholic:     18  |   9   |   7   |  16  ||  50

Shooting
La Salle College: 18-43 FG (5-16 3PT), 19-28 FT
West Catholic: 16-41 FG (8-27 3PT), 10-14 FT

Scoring
La Salle College: Nick Parisi 17, Joey O’Brien 14, Liam Hawley 12, Greyson McKogh 6, Presin Washington 5, Hayes Altomare 3, Luke Hudock 2, Joe Shields 1

West Catholic: Naseem Perez 11, Tariq Jennings 10, Micah Waters 10, Jayvon Byrd 7, Nyeire Farlow 5, Saaid Lee 4, Kingston Wheatley 3