City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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NORTH PHILADELPHIA — Archbishop Ryan made St. Joe’s Prep choose: Take away one first team All-Catholic League selection or the other?

“It was either I could get a shot or I could feed my big man,” Ryan senior Darren Williams said.

With Friday’s Philadelphia Catholic League quarterfinal at St. Joe’s Prep tied, Williams caught the ball at the elbow and saw enough space to let one fly. 

The lefty nailed it with two seconds left, sending Ryan to the semifinals in the Palestra with a 49-47 win. It looked eerily similar to the game-winner Williams hit against Riverdale Baptist back in December.

“We drew the same exact game plan up for Darren to get a shot because we knew they were going to be all over me,” said senior forward Thomas Sorber, the other option on the play. “We drew that up for Darren to get a shot, and he knocked it down like last time.”

Williams, a Florida Gulf Coast commit, led Ryan with 22 points (four 3-pointers) and Sorber, a Georgetown commit and the PCL co-MVP, followed with 17. Junior Jaron McKie scored 16 and junior Jordan Ellerbee scored 13 for the Hawks.

Ryan went ahead 46-41 with a little more than two to play on Williams’ fourth 3 of the game. Ellerbee answered with a bucket and buried a triple to tie the game 47-47 with 1:16 to play. Ryan wound the clock down to 7.9 seconds left, called timeout and Williams made the game-winner with two Hawks defenders not far from him. 

The clutch bucket ended not just St. Joe’s Prep’s PCL title hopes but also its season as only two Catholic League Class 6A squads advance to the PIAA tournament.

“It’s tough,” St. Joe’s Prep coach Jason Harrigan said. “Their season’s over. It’s a really good team. The season’s over. They hit a tough shot at the end. You can’t even really describe it in words. I feel for the kids. 

“I thought we had a really good chance to win the game, and we came up short.”

St. Joe’s Prep rallied from a double-digit halftime deficit to take down Ryan in the PCL regular-season opener back on Jan. 2. Led by Sorber and senior Jaden Murray (eight points) early, Ryan played from out in front again. This time the game stayed close throughout, though — Ryan up 25-21 at half and 39-33 after three quarters.

Williams didn’t score his first bucket until two minutes into the second quarter. The shots kept coming after that as he scored 22 of his team’s next 35 points. He scored 15 in the second half, Sorber added seven after the break and junior Brandon Russell was the only other Raiders player to score in the second half.

Sorber and Williams have started for Ryan since they were sophomores when they reached the Catholic League title game. Ryan would have been happy with either one of them taking the final shot. They’ve both earned it over the last three seasons.

“It’s definitely a confidence booster knowing your guys trust and believe in you, knowing they trust you to make the right play every time,” Williams said. “That just gives you more confidence knowing you’re that guy and you take that shot and you finish the game for us.”

Ryan’s PCL title dreams were dashed by West Catholic with a 71-51 loss in the quarterfinal round last season. Seniors Sorber, Williams, Murray, Rocco Morabito and Ryan Everett all returned from that squad. 

The mission Friday was to make sure that didn’t happen again.

“It hurt us a lot last year that we didn’t make it last year,” Sorber said. “It hurt us a lot last year that we lost that early. We knew we were better than that, but we had the mentality to come in here and take this one home with us.”

The goal coming into the season wasn’t just to get to the Palestra though — Sorber and Williams checked that off their bucket list two years ago. They want to make school history and win it.

“It’s very fun,” Williams said. “Last year, we didn’t do exactly what we planned to do and what we pursued to do and what we had our wishes for. This year, we’re back there just like our sophomore year, and we gotta come through and stay locked in and ready to go."

By Quarter

Archbishop Ryan: 12 | 13 | 14 | 10 || 49

St. Joe’s Prep: 10 | 11 | 12 | 14 || 47

Scoring

Archbishop Ryan: Darren Williams 22, Thomas Sorber 17, Jaden Murray 8, Brandon Russell 2.

St. Joe’s Prep: Jaron McKie 16, Jordan Ellerbee 13, Jalen Harper 9, Olin Chamberlain 7, Will Lesovitz 2.