City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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PHILADELPHIA — A line of cars snaked its way down Solly Avenue in front of Father Judge High School at least an hour before tipoff. If you wanted to get in, you had to park blocks away and walk through the abrasive windy chill. For anyone wearing powder blue, it was worth it.

Father Judge is on a quest this season to capture its first Catholic League championship since 1998. The Crusaders have a stacked team and have carried the burden of pressure well throughout most of this season. They appear to be a team getting stronger at the most important time—the playoffs.

For the second-straight year, Judge will be traveling to the Palestra for the Catholic League semifinals, after its 91-77 victory over traditional Catholic League blueblood Neumann-Goretti on Thursday.

The Crusaders (17-6) will be meeting St. Joe’s Prep, the top seed in the PCL this season, in one semifinal game at the Palestra on Wednesday for the right to play in the Catholic League championship on Sunday, February 23.

Judge will be advancing with a team that is deeper than it was a month ago.

Kevin Beck, a 6-foot-4 senior, and Max Moshinski, a 6-foot-5 junior coming off hand surgery that required seven stitches in December and forced him to miss a month, combined to score 18 points.

Six of Judge’s seven scorers reached double figures. Crusaders’ coach Chris Roantree already knows what he has in starters Derrick Morton-Rivera, Kevair Kennedy, Nazir Tyler, Rocco Westfield and Everett Barnes, and now with the greater emergence of Beck and Moshinski, Judge finds itself that much deeper and that much more formidable.

“Last year, we were just happy to get to the Palestra and the attitude this year is to get there and win (the Catholic League championship),” Beck said. “This team coming back has that experience of being there. I think we’re an older team that is a lot more experienced. This year, we are a lot more together on and off the court.”

Beck and Moshinski feel anyone, starters and bench included, could ignite this team. Morton-Rivera, who shared game-high honors with Kennedy, each scoring 19 points, was being taken out of games earlier this season by opposing teams face guarding him and denying him the ball. Now, it appears, the Crusaders can sting in an assortment of ways, eventually freeing up Morton-Rivera by opening options for everyone.

Beck showed a range to his game canning two three-pointers, including a cringe-worthy trey at the end of the third quarter that had Roantree initially rolling his eyes and eventually smiling when the shot went in.

“We have seven, eight guys who can come into a game and there is no real drop off,” Beck said. “Not a whole lot of teams in the PCL have the kind of depth we do.”

Moshinski keeps improving. He still carries the tiny scar between his right index finger and middle finger. He got the Crusaders going by coming off the bench nailing a couple of corner threes in the second quarter.

“I feel a lot more confident getting back into the flow of the game,” he said. “I’m getting up a lot more shots. We’re all playing for each other and that is helping us win. I was there last year at the Palestra in the semis. We are better prepared this time around for the Palestra.”

Judge led from start to finish, getting out to a 5-0 lead. Moshinski’s first second-quarter three-pointer put the Crusaders up by 26-16 early in the second quarter. Beck’s ill-advised three put Judge up by 59-39 with 2:31 left in the third quarter.

The Saints did get within 79-68 with 2:33 left in the game, but the Crusaders kept sinking free throws putting more cushion on their lead.

“We haven’t been good defensively all year,” Saints’ legendary coach Carl Arrigale said. “We allowed them to get comfortable again in their own gym. We slugged it out there with them for a while, but you can’t win a game on the road like that if you’re not going to play any defense. We allowed too much penetration.”

A Class 4A school, the Saints (12-11) have the state playoffs ahead.

Judge now has Prep ahead facing the possibility of its season hanging in the balance. As a Class 6A, Judge will be playing to be one of the two teams that will qualify out of the Catholic League for the PIAA Class 6A state playoffs with 6A Roman and Prep. Beat Prep in the semifinals, and the Crusaders are guaranteed the state playoffs. Lose, and they're done for the year.

“We were just happy to be at the Palestra last year and after we upset (Archbishop) Wood (in the quarters), you can tell by the way we celebrated after that,” Roantree said. “Tonight, we were all locked in after we won. We were prepared and locked into the game plan, and if adjustments are needed, guys have input. I really like where we are now. We’re sharing the ball. We’re defending. And we have more depth. Our season ended last year at the Palestra.

“Roman, Prep, us, one of us will not go (to states). If we lose to Prep, we’re likely going home.”

By the way they looked Thursday night, the Crusaders seemed primed to have more basketball ahead of them.

By Quarter
Neumann-Goretti (12-11):  16  |  16  |  18 |  27  ||  77
Father Judge (17-6):  23 |  16  |  25 |  27  || 91

Scoring:
Neumann Goretti: DeShawn Yates 22, Alassan N’Diaye 16, Kody Colson 14, Keon Long-Mtume 11, Stephon Ashley-Wright 7, Cain Van Norden 7.

Father Judge: Derrick Morton-Rivera 19, Kevair Kennedy 19, Nazir Tyler 14, Rocco Westfield 11, Everett Barnes 10, Kevin Beck 10, Max Moshinski 8.

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 BlueSky here.