City of Basketball Love

By Dan Arkans (@danarkans)
--

To say the West Catholic boys basketball team is feeling prepared for a trip to the Giant Center on Saturday against District 7 champ South Allegheny with a PIAA 3A title on the line is the understatement of the season.

The Burrs began the season hitting the road for six of their first seven contests. That included a trip to USciences, Cardinal O’Hara, Cristo Rey, Boys Latin (MD) and Archbishop Ryan. There, they took on teams from New York, Virginia, Maryland and DC. The only Pennsylvania squads in the first seven were Audenried and Reading, their only victories.

That was all before even taking part in the ultra-competitive Catholic League where the Burrs finished one game short of the PCL semifinals.

“This experience is super super beneficial for the young guys if they played a minute or didn’t play at all,” said WC head coach Miguel Bocachica, moments after a 58-57 win over Holy Cross in the semifinals last Saturday. “Just being here and going through it will pay off moving forward. Everything we do is about being successful in the Catholic League. If we can be successful in the Catholic League we can be successful in non league and then we can be successful in states. Our non-league prepares us for the Catholic League and obviously after a gauntlet in the Catholic League we are prepared to play in the PIAA.” 

The fact that West Catholic is still playing may be a surprise to most, which saw the Burrs’ record at 10-13 entering the postseason with a young group. West Catholic though saw a shot to restart its season after a 63-55 loss to Devon Prep in the PCL quarterfinals on February 13th.

The Burrs did reset their season once the PIAA playoffs began, first defeating Audenreid 65-46 in the District 12 championship game. The playoffs continued to look like a breeze with wins over Antietam (79-35), Warrior Run (51-38) and Riverside (75-63) in the first three rounds. 

“That Devon Prep loss sucked but it hurt them in the right way,” Bocachica said. “They came out of it motivated and wanting something at the end of this. The seniors really want to go out on top. It’s a very underrated senior group and they are very selfless. I start four sophomores and a junior, bring three seniors off the bench. No one had a problem with it. I am proud of them for being selfless.”

The seniors may not start, but senior guard Naseem Perez was a big difference maker in the win over Holy Cross on Saturday. Perez scored all nine of his points to help erase a six-point deficit in the fourth quarter and he inbounded the game-winning 3-pointer to sophomore guard Jayvon Byrd.

“I am proud of all my young guys who showed up off the bench,” Perez said. “We got some young guys that can ball over here at West Catholic and we are just hungry. Never a day in my mind where I didn’t think those guys were ready. We practice hard, we go through adversity, we fight, that’s just us, it’s West Catholic.”

The younger starting lineup does feature a lot of athletic guards in sophs Byrd, Ya’Sai Rozier, Eric Scott and Xavier Fauntroy. Defending the paint and finishing in the post will be 6-foot-7 junior center Kingston Wheatley.  

West Catholic though will turn to its bench extremely quickly with senior Saaid Lee, sophomore Rahmir Speaks and seniors Perez and Jaden Banner all likely to see time.

“We will be prepared to play,” Bocachica said. “Every game will have a tough challenge. There’s not a stage they haven’t been against it, not a player they haven’t faced. We’ve been down in a game, we’ve been up, we’ve faced adversity, it’s about accepting the challenge and attacking it.”

While West Catholic enters the game with a deceiving 15-13 record, South Allegheny might be ones considering themselves the underdogs after making the state finals for the first time in history.

In fact it’s been a historic season for the Gladiators after winning their first District 7 title over Aliquippa and then knocking them off again on Saturday in the state semifinals.

“I would like to say going into districts we were considered the underdogs,” South Allegheny head coach Tony DiCenzo said. “After beating them and playing them I wouldn’t say we were as much underdogs. Still, they are a perennial powerhouse. We were probably picked to lose the game by a majority of people.”

Just like the Burrs, South Allegheny is a guard-heavy lineup led by junior Drew Cook, senior Cam Epps and senior Josh Jackowski. Cook, Epps and Jackowski in fact average 54 points per game between the three. The 6-foot-4 Camden Lewis and 6-4 Jake Uher provide strength inside.

The difference is South Allegheny will be more deliberate on offense, making for a contrast of styles once again for West Catholic.

“We run a lot of set plays,” DiCenzo said. “I hate to say we are depending on three-pointers, if they are shooting well we are really efficient, opening everything else up. We try to get shots on our offensive sets.”

One other big difference aside from pace of play will be preparation. While South Allegheny will have light conditioning for a few days before digging into the gameplan, the Burrs were right back at work on Monday.

“Practice is huge for us,” Bocachica said. “We try to make sure practice is harder than the game. Our last game was a perfect example of that. I will try to be careful, so we are fresh. It will be business as usual, prepare and take it day by day.” 

~~~

CoBL-Area PIAA Championship Previews

Boys 1A: Thursday, 2:00 PM
Sankofa Freedom (12-1) vs. Neighborhood Academy (7-1) 

Boys 4A: Thursday, 8:00 PM
Devon Prep (12-1) vs. Berks Catholic (3-1)

Girls 6A: Friday, 6:00 PM
Perkiomen Valley (1-1) vs. Upper St. Clair (7-1)

Boys 5A: Friday, 8:00 PM
Neumann-Goretti (12-1) vs. Hershey (3-1) 

Girls 4A: Saturday, 12:00 PM
Neumann-Goretti (12-2) vs. Lansdale Catholic (12-3)

Boys 3A: Saturday, 2:00 PM
West Catholic (12-1) vs. South Allegheny (7-1)

Girls 5A: Saturday, 6:00 PM
Archbishop Wood (12-1) vs. South Fayette (7-2)

Boys 6A: Thursday, 8:00 PM
Father Judge (12-2) vs. Roman Catholic (12-3)

~~~