City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)

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PHILADELPHIA, PA — Derrick Morton-Rivera is feeling closer to where he wants to be—himself. Father Judge’s Temple-bound 6-foot-3 shooting guard missed the first five games of the season with a sprained left ankle and then suffered a strained back when he fell hard to the court against Bonner-Prendie a few weeks ago.

In the Crusaders’ buzzer-beating 69-68 victory over Roman Catholic on Friday, Morton-Rivera could barely move—and he still dropped 19 points. He was sore again Monday night and still managed to score a game-high 18 points in Judge’s fourth-straight Catholic League victory, 71-36, over visiting Cardinal O’Hara.

Morton-Rivera scored 13 of his 18 in the first half, nailing that silky, smooth jumper of his, and playing an all-around game with three steals, four rebounds and two blocked shots. What is scary is he says he is only playing at around 80-percent right now.

At halftime against O’Hara, Morton-Rivera could not sit.

“It’s a little frustrating, playing through pain and different injuries, but I accept that is part of the game,” Morton-Rivera said. “I’m not happy with where I am, because I know I could play better. I feel we playing better as a team and I’m playing through everything. I’m with a trainer every day and I think I’ll be back 100-percent soon.”

Rivera-Morton was supposed to be out eight-to-12 weeks after the ankle injury and was playing after four weeks.

The shooting slim reaper is closing in on an all-time Father Judge milestone. The 18 points on Monday night gives him a career total 1,235 points, just 26 points away from snapping Judge’s all-time career scoring mark of 1,260 held by Marc Rodriguez, a 2017 Judge grad who is on the Crusaders’ coaching staff.

Morton-Rivera is aware of it. He’s willing to chip away and be patient. More importantly, he likes how his team is currently playing and continues to improve after losing two of its first three Catholic League games.

“I’m focused on winning,” he said. “We are getting everyone’s best. We expected that. We went from being the hunters to the hunted. I’m feeling better, icing and stretching. My endurance is improving. The Roman game helped us a lot, carrying into this game.”  

Judge coach Chris Roantree knows how tough his star player is. Morton-Rivera has not received a break this season.

“Derrick moved a lot better than he did on Friday night and he’s fighting through it,” Roantree said. “What we’re seeing is that Derrick is getting his shot and finding his rhythm. He wasn’t shooting it very well when he came back initially from the ankle. It is all coming back to him now. He is missing a little bit of his explosiveness, that ability to get downhill.

“With the ankle healed, you see him moving better. But tonight you saw on the fastbreak he laid it up when he usually tomahawking it. Once he gets the explosiveness back, we’re looking for him to be 100-percent healthy.”

Roantree felt his team was turning a corner after the Bonner-Prendie loss. Health had a lot to do with it. With River-Morton down early in the season, it gave Roantree a chance to see what else he had to work with this season.

Jeremiah Adedeji has emerged in a greater role, and the 6-foot-7 junior has shown sustained flashes of what he could do, dropping a game-high 22 in the Bonner-Prendie loss and 16 in the Roman victory.

“Our depth is beginning to show and guys are really fitting into roles, and it has been a lot of different guys every night,” Roantree said. “We had Naz (Tyler) score the ball well tonight, and Rocco (Westfield, who hit the buzzer-beater against Roman) the other night. When we get going and making shots, we’re really hard to cover.”

The Crusaders certainly were against O’Hara, which upset Archbishop Wood earlier this season. Judge never trailed, getting out to a 9-0 lead, and by halftime were up, 41-16. The Crusaders hit 16 of 31 shots while turning the ball over just once. The Crusaders hit the 36-point mark with 48 seconds left in the first half.

It was a Morton-Rivera three-pointer—and his last points of the game before Roantree pulled him—that put the game into mercy rule, 56-24, with 3:34 left in the third quarter. It concluded a 9-0 Judge run, and prompted Roantree to pull his starters. The remaining quarter-and-a-half was a junior varsity game.

Morton-Rivera led all scorers with 18, followed by Tyler’s 16, and six each from Adedeji 6, Westfield, Max Moshinski and Ahmir Brown.

O’Hara received some spark from junior Kaleb Hargrove and freshman Drew Baskerville, who each scored a team-high 12 points.

“There’s nothing good to talk about,” O’Hara coach Ryan Krawczeniuk said. “Kaleb and Drew played well. They shot the ball well.”

By Quarter

Cardinal O’Hara (7-8, 2-5 Catholic League):  6  | 10  |  14  |  6 ||  36

Father Judge (8-8, 5-2 Catholic League):  16  | 25  |  23  | 7 || 71

Scoring

Cardinal O’Hara: Kaleb Hargrove 12, Drew Baskerville 12, DJ Jones 6, Toby Hartman 4, Dylan Jones 2.

Father Judge: Derrick Morton-Rivera 18, Nazir Tyler 16, Jeremiah Adedeji 6, Rocco Westfield 6, Max Moshinski 6, Ahmir Brown 6, Khory Copeland 4, Rah’Kiy Mason 4, Nick Lilly 3, Rezon Harris 2.

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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.