City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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WARMINSTER — Dylan Powell’s arrival came with a punctuation mark. 

The Archbishop Wood sophomore had the best game of his high school years on Monday night, scoring a career-best 24 points in leading Archbishop Wood to a come-from-behind, 70-67 win over Neumann-Goretti in a battle of two of the best teams in the Catholic League. 

And he didn’t do it quietly. 

Powell’s coast-to-coast, throwdown dunk near the start of the fourth quarter wasn’t the go-ahead bucket, or the game-winner. But with Wood down double-digits for most of the game, it was the spark the Vikings needed to ignite a fourth-quarter rally and walk out of Kelly Gymnasium feeling good about themselves.

“I taught him that,” Wood coach John Mosco said with a laugh.

“[I was] just trying to get us some momentum,” Powell said. “We were down the whole game, couldn’t get a stop, I feel like that gave us what we needed to win the game.”

The dunk alone certainly didn’t. But Powell’s second-half performance was a major reason why the Vikings improved to 10-5 overall and 6-1 in Catholic League play, taking down the PCL leaders in doing so.

The 6-foot-2 guard made all seven of his shots and four clutch free-throws in the second half as Wood overcame a deficit that was as large as 15 in the second quarter, 13 in the third and 11 entering the fourth to win in thrilling fashion. To do so, they turned the ball over just twice in the second half (seven overall), and shot 14-of-19 from the floor between the third and fourth quarters.

Powell’s dunk, a thunderous slam which came from momentum he built going coast-to-coast — seriously, just watch the video above, with a great call from Bob Long — only cut the gap to nine with six minutes to play. His corner 3-pointer less than a minute later made it a five-point game, and the gym’s noise meter went up another tick. 

Two more Powell driving layups cut Wood’s deficit to three, with 3:45 to play, and two with 2:50 to play. A pair of free throws the next trip down the court from the first-year starter tied it at 62, the first time the teams had been even since it was 5-5 early in the first quarter. 

“I just took over,” he said. “I don’t know, I just had it going tonight.”

“With sophomores you’re going to have ups and downs,” Mosco said. “Sometimes in the beginning I think it showed, like in the early stages [of the game], then he got confident that he could play with Neumann-Goretti guards and he just took it to them.”

Neumann-Goretti immediately responded to the tie, getting a 3-pointer from senior guard Kody Colson to go back on top. But that was their last bucket. Wood responded with a hoop and harm from junior guard Malachi Warren; Warren missed the foul shot, but immediately came up with a steal at the other end and got fouled, sinking both to put Wood up 66-65 with 1:16 remaining. 

Warren finished with nine points and two rebounds off the bench, including six points in the fourth quarter as the 6-3 wing helped the Vikings pull off the comeback.

“The intensity was high,” Warren told CoBL. “I think it was Dylan’s dunk, really gave us a lot of momentum. We couldn’t hear anything, the stands were going crazy, everything was crazy.”

Malachi Warren (14) puts up a shot during the first half of Wood's win. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Powell’s last points came one possession later, two more free throws that made it a 68-65 game with 32.5 seconds remaining. The Saints responded with two free throws of their own to get it back to a one-point game, but came up empty on a drive after junior guard Caleb Lundy split a pair at the line; Lundy split another pair with 12.1 seconds left to get the margin to three before Neumann-Goretti threw the ball out-of-bounds with fewer than three seconds left. 

The Saints weren’t able to foul the Vikings on the ensuing inbounds pass, and the Wood students poured onto the court to celebrate at the buzzer.

“We had a lot of defensive breakdowns,” Neumann-Goretti coach Carl Arrigale said. “I could have helped them a little bit more, I’m sure. We were down a guy that could help us close the game out, and we just made some mistakes. We kinda took our foot off the gas a little too soon, it wasn’t really by design, but it just was really uncharacteristic to play a fourth quarter like that, and we’ve just got to bounce back from.”

Neumann-Goretti (12-2, 5-1) got a 27-point performance from junior guard Marquis Newson, the 6-5 Division I prospect going 11-of-15 from the floor (1-3 3PT) and 4-8 from the foul line. Colson and senior forward Alassan N’Diaye, an East Stroudsburg commit, each contributed 11 points.

Marquis Newson (10) led Neumann-Goretti with 27 points. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

The Saints were without senior point guard Stephon Ashley-Wright, who sat on the bench in his jersey and sweatpants. Arrigale declined to give a reason, saying “it’s between him and I.”

Sophomore guard E.J. Stanton got the start in Ashley-Wright’s stead, hitting jumpers to end the first, second and third quarters as he contributed nine points, five rebounds and three assists. 

Arrigale, who has had one of the most decorated runs of any coach in Catholic League or state history, winning 10 PIAA championships and 12 PCL titles, wasn’t too worried about his team’s first league loss of the year. The Saints will have to get used to playing on the road, closing with six of eight away from South Philadelphia, starting with Wood; they’re at O’Hara (2-5 PCL) on Friday and La Salle (3-4) on Sunday. 

“We’ve got a lot of basketball in front of us — we can still control our own destiny, basically,” he said. “I’ve coached a lot of games, and we’ve just got to keep these guys hungry and we’ll get them back to where we were.”

Wood, riding a five-game PCL winning streak, hosts West Catholic (4-3) on Friday with a trip to Devon Prep (1-6) on Sunday. The Vikings play five of their last seven at home, starting with the Saints, and already have wins over Father Judge and Roman Catholic under their belts. 

Powell’s development is massive for a program that already counted heavily on Lundy and senior wing Brady MacAdams on the offensive end, with junior center Jaydn Jenkins a game-changer at both ends. 

MacAdams led the way offensively for Wood in the first half, scoring 14 of his 16 points before intermission, adding six rebounds and two assists. Lundy scored 15 points and contributed seven rebounds, five assists, two steals and two blocks. Jenkins, who missed Wood’s last game with a finger injury, played with two fingers on his left (non-shooting) hand taped together; he finished with four points, six rebounds and three blocks. 

Having Powell as another big-time weapon only gives opposing defenses yet another problem to worry about. 

“They all trust him,” Mosco said. “and they’re at the point now, they’re growing as a team, they don’t care who gets it, as long as we get the ‘W.’”

By Quarter
NG: 19  |  18  |  21  |   9   ||  67
AW: 13  |  15  |  19  |  23  ||  70

Shooting
NG: 25-58 FG (6-20 3PT), 11-16 FT
AW: 21-41 FG (4-12 3PT), 18-26 FT

Scoring
NG: Marquis Newson 27, Kody Colson 11, Alassan N’Diaye 11, DeShawn Yates 9, EJ Stanton 9

AW: Dylan Powell 24, Brady MacAdams 16, Caleb Lundy 15, Malachi Warren 9, Jaydn Jenkins 4, Brian Donahue 2