City of Basketball Love

The adjectives that describe Roman Catholic junior point guard Tony Carr are well known by now. Whether you call him mature, clutch, mild-mannered or cool under pressure, Carr has become known as the player you’d want most with the ball in his hands in late game situations in the Philadelphia area.

While all the superlatives are nice, they are nothing if you don’t back it up on the biggest stage, and Carr had that opportunity Friday night at Philadelphia University.

With the Cahillites locked up at 45 in a  Catholic League quarterfinal battle against Archbishop Wood, and an upset loss on senior day seven days back to this same team still fresh on his mind, Carr scored three straight buckets to give Roman a cushion they would only continue to grow in a 64-50 victory over the dangerous Vikings.

Carr finished with a game-high 18 points, six rebounds and six assists. Eleven of Carr’s 18 were scored in the fourth quarter when he took over the contest and advanced the Cahillites to the Palestra once again.

“I don’t think of it as pressure,” Carr said. “I think of it more as responsibility to not let my team down and put my best foot forward to try to win. I saw the game hanging in the balance and I thought I could pick my spots a little bit more and take it to the paint.”

“Coach just told me to take my shots and be confident in myself. He told me to be more aggressive and I thought it would be best for the team if I took those shots.”

What Carr was to the fourth quarter, fellow junior Nazeer Bostick was to the third. Bostick had eight of his 16 in the third frame, playing aggressively and attacking the hoop.  He filled out his double-double with 11 rebounds.  Falling down as many as five in the first half due to Wood’s four three-pointers, Roman got back to basics in the second half.

The score was 29-27 coming out of the break, and Roman made the decision to pound it inside to Bostick and Rutgers football signee Manny Taylor, who had 12. With Catholic League first-teamerLuke Connaghan saddled with foul trouble, Roman was had the size advantage. They needed to go inside and use their toughness, something they did not do last week.

“They played harder than us last week at our place,” Carr said. “They out-rebounded us, they out-toughed us, they out-ran us. They just played harder. Tonight I just thought we brought it, led by our seniors, Manny Taylor and Gemil Holbrook. They were the leaders.”

Nazeer Bostick had a 16-point, 11-rebound double-double for Roman.

As Roman began to rip rebounds and swat away shots, a familiar chant rang out from the Roman Catholic student section: “Broad Street Bull-Lees clap clap clap-clap-clap.”

Carr knows that Catholic League titles aren’t won simply going through the motions.

No, they did not drop the gloves. Dave Schultz was not hip-checking anyone into the boards. But Roman knew, in order to win a Catholic League title, you have to grind it out and, for lack of a better term, bully your way to a title.

“We have to take that label on as the Broad Street Bullies,” Carr said. “It’s been around for a while and when they chant that, it’s gets that out of us and we just want to attack the rim, grab boards, stuff like that.”

For Wood, freshman Tyree Pickron was impressive in the first half, scoring 10 of his 11 in the opening 16 minutes.  He added seven rebounds. The guard trio ofTommy Funk, Cody Fitzpatrick and Collin Gillespie controlled the tempo in the first half and combined for 30 points. Funk had six boards and four assists as well.

With the win, Roman moves on to play Carroll, who downed Conwell-Egan 47-34. In the other semifinal, Neumann-Goretti will meet LaSalle, who got by St. Joe’s Prep 37-33. While the Cahillites missed out on the top seed by losing to Wood last week, Carr and Co. know that they will have to get by everyone eventually.

“We want to prove to people again that we are the top team in the city. Whether we play Carroll, La Salle, Neumann-Goretti, we know we have to go through everybody that’s in front of us,” Carr said.

As the stereotypical star high school athlete normally is, Carr was greeted with a kiss and a Valentine’s Day rose from the lady he described as his “girlfriend slash wife slash number one fan,” also known as his grandmother, Cheryl.

To the victor, go the spoils.