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Roman shuts down King for first state title

03/22/2015, 7:45pm EDT

By Jeff McDevitt

Jeff McDevitt (@JeffMcDev)
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It’s not the recommended strategy, but for Roman Catholic in the state playoffs, it worked.

In the Cahillites first four games, they entered as the favorites, but allowed the other team to hang around and threaten them before pulling away late.

The process was the same Saturday night at the Giant Center in the AAAA state title game. Fellow District 12 foe Martin Luther King hung around, trailing by just one at halftime.

In the second half, Roman Catholic played the type of defense that makes them the best team in the state, holding King to 16 second-half points in a 62-45 win, securing the school’s first state championship and capping off one heck of a season.

“It’s not always a great thing but it seems to work. It’s not a formula you would think you would want, but when you have the guys we have, they all seem to step up at different times when you need them,” Roman head coach Chris McNesby said.

“I told everyone before the year even started, we are the best team. Tony Carr and I are the best backcourt, and we are going to win everything. We called it the ‘drive for five.’ We had tournaments in New York and D.C. which we won, and then the PCL, the city and now the state,” excited and animated Cahillite wing Nazeer Bostick said.

The third quarter was when Roman put this game away. The teams essentially played to a stale mate in the first half, with Sammy Foreman’s near-impossible triple at the halftime buzzer making it a one-point game.

The 4-for-34 shooting from King in the second half was a direct result of Roman’s long and athletic guards completely locking down King’s playmakers, and the Cougars were never comfortable again.

“We just wanted to lock down on defense. Once we lock down it opens our offense up. Nazeer Bostick and D’Andre Vilmar set the tone and showed that they are premier players and we just fed off that,” Carr, who sported gold headphones to match his medal, said.

A 15-4 run that lasted into the fourth quarter completely sucked the life out of King’s talented attack, and back-to-back threes from Rider commit Gemil Holbrook sparked it.

“Those were tough shots, there were guys right in his chest as he was rising up. Luckily he made them,” McNesby said.

“It feels good to help my team do something they’ve never done before. It feels good to chip in as a teammate and not let my teammates down,” Holbrook, who the Cahillites with 18 points, said.

While the Roman attack slowed in the first half, it’s steady leader, junior point guard Tony Carr, did his best to right the ship. Carr is not the type to blow away a first-time viewer with a big dunk or a 35-point game, but his feel for the game and seeming inability to make a mistake are his unmatched traits. Carr finished with 14 points on 4-5 shooting, six rebounds and five assists, but it was when he scored them that his coaches found to be most important.

“There were some spots early where Nazeer was struggling, Gemil was struggling and Tone is not a scoring point guard but he knew he had to get to the basket or make a three and do the things to keep us going before the other guys got going,” McNesby said.

For King, senior Foreman led the way with 20 points and a game-high seven rebounds. Tyheem Harmon joined him in double figures with 10. It was clear King’s guards were bothered by the length of Roman’s defenders, as the Cougars finished 15-for-55 from the field. King played Roman to a 58-57 nail-biter in the AAAA city title game back on February 28th, and won each of its state playoff games by double digits before tonight. They were a better team all year than they showed tonight, and have the talent to make another run next year.

With that said, the gold ball is going back to Broad and Vine to join Roman’s record 29 Catholic League titles. It’s the first time a District XII team has won the AAAA title, in a classification that has been dominated by the Chester’s and Schenley’s. It was clear how much this meant to the Roman Catholic community, as fans from all over the Philadelphia area packed buses to travel up to Hershey for the opportunity to see the Cahillites take home gold.

“I played in the program and now I’m a coach, so for me it’s for the alums and the guys that played before. For me, it’s getting that for the school and the tradition. Shep Garner was here, Marvin Harrison, Mike Watson, Al Watkins,” McNesby said.

“Roman is a great school with good students and good teachers. Everybody down to the janitors are great. We wanted to do this for everybody,” Bostick said.

An onlooker couldn’t help but look at Roman’s lineup and not think about next year as soon as the buzzer sounded. Gone are Holbrook to Rider, Manny Taylor to Rutgers for football, and TreVaughn Wilkerson to Hartford. That leaves Carr, Bostick, 6-8 big man Paul Newman, Vilmar and several others with eligibility to make another run at ‘the drive for five.’

“Next year, you all will be looking at us here like it’s déjà vu. The same thing over again,” Carr said.