skip navigation

Current Section

Taylor's energy sparks Roman in win over Carroll

02/19/2015, 10:30pm EST
By Aron Minkoff

ARTICLE/VIDEO GOES HERE

Recruiting News:

View All |

HS Coverage:

View All |

Aron Minkoff (@AronMinkoff)
–

With Roman Catholic’s back against the wall, it was senior Manny Taylor’s turn to step up and play what might have been his best game of the season.

The 6-foot-6 Rutgers football commit saved his best basketball for the Catholic League’s biggest stage, the Palestra, as his Cahillites triumphed past Archbishop Carroll to advance to the finals of the PCL playoffs.

Carroll led for the first three quarters and did not surrender the lead until Taylor grabbed an offensive rebound and tied the game at 44 the 6:07 mark of the fourth quarter. From there it was the outstanding defense of Taylor that inspired to the Cahillites to a 61-58 victory.

Taylor recorded 10 points, seven of which came in the second half, and nine rebounds. The nine rebounds that he collected are good enough for a season-high, but what isn’t shown in Taylor’s stat-line is evident in Carroll senior sensation Derrick Jones‘.

The UNLV-bound forward torched the Roman defense for 11 points in the first half and finished with 21 points overall, but failed to connect on any of his five field goal attempts in the fourth quarter.

“Derrick Jones, that’s my man,” Taylor said.  “He’s a good player, all around, a D-1 athlete. He brought it his senior year. I mean, I’m proud of him the whole way. But I let him know, ‘Man, you’re not beating us this time’”

Taylor, who started in place of the injured TreVaughn Wilkerson at the beginning of the season, lost his starting spot to junior Paul Newman. That did not deter Taylor, who persevered through all of that to play his best basketball when it mattered most.

“We asked him to come off the bench this year, and I know that’s hard for a senior,” Roman coachChris McNesby said. “I’m just so proud of him. He didn’t put his head down, I’m sure he wanted to start. But I think he’s also learned how to be a good teammate. He comes off the bench, gives us great spurts. I think the way he just lifted us. Keeping balls alive, his size, his body making energy plays, that’s huge for us.”

In fact, Taylor spelled out Newman early in the first half and recorded the only Cahillites field goal of the first quarter, a putback layup with 4:45 to go in the first quarter as Roman struggled mightily all quarter. For as bad the Cahillites appeared to be in a first half in which they only connected on eight of their 30 field goal attempts, they still went into halftime trailing by only three.

“I was thinking, you know being down low in the post, rebounding, scoring, getting stops, that’s all personal for me,” Taylor said. “That’s just big vs. big, who’s stronger, who’s the bigger man, who’s better, basically. So I took that personally. Derrick Jones was getting tip dunks. And I told my team, ‘This is a man’s game. And they’re men out there. So we gotta step up and play the same.”

When Taylor came out in the second half it was clear there was an attitude change. Jones had been scoring at will against Roman but as Taylor said, he took that personally and stopped what could have been a legendary Palestra performance. He used every bit of his 280 pound frame to box-out and conquer the paint.

The discrepancy in size was apparent as Carroll could not score in the paint as successfully as it had been in the first half.

“We don’t have a 290-pound football player to throw up against him,” Carroll coachPaul Romanczuk said. “He’s not just a football player out there. He’s a basketball player who knows where to be when the shot goes up. He used his size and his strength…He’s a talented basketball player.”

Taylor and Roman have a tall order ahead of them on Monday in the PCL championship game as they look to dethrone six-time defending champions Neumann-Goretti.

“Man, we have been preparing for this all year,” Taylor said. “This moment right here, to get back to the championship. We knew that we were a good team. And our goal wasn’t to get to the Palestra, it was to win at the Palestra. We saw this coming a mile away.”

Recruiting News:

View All |

HS Coverage:

View All |

Tag(s): Home  Old HS  Catholic League  Archives  Aron Minkoff