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Roman holds off furious La Salle rally, reaches PCL final

02/20/2014, 11:00pm EST

By Jeff Neiburg

Jeff Neiburg (@Jeff_Neiburg)
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Shep Garner said that they were never rattled. Chris McNesby said they might have been a little gassed.

Either way, they’ll live to fight another day.

No. 1 Roman Catholic watched its 39-24 end of third quarter lead almost evaporate in front of its eyes, but the Cahillites staved off the upset bid of No. 4 La Salle – winning 52-45 at the Palestra on Wednesday night.

Roman moves on to the Catholic League championship game against Neumann-Goretti on Monday night back at the Palestra.

A 3-pointer from La Salle senior guard Sean Greenberg, who scored eight of his 11 points in the fourth quarter, capped off a 16-5 run from the Explorers to open the fourth – and prompted McNesby to call a timeout. It was Greenberg’s second triple in one minute of game time and the score was suddenly 44-40 with 3:42 to play.

Two minutes later, another three from junior guard Najee Walls got the Explorers to within three, 46-43.

But it was the composed free throw shooting of Garner, junior forward Gemil Holbrook, sophomore guard Tony Carr and senior guard Rashann London down the stretch that preserved the win. The four knocked down all eight of their eight attempts in the final 1:33.

“We’ve been through a lot of battles this year,” Garner said. “We’ve won a lot of games in the last minute, two minutes, just not giving up and making our free throws.”

The game appeared to be over after 24 minutes. La Salle was shooting just 21 percent and made only one shot from the floor in the third quarter – a layup from junior forward Dave Krmpotich with 1:01 left in the third quarter.

But it was Krmpotich and Greenberg who fueled the comeback, scoring 14 of La Salle’s 21 fourth quarter points.

Krmpotich fouled out with 1:33 remaining, finishing with a game high 15 points, nine rebounds and three blocks. This after starting 0 of 5 from the field and just 2-for-8 by halftime.

Greenberg was just 1 of 5 from the floor before knocking down all three of his attempts in the fourth.

“I’m super proud,” La Salle coach Joe Dempsey said of the comeback. “It could have blown up. We could have held our head and we didn’t. We buckled down, we hit some shots and went after the rim. That built confidence, we didn’t have confidence for a good three quarters.”

It was hard for the Explorers to build any confidence, especially after shooting 1-for-10 in the first quarter, allowing Roman to build a 10-2 lead.

The balanced Roman attack created plenty of problems, even without the services of junior big man TreVaughn Wilkerson, who missed the game with a right ankle injury.

The attack was led by Carr’s 13 points. Holbrook added 10 points and five rebounds while Garner posted a solid line of eight points, six rebounds, three steals and two assists. London also chipped in eight points and two assists.

Without Wilkerson, junior forward Manny Taylor stepped up and provided a strong anchor in the post, scoring 10 points while pulling in six rebounds – four on the offensive glass.

“Those two are like brothers,” McNesby said of Taylor and Wilkerson. “Tre’ was yelling at him on the court and getting him pumped up. Manny is just an inside force and a big presence.”

Also seeing an expanded role in Wilkerson’s absence was senior forward Carnell McGirt, who scored just one point but collected six rebounds and added three blocks.

La Salle senior forward Jalen Herdsman joined Krmpotich and Greenberg in double figures with 11 points while grabbing three rebounds.

The next task is knocking off five-time defending champions, No. 2 Neumann-Goretti, who dispatched No. 3 Archbishop Carroll, 67-62 in Monday’s night cap.

The Cahillites took care of the Saints, 71-64 back on Jan. 23.

“We want to win that next game,” McNesby said. “I think they felt like in the locker room that we could have played better down the stretch. There’s that little emptiness that we didn’t play a complete game. We’ve got work to do.”

“At this point, as a senior, it’s whatever it takes,” Garner said on the prospects of knocking off Neumann. “With Tre down, we’ve got to overcome that too. To get this ring, this championship we have to do it. Whatever that means, diving on the floor, getting loose balls, getting elbowed, whatever. Whatever it takes, we got to do it.”