City of Basketball Love

Stephen Pianovich (@SPianovich)
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Rosemont and Cabrini entered Wednesday night’s CSAC tilt trending in opposite directions.

Cabrini, which was at home, had five consecutive wins, while Rosemont had come up short in five straight tries. But there were caveats to each streak that helped Rosemont leave Nerney Field House with a victory.

The Cavaliers were playing their fifth game in nine days, and that showed early. On the other hand, the Ravens had coughed up some second half leads during their skid, and those lessons were fresh on their minds. With both factors playing a role, Rosemont downed Cabrini, 98-95.

It was Rosemont’s first win since Dec. 9 and it came on the home court of the program that has won the last two CSAC regular season titles.

“I don’t care what the records are, I don’t care what the standings are, the CSAC goes through Cabrini,” Rosemont coach Barney Hughes said. “They have been the preeminent team in the league since it started. So to come in and be able to win on the road here with the talent they have is a great effort. And we needed it. We hadn’t won in a month and we had a few games where we played great and just couldn’t hold on.”

Rosemont jumped on a weary Cabrini side early, scoring the game’s first seven points and then blowing up that lead to 28-11 a little more than 12 minutes into the game. Cabrini had been going through a cycle of game nights, nights off since Jan. 5, and coach Tim McDonald said it was evident with his team’s start.

“Obviously it (caught up to us). I didn’t think it was going to because yesterday we had a good practice, we had a shootaround, walk through this morning with a lot of energy,” he said. “We’ve managed guys at practice since we’ve had so many games. It obviously took its toll tonight.”

The Cavaliers (7-6, 5-2 CSAC) did make a game out of it, however. It started with a 23-10 run near the end of the half to cut the deficit to four points before Rosemont (6-8, 4-3) jogged to the locker room with a 44-36 lead.

“We thought if we could make them jump shooters for a day, we could have some success,” Hughes said of Rosemont’s early defensive success. “Obviously they had some stretches where they were incredible with their jump shots. But at the end of the day, we did a decent job of doing what we wanted to do.”

One of those stretches Hughes mentioned came early in the second half when Cabrini caught fire. The team made four 3-pointers in less than two minutes – two apiece from Ivan Robinson and Deryl Bagwell – to take its first lead of the game at 54-53 with 16 minutes left.

Rosemont found itself in another second half battle, and this time the Ravens did not get discouraged by letting a lead dissolve.

Neither team had much separation for the next 14 minutes, but Rosemont scored four quick points to take an 87-83 lead with two minutes left. After an empty Cabrini possession, McDonald elected to have his team foul and make the Ravens seal the game at the foul line. They did just that.

Rosemont shot 42 free throws in the game and 14 of them in the final two minutes. They went 33-for-42 (78.6 percent) for the game and 11-for-14 down the stretch. Hughes, who said his team had been streaky from the line this season, credited experienced shooters like Marcus Thomas and Kyle Lafferty for coming up big from the charity stripe.

Thomas had 20 points, while Lafferty had 15 and the duo went a combined 17-for-20 on foul shots. Jamier Hughes led the Ravens with 24 points and went 10-for-15 from the field.

“I think we tried to make too many one-on-one plays in those games,” Hughes said of some of the second-half leads his team let slip. “We didn’t rely on our ability to execute. I think that was the biggest takeaway. We needed to execute the offense without hero basketball, that’s not the way to win tough games, tight games. And tonight was a total team effort.”

For Cabrini, Tyheim Monroe had a monster double-double with 21 points and 18 rebounds, while Bagwell dropped a game-high 25 points. The loss was a blow for Cabrini, which now sits two games behind Gywnedd-Mercy for first place in the conference.

But the team has 10 games left in conference (including two against Gwynedd-Mercy), the most brutal part of its schedule is over and, as McDonald pointed out, the team is only going to get older.

“Our goal is to win the conference, but we just have to grow up a bit more,” the coach said. “We have 13 freshmen and sophomores on the roster. So a lot of them are maturing a little bit, and they’re understanding that every game has to mean something.”