City of Basketball Love

Stephen Pianovich (@SPianovich)
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The last time Archbishop Wood visited Father Judge’s gym, the team had what senior guard Tommy Funk called the team’s “worst game of the season.”

The Vikings gave up 80 points to the Crusaders in what was the middle of a five-game losing streak. Funk and his teammates were not going to have a repeat performance on Wednesday night.

In the opening round of the Catholic League playoffs, Wood jumped on Judge right from the opening tip and led by double-digits for most of the game in a 64-42 victory. The ninth-seeded Vikings’ win, coupled with Bonner-Prendergast’s upset of Conwell Egan, gives Wood a Friday night game with second-seeded Archbishop Carroll, which the team almost beat on the final day of the regular season.

“They blew us out in the first half and we couldn’t come back,” said Funk, recalling the prior meeting against Judge, which came nearly a month ago. “We came out just wanting to blow their doors off. We came out in attack mode and wanting to get easy shots to start. We got layups and that opened up our 3-point shots, so we started knocking them down. And we played good defense all night.”

Funk, who finished with a game-best 21 points, was the one leading that early, door-blowing-off charge. He scored nine points in the first quarter, relentlessly attacking the rim and had a few other assists to help the Vikings go up 16-2 in the first six minutes.

The early run aided Wood to a 12-point lead after the first quarter, and that advantage was never truly in jeopardy during the final 24 minutes.

“We didn’t play well the first time,” Wood head coach John Mosco said. “We were in disarray, going through that losing streak. I told them, we don’t get too many times to get a second chance, and we took advantage of it. We played hard and we played for as close to 32 minutes as we played all year.”

The eighth-seeded Crusaders caught the Vikings at two very different times in the season. The Vikings lost five consecutive PCL games last month, falling way down the league’s standings and almost out of the playoff picture. But regardless of being the No. 9 seed, Wood can be a dangerous team and proved that Wednesday.

Funk got a majority of his points by driving and rarely missed, scoring his 21 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the floor. The Vikings also got 14 points from sophomore guard Tyree Pickron -- who hit three 3-pointers and grabbed seven rebounds – and another 10 points and six boards from Collin Gillespie.

But the Vikings also got a great defensive effort, that also started right away as they forced Judge to miss seven of its first eight shots. The Crusaders, who were led by Marc Rodriguez’ 14 points, ended up shooting just 35.6 percent (16-for-45) from the floor and did not score more than 12 points in any quarter.

Wood certainly did not look like a team that allowed 80 points to the same opponent four weeks ago.

“We didn’t defend at all,” Mosco said of the first meeting. “We were all flat footed, we stood around and we thought we were going to score 90 and beat them. “…(Today) we just tried to defend the 3-point line and close out on the shooters.”

Bonner comes back against CEC, will face Neumann-Goretti

As Mosco and Wood finished up interviews with reporters following the game, the rest of the Vikings were huddled in the locker room, keeping tabs of the Bonner Prendergast-Conwell Egan game on social media.

As the Friars made a furious comeback and got a game-winning layup from Christian Lane with 10 seconds left, there were a few cheers in the Wood locker room, as the Vikings will avoid top-seeded Neumann-Goretti in the quarterfinals.

Instead, the red-hot Firars, who have won four games in a row (and needed each one), will face the undefeated Saints on Friday night. Meanwhile, Wood will play at Carroll. It will be the second Wood-Carroll matchup of the week, as the Patriots beat the Vikings, 67-65 on Sunday.