City of Basketball Love

Stephen Pianovich (@SPianovich)
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Ryan Daly came about just as close as you can to having a perfect first quarter.

The Archbishop Carroll senior, and leading scorer this season in the Catholic League, started out a perfect 6-for-6 from the field, including three made 3-pointers, and had 18 points in the first seven minutes and 59 seconds. He got a rebound and fired an off-balanced shot at the first quarter buzzer that hit the rim, his only missed field goal of the quarter.

Like Daly’s brilliant initial eight minutes, not much went wrong for the Patriots as they opened their quest to win an elusive PIAA Class AAA state title with a 76-27 drubbing of Holy Ghost Prep in the first round of the state tournament at Cheltenham.

“I shot well in warmups, which is nice. I got into a bit of a flow,” said Daly, who ended with a game-best 23 points. “Luckily it transferred over into the first quarter and it gave us the lead to pull away.”

Behind Daly’s strong showing and an aggressive defense that resulted in dozens of Holy Ghost turnovers, Carroll was able to cruise into halftime with a lopsided, 48-9 lead. The Patriots, who beat Imhotep to be the District 12 No. 3 seed in their only game in the last two weeks, shot 15-for-26 (57.7 percent) in the first half and made eight of their 14 3-point attempts.

“If we’re sharing the basketball, we’re a good perimeter team. The Daly brothers can shoot the basketball, John Rigsby can knock down shots,” Carroll coach Paul Romanczuk said. “And Josh (Sharkey) is just so good at getting them such clean shots. …We’ve had some raggedy practices and a scrimmage that wasn’t so great. So I was concerned coming in, but they dispelled that concern pretty quickly.”

The first half rout was aided by Rigsby, a fellow senior, who poured in 21 points – 14 of which came in the first half. Sharkey, the teams’ point guard, added nine points and dished out three assists. And with the mercy rule in place three minutes into the third quarter, Carroll’s starters sat on the bench for a majority of the second half.

Carroll is hoping to make a return trip to the state finals, where the program went last year with some faces who went off to play Division I basketball in Derrick Jones and Ernest Aflakpui. And while some different faces are producing for the Patriots for this run, there is no shortage of experience on Romanczuk’s bench.

“We’ve got three senior guards that have done it time and time again,” the coach said. “Two of them have played since they were sophomores. You can’t overstate enough the value of experience, especially at this time of year. When they’re clicking and playing unselfishly, they’re hard to stop.”

John McCrane hit a trio of 3-pointers to lead the Firebirds with nine points. Senior and leading scorer Jack Coolahan had six for Holy Ghost, the District 1 champs who ended the season 18-8.

Carroll, meanwhile, improved to 23-3 and will face Harrisburg’s Bishop McDevitt, the District 3 champ and a winner over Sailsbury Township on Friday, on Tuesday.

 “Once again we go to playing a District champ,” Romanczuk said. “We just played the District 1 champ, now we’re playing the District 3 champ. That’s what you’re going to run into this time of year.”

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Friday's AAA State Tournament results
Delaware Valley Charter 70, Gettysburg 62
Lampeter-Strasburg 56, Berwick 37
Imhotep Charter 77, Eastern York 45
Lewisburg 72, Blue Mountain 58
Scranton Prep 51, Shamokin 44
Neumann-Goretti 69, Eastern Lebanon County 48
Lower Moreland 67, Milton Hershey 56
Pottsville 43, West Scranton 25
Harrisburg Bishop McDevitt 75, Salisbury Twp. 48
Archbishop Carroll 76, Holy Ghost Prep 27
New Castle 82, Meadville 61
Beaver Falls 57, Steel Valley 54
Highlands 46, Girard 44
Hollidaysburg 75, West Mifflin 53
Mars 68, Clearfield 60
Erie Strong Vincent 71, Hampton 51

SECOND ROUND
Tuesday, March 8 (sites/times, TBA)
Delaware Valley Charter (12-1, 25-4) vs. Lampeter-Strasburg (3-4, 24-4)
Imhotep Charter (12-4, 22-5) vs. Lewisburg (4-1, 26-2)
Scranton Prep (2-1, 25-2) vs. Neumann-Goretti (12-2, 23-4)|
Lower Moreland (1-2, 21-6) vs. Pottsville (11-1, 28-0)
Harrisburg Bishop McDevitt (3-1, 21-6) vs. Archbishop Carroll (12-3, 23-3)
New Castle (7-4, 24-2) vs. Beaver Falls (7-1, 24-3)
Highlands (7-2, 22-5) vs. Hollidaysburg (6-1, 21-4)
Mars (7-3, 20-6) vs. Erie Strong Vincent (10-1, 19-7)

QUARTERFINALS
Friday, March 11

SEMIFINALS
Tuesday, March 15

CHAMPIONSHIP
Friday, March 18
At Giant Center, Hershey, 8 p.m.