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Carroll beats Wood (again) to secure return to Palestra

02/17/2018, 2:30am EST
By Josh Verlin

A.J. Hoggard (above) and Archbishop Carroll are headed back to the Palestra. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Before last years, Archbishop Carroll had made it to the Catholic League semifinals (or further) for eight straight seasons, eight consecutive years playing in the Palestra, a building that Patriots head coach Paul Romanczuk called home during his collegiate years at Penn.

So for Carroll’s collective to spend last season watching the semifinals and championships from the bleachers, well, that just didn’t feel right.

“We felt like we owed it to the coaches to get back this year,” sophomore guard A.J. Hoggard said.

In order to get there this year, all it took was for Carroll to finish in the fourth place in perhaps the deepest year the PCL has ever seen, which set up a home game against only the defending league and state 5A classification champs, Archbishop Wood. A Vikings team that was rather motivated, considering they’d lost to the Patriots by 10 on the same exact court just four days prior to their Friday night playoff battle, forcing them to settle for the fifth overall seed.

And midway through the third quarter, Wood was playing with momentum and Carroll looked in trouble. But Hoggard wasn’t about to let that happen.

The talented 6-foot-3 guard poured in 18 of his game-high 23 points over the final two quarters, leading the Patriots to a come-from-behind, 69-62 win.

“We’ve been fighting adversity all year, a lot of people counting us out,” Hoggard said. “It was normal for us to fight back, so that’s what we did, that’s what we’re (used) to.

After Wood surged out of an incredibly tight first half to take a seven-point lead midway through the third, Hoggard had a big role in making sure Carroll didn’t fold. The Division I recruit with high-major offers scored six points to help the Patriots close to within two at the end of the third; then tied it up at 50 with a 3-pointer from the right wing less than two minutes into the fourth.

“I knew we were going to win after I hit that shot,” he said. “It was already in my bag.

“I felt like the second half had to be mine, had to get my team over the hump,” he added. “I wasn’t going out like last year, especially on my home court. I had to do what I had to do to win.”

Carroll senior forward Devon Ferrero helped put the game away with two clutch 3-pointers, the second of which made it 61-53 with 2:30 to play.

Keyon Butler had 17 points and six rebounds for Carroll, which will take on regular-season champs Bonner-Prendergast in the semifinals on Wednesday; Justin Anderson added nine, Ferrero and Luke House eight apiece.

Wood was an uncharacteristic 12-of-21 from the foul line, including nine straight misses at one point between the second and early fourth quarters. They also struggled on the glass, with Butler (7 rebounds/3 offensive), Ferrero (7 rebounds/3 offensive) and sophomore Tairi Ketner (5 rebounds/2 offensive) leading a field day for Carroll, whose players combined for 13 offensive boards.

That sealed the end of the road for a Wood senior class that won more games than any other in Vikings history (73), featuring one player who is the school’s all-time leading scorer (Tyree Pickron), two other Division I commits (Andrew Funk and Karrington Wallace) and a fourth (Seth Pinkney) who will be joining them in that category soon.

Funk finished with 18 points in his final game; he’ll be at Bucknell this fall. Pickron, who will play at Quinnipiac, had eight points and nine rebounds. Junior wing Julius Phillips (13 points) and freshman point guard Rahsool Diggins (10) rounded out the double-figure scorers for the Vikings.

Wood head coach John Mosco was emotional afterwards when talking about a group that he’s largely built his program around over his first five years.

“Every challenge, they answered it,” he said. “It’s not the results that we wanted, but four of them are going on to school, one’s leaving the school the all-time leading scorer...they brought the school a Catholic League championship and state championship. I couldn’t ask for any more.”

The loss also eliminates Wood from a potential state title defense. Only two 5A teams from the Catholic League can advance; Bonner-Prendergast and Archbishop Carroll will be going, with Carroll likely to have to play a play-in game against a Public League team to finalize its spot.

Had Wood won the game -- and the semifinals, due to Carroll’s regular-season win -- then Carroll would have found its season over. In addition to the Palestra implications, the Patriots were well aware of what the win meant for their state hopes as well, a year after reaching the PIAA Class 5A quarterfinals.

“We don’t want to lose and have to rely on someone else to beat somebody so we don’t have a playoff game,” Hoggard said. “So we just wanted to take it in our hands, control our own destiny like coach has been saying on the week, writing on the board, control our own destiny and get this win so we don’t have to worry about anything else.”

Carroll joins No. 1 seed Bonner-Prendergast and No. 3 seed Roman Catholic as home teams to win their quarterfinals; only No. 2 Neumann-Goretti was upended at home by No. 7 St. Joe’s Prep, ending the Saints’ own long run of Palestra trips, which stretched back a decade.

Romanczuk knows he’ll have his hands full in the semifinals with the Friars, who feature junior guard Isaiah Wong, the Catholic League’s MVP, plus an imposing frontcourt in 6-9 junior Tariq Ingraham and 6-8 senior Ajiri Johnson.

“Bonner was No. 1 for a reason, and they’re really difficult for us to match up with,” Romanczuk said. “They have a really talented group, and I’m sure coach [Jack] Concannon will have them ready.”

“It’s wide open,” Hoggard said. “Anybody can take it, and I feel like [if] we keep playing how we’re playing, it could be us.”


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