PHILADELPHIA – Playing in close games is nothing new for this Roman Catholic team and because of that, they are not afraid of the big moment.
Down 61-56 with just 1:29 left in the contest, the Cahillites locked in and closed the game on a 10-2 run and pulled out a 66-63 win over Archbishop Carroll at Philadelphia University to improve to 14-1 overall and 7-1 in the Catholic League.
“It speaks to the character and the resilience of our team that we are able to win these tight contests at the end of games,” Roman Catholic head Coach Matt Griffin said. “And it’s been our seniors who have done a great job keeping our team together in these tense games.”
Coming out of a timeout down 61-56 with 1:29 left, the Cahillites were able to get a bucket, a steal, and a free throw to cut the deficit to 61-59. Then after a timeout at the 1:05 mark, Seth Lundy (19 points), buried his fourth three pointer of the game to give the Cahillites a 62-61 lead.
Carroll came right back down the floor though and Khari Williams (22 points) hit two free throws with 31 seconds left to give the Patriots a 63-62 lead.
Archbishop Carroll defends against Roman Catholic.- photo by Jacob Guzdek
Carroll’s AJ Hoggard (9 points) was then able to get a steal after the Roman Catholic inbound and got fouled with 25 seconds left. But, he missed the front end of the one-and-one opportunity. The ball bounced around and Roman Catholic was able to get a timeout with 16 seconds left, much to the dismay of the Patriots bench who argued that nobody from Roman Catholic had possession of the ball to call a timeout.
Out of the timeout, Da’Kquan Davis was able to find JP Sanders under the bucket and Sanders finished the layup to give the Cahillites a 64-63 lead. Chris Kuhar then calmly hit two free throws to extend their lead to 66-63.
The Patriots had one last chance to try to tie the game with six seconds left on the clock after Kuhar’s free throws, but were unable to get a shot off.
While the Cahillites were led by Lundy’s 19 points, they also had three other players finish in double figures. Sanders finished with 13 points, Allen Betrand had 12, and Lynn Greer lll had 11. Da’Kquan Davis also contributed nine points. Balanced scoring has been a big part of the Cahillites success all season.
“Anybody on this team is capable of scoring 30 on any given night,” Lundy said “But, that’s not how we play in this organization, we share the ball and look for the best shot available.”
In the first half, each team had one big run, as Roman Catholic put together a 9-0 run that started with a three pointer at the buzzer at the end of the first quarter from Greer and extended into the second quarter, which pushed their lead to 22-13 at one point.
But, the Patriots immediately responded with an 8-0 run of their own to cut the deficit to 22-21. After that, the game never got more than five points apart in either teams’ favor.
Roman Catholic went into the break with a 28-25 lead and then came out strong in the third quarter, but Carroll was able to stay in the game almost single handedly due to Williams who scored 13 of the teams' 17 points in the quarter.
Roman vs. Carroll
The same could be said about the Patriots fourth quarter when Hoggard scored seven of his nine points in the quarter, while also dishing out a couple of assists. But, in the end it wasn’t enough to hold off the Cahillites.
Roman Catholic, at 7-1, now sits tied at the top of the Catholic League standings with Neumann-Goretti and Archbishop Wood. The Cahillites will be back in action on Sunday when they take on La Salle.
“We’re just trying to take it one game at a time,” Griffin said “We have a tough La Salle team on Sunday and in this league anybody can beat anybody, so we have to focus on just getting better each day at practice.”