BENSALEM, PA – In what was supposed to be a battle between two teams at the top of the Philadelphia Catholic League standings, turned out to be a one sided affair.
Archbishop Wood (18-3, 11-1) dominated from the opening tip and never relinquished their lead on their way to an 83-60 win over Roman Catholic (17-2, 10-2).
“We just can’t let up 83 points, we had no commitment on the defensive side of the ball,” Cahillites forward Seth Lundy said. “We have to be better on the defensive end, but we also had a terrible offensive game. We just didn’t play Roman Catholic basketball tonight.”
Lynn Greer lll (left) brings the ball up the floor against Andrew Funk (Archbishop Wood). - photo by Jacob Guzdek
Off the opening tip, the Vikings were off and running and quickly jumped out to a 13-3 lead just four minutes into the game. Their offense was scoring in a variety of ways while their aggressive defense had the Cahillites offense completely out of rhythm and after one quarter the Vikings held a 20-7 lead.
The Cahillites started to get their offense going a little bit in the second quarter as Allen Betrand (11 points, 11 rebounds) started to attack the rim and Lynn Greer lll (17 points) hit a couple outside shots, but the Cahillites still went into the break, down 40-26.
Matt Cerruti led the way in the first half for the Vikings with 14 points, while Tyree Pickron went into the break with 11 points, five rebounds, and three assists.
Out of the break, a sequence from the Cahillites looked like it might spark a comeback, as Betrand had a big block on one end and JP Sanders (12 points) finished a layup in transition and then got another quick bucket off a steal, to cut the Cahillites deficit to 44-31 with 5:30 left in the third.
But, that was as close as the Cahillites would get for the rest of the game, as the second half turned into the Collin Gillespie show.
After having only seven points in the first half, Gillespie, a Villanova commit, took over with 22 points in the second half on his way to finishing with 29 points, to go along with 11 rebounds and four assists. He finished 10-15 from the floor and 8-12 from the line and displayed a multitude of moves in getting to the rim and constantly finished through contact.
Wood vs. Roman
“Collin has been dominant for us all season and every night we are expecting him to do what he did tonight,” Wood junior guard, Tyree Pickron said.
While Gillespie led the way for the Vikings, they also had great contributions from a number of other players. Pickron finished with 15 points, seven rebounds, and six assists; Cerruti finished with 18 points; and Seth Pinkney and Karrington Wallace each finished with nine rebounds.
While Pinkney battled with foul trouble, he still contributed four points to go along with those nine rebounds and three blocks. And when Wallace came in for him, there was no drop off in production.
“All week in practice I was on both them to just keep attacking,” Vikings head coach John Mosco said. “The last few games when Seth was in foul trouble, the other team would attack Karrington in the post and score, but not tonight, he played hard down there all night.”
The Vikings will close out their regular season schedule on Sunday afternoon when they travel to Lansdale Catholic. With a win in that game, the Vikings will clinch the number one seed in the league.
“This is the best year in Wood basketball history, so we are just going to keep on going out there every night and keep on dominating all the way to the Palestra.” Pinkney said.
Roman will play their last PCL game on the road tomorrow afternoon vs. St. Joe’s Prep at 2:30PM.