By: Rich Flanagan (@richflanagan33) Photos & video: Rich Flanagan
PHILADELPHIA – During his tenure at Neumann-Goretti, Carl Arrigale has helped develop some impressive and skilled backcourts, which led to 10 Philadelphia Catholic League championships and eight Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association state titles.
Antonio "Scoop" Jardine (Syracuse) and Derrick "D.J." Rivera (St. Joseph’s) led the Saints to the 2005 and 2006 PCL crowns with Rivera hitting the game-winning three-pointer in the latter title. Mustafaa Jones (Fairleigh Dickson) and Tyreek Duren (La Salle) also won back-to-back league titles and began Arrigale’s run of state titles in 2010.
In 2013, the PCL would be introduced to Ja’Quan Newtown (Miami), who finished his career as the school’s all-time leading scorer, and Lamarr "Fresh" Kimble, who was a 1,000-point scorer of his own and is now a starter at St. Joe’s. They won two league and one state title alongside each other. Finally, there was the emergence of Quade Green (Kentucky), who only claimed one PCL title but four state crowns in his time. He championed backcourts with a plethora of talented guards including Kimble, Zane Martin (Towson), Mike Millsip (East Stroudsburg) and Noah Warren (Lock Haven).
Arrigale has had a knack for bringing in unproven but capable guards, teaching them how to grow as leaders and better players and ultimately sending them off to the next level. As fate would have it, he might just have another one primed for even more success and that duo carried his team to victory on Friday night.
NG's Quade Green after 4th consecutive 2017 State Title Win vs. Lincoln Park (PSD photo)
Behind 19 points, five rebounds and two steals from senior point guard Chris Ings and a team-high 21 points from junior guard Hakim Byrd, Neumann-Goretti was able to hold off a ferocious comeback from Isaiah Wong and Bonner-Prendergast to prevail, 78-70 in a battle of unbeaten PCL teams. Ings, a 6-0 lefty and Rider commit with two state titles to his name, got the Saints going early with six points in the opening quarter and found Byrd for a three in the corner to put Neumann-Goretti up, 9-2 midway through. Byrd, a 5-9 guard who has no problem getting his shot off against bigger defenders, drilled three triples in the game, the second of which gave his team a 23-16 advantage.
Byrd has grasped what it means to be a member of the Neumann-Goretti basketball program, having practiced with such players as Green, which he described as “probably the hardest team I had ever played against,” and helping win the PIAA Class 3A title last season.
“Neumann-Goretti is based around elite guards and tradition never graduates so if the two of us don’t go, the team doesn’t go,” Byrd said. “It’s basically on our backs to push this team, get a win and get over the hump.”
NG vs. MBP: Game highlights by Rich Flanagan
Byrd’s third trey of the game came with 1:15 remaining in the second quarter and gave the Saints (8-3, 4-0 Philadelphia Catholic League) a 17-point edge. They led by 16 at the half.
Having been able to teach past guards how to distribute the basketball and share the spotlight, Arrigale has been pleased with how Ings and Byrd has grown together.
“We’ve had a lot of good [backcourts] so I like them to stand on their own,” Arrigale said. “They’ve really done a nice job. I didn’t know how it was going to mesh because they both like to have the ball but they’ve been doing a good job sharing it. They’re coming along pretty good. It’s a big thing that they’re believing that we can do this.”
Much of the second half belonged to Wong, who scored a school-record 44 points to go along with six rebounds and seven steals. The 2017 PCL MVP and Miami Hurricanes commit had eight points on 1-for-4 shooting in the opening half but erupted for 36 in the second including 24 in the fourth quarter alone. Wong began to take over because scoring was hard to come by from other spots. Senior guard Donovan Rodriguez had 13 of his 15 points off the bench in the first half and 6-8 forward Tariq Ingraham was limited to five.
NG vs. MBP
Ings (five points) and Byrd (four) scored nine of the Saints’ first 14 points to start the third to try and combat Wong’s strong offensive showing. Ings’ pull-up triple put Neumann-Goretti in front, 50-31. On the other side, Wong went on a run of seven straight points to close out the third including a three-pointer to end the quarter. From there, he was in a different zone.
His and-one at the 5:01 mark of the fourth cut the Bonner-Prendergast (10-1, 4-1) deficit to 10. He added another lessen put Neumann-Goretti’s lead at 68-60. He scored the final 12 points of the game but the closest the Friars would get was within seven with under 30 seconds to play. The Saints hit 12-for-14 from the free-throw line in the final quarter to ice the game. Byrd sank 4-for-6 from the charity stripe in that span.
The Friars have learned a lot over the past two seasons. After making it to the PCL title game and PIAA 5A semifinals a year ago, the expectations have grown substantially for Bonner-Prendergast despite losing First Team All-Catholic Ajiri Johnson (Rider) and bringing in first-year head coach Kevin Funston, who replaced longtime coach Jack Concannon.
Funston, whose team was coming off an emotional one-point victory over defending PCL champ Roman Catholic on Sunday, thinks this loss can be a good learning lesson for his team on how to battle back and allow them to refocus.
“I think that’s what will help us in the long run is that we don’t have any quit,” Funston said. “This league is so tough. I think when you come into a game like this after winning a big game you have a target on our back. This is a really tough place to play. [Neumann-Goretti] played really hard and shared the ball.”
Even though Neumann-Goretti was the home team, the pressure seemed to be on Bonner-Prendergast having defeated the Saints last season and being less than a week removed from a win over the Cahillites. Byrd boasted that it only added to his team’s desire to come out with a win.
“First things first, we were coming in here as the underdogs on our home court so we wanted to get that out and beat them since they had beaten Roman,” Byrd said. “That gave us a lot of heart to come into this game.”