“Almost.”
That was Archbishop Carroll head coach Francis Bowe’s first word following the boys basketball team’s 56-54 loss to Saint Joseph’s Prep on Friday night in the East Gym… and he wasn’t wrong.
“We’re there. We’re there,” said Bowe. “The LC game did so much for us. It gave us a week to start doing things that we were very weak at. Tonight we came out and we started to execute. We started to move. We started to do things that we weren’t doing in the last two and a half weeks.”
The game came down to the final seconds, as the Pats came just a few missed shots away from taking down the Philadelphia Catholic League’s top team. The undefeated Hawks came into the night 5-0 and were riding high off a win against projected title favorite Roman Catholic just a week ago.
Nonetheless, the loss proved that the Patriots are miles ahead of where they were just a week ago. Suffering upset losses to Cardinal O’Hara and Archbishop Ryan after blowing consecutive 20+ point leads, a plethora of problems took shape for Carroll.
After a statement win over La Salle and a stave off of Lansdale Catholic, the Patriots had a five day hiatus to get things right, and that’s just what they did.
Following the loss of junior center Drew Corrao in the City of Palms tournament back in December, the team appeared lost on the court, not to mention the Pats having to run a six-man rotation for a majority of their games, something that set them back big time.
“They’re conditioned,” said Bowe. “They’re ready for this. I’ll say we went through a two and a half week shocker with Drew going down, but now the team is really like, ‘OK. Drew will be back this season, but we have to fix this.’ We are a really talented team and we have a lot of things going for us, so we just have to execute and do what we have to do.”
That’s exactly what the Patriots did: show marginal improvement from weeks prior. Carroll was able to play with one of the most talented teams around in a Prep squad that boasts a lineup of five seniors and three of the best guards in the city with Olin Chamberlain (grandson of the great Wilt Chamberlain), Jaron McKie (Dayton commit, and son of former 76er Aaron McKie), and Jordan Ellerbee (Florida Gulf Coast). The largest Carroll trial was after the opening tip when they went down 8-0 to begin the game. After closing the margin the game would never be divided by more than six points.
The Prep made sure to take control of the game early and run a fast-paced offense to keep Carroll on their feet, something that usually knocks the Patriots out of the game. As the second quarter began, Carroll took the lead and began to pick up momentum in a group effort. They shared the ball and worked it around the perimeter, finding new options each time as junior Luca Foster, sophomore Munir Grieg, and junior Christian Matos all got theirs.
Going into halftime trailing by only three, the Patriots came back out, not losing an ounce of confidence. They took yet another lead midway through the third and worked the Hawks, even as The Prep worked back into the lead to end the period.
Just as the Prep began to pull away in the fourth, leading to a monstrous five points, Bowe called timeout and settled his club down. Contrary to what many expected, his team didn’t fatigue or lose their oomph, instead drawing the score back down and taking a 52-51 lead off a Christian Matos layup with 1:43 to go.
Ellerbee matched Carroll with a huge three seconds later to make it 56-54 Prep and the Pats had 43.0 seconds to make something work.
After walking it down the court, Carroll worked it around before hitting the freshman point guard Yasir Turner on a lay-in to the hoop that rimmed off. Foster rebounded and chucked up a fading jumper from the paint that also rimmed off, nearly sealing it.
After a stoppage, Prep got their inbound set, which was intercepted by Nasir Ralls, who threw up a prayer from three that air ball, sending a packed East Gym home with a little less to celebrate going into a long weekend.
“I knew I had to get the ball up,” said Ralls. “One second left, I’m just trying to get the ball up and try my best in that spot.”
Despite the loss, Carroll showed marginal improvement in many ways on the court and gave a little reminder to everyone that anything can happen in the Catholic League.
“We’re just staying focused,” said Ralls. “We’re staying positive. We can’t keep getting down when we’re losing and stuff like that. We just need to keep our heads up because we got a game this Sunday coming up where we can bounce back and get that one.”
The Pats do indeed have another one coming this Sunday when they face off against a sneaky West Catholic team. The tipoff against the Burrs is 12:30 p.m. in Spruce Hill.
