Archbishop Carroll’s Philadelphia Catholic League playoff dreams are officially dead.
Following the boys basketball team’s 70-64 loss to Conwell-Egan (1-11 PCL) Sunday afternoon in the East Gym, the Patriots were mathematically eliminated from the PCL playoffs on the final day of the regular season.
“Our first issue is that our entire team was sick,” said sophomore forward Munir Grieg. “Like me, I knew we were going to lose the game because we only had five players. It is what it is now.”
Grieg led Carroll with 28 points while still standing firm as one of the few Patriots that hadn’t been taken down by injury so far this season.
After losing junior captain Ian Williams and junior center Drew Corrao to a knee and hip injury respectively, the Pats tried to keep their heads above water for most of the PCL season and got their legs under them when the moment mattered. The team picked up crucial wins over contenders Bonner-Prendie and Father Judge last week to keep their playoff hopes alive.
However, in the win over Judge, the team lost their top player in ESPN Top 30 recruit and junior forward Luca Foster. Foster suffered a knee injury in the game and has missed the club’s last two matchups with Devon Prep and now Egan. He’s expected to make a return for state playoffs in the next few weeks, though it’s been described as a day-to-day deal.
In recent days, a flu that swept through the locker room knocked out Grieg, who missed the game Friday, and hampered the team into Sunday’s game.
Finally, Christian Matos also had to deal with a knee injury, which he played through, finishing the day with 13 points.
“We have to get back strong,” said Grieg. “We have a two-week period to get back before states. We need to take care of our bodies and do what we can to win when we get back.”
The Patriots await the 4A state playoffs, which get underway at the end of February, as they look to repeat last year’s Cinderella run to the title game in Hershey.
The club will hope to have back two of their injured players as Corrao is seen as week-to-week with a foot injury that’s held him out since late December, while Foster is day-to-day with his knee injury and is still seen as the more likely of the two to return in a timely manner. A return from just one of the two would be much heralded, as Carroll has struggled mightily without the height in the middle. Struggling to pull down rebounds and defending the lane have become two of the biggest problems for this Patriots team, including in the game against Egan.
Despite Carroll coming out with an early lead, the Eagles found their niche and took advantage. For most of the first half they were able to charge the lane as they pleased and either pick up a foul or an uncontested lay at the rim.
In the second half it became more of the same as Egan only improved on the offensive end, upping their point total between each period.
Carroll began to appear as they were closing the margins a bit in the second half but saw multiple big time turnovers give Egan consecutive buckets, which allowed the deficit to grow.
Even in the late running, where Egan has fallen off most of the time this season, Carroll could not find its footing. Instead, the Eagles held on and kept Carroll at arms length for nearly the whole fourth period. Just as Carroll began to make a dent into the Egan lead, it was too little too late.
With the loss, Carroll falls to 4-9 on the season. They’ll await state playoff plans as they miss the Catholic League playoffs for the first time since 2006.
