Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree collected 18 rebounds and scored 14 points in the loss.
In registering 23-0 and 22-2 records ahead of Monday’s Catholic League championship tilts at The Palestra, the girls’ and boys’ basketball teams at Ss. Neumann-Goretti High School, 1736 S. 10th St., made a delightful habit out of flustering and flummoxing foes. Hoping to do the same at the venerable venue, the units had roles reversed on them and fell 40-36 and 72-65 to Archbishop Wood and Roman Catholic high schools in duels where they failed to enjoy even one lead.
The contests involved clubs meeting for the third-straight time in the final, with the two-time defending champion ladies looking to disappoint the Vikings yet again. The boys took to the floor seeking a bit of retribution against the Cahillites, who last season toppled them to end the locals’ six-year reign atop the parochial mountain.
The girls, holders of a 53-game winning streak that included a bevy of blowouts, have grown accustomed to taxing teams with a frenetic style, but they seemed to lack a Plan B as their Warminster-situated opponents executed their brand of patient, methodical ball. Falling behind 7-0 in a blink, they needed to claw back throughout the first frame, ending the initial eight minutes down 11-6. With her entire lineup having achieved All-Catholic or Honorable Mention status, second-year coach Andrea Peterson hoped her charges would challenge the underdogs with an up-tempo approach, but the 18-6 group would not budge and left the favorites visibly frustrated in grabbing a 15-11 halftime cushion.
Intermission included supporters’ expectations for a completely different feel for the rest of the game, but each time that the favorites would inspire backers to bask in the likelihood of winning another plaque, Wood star Bailey Greenberg and her contemporaries would return them to their seats. The Saints strove to bless their fans for their patience, with league most valuable player Alisha Kebbe showing what led Syracuse University to court her talent by being a third-quarter lightning rod. Something, however, seemed off about the then-undefeated athletes, but a club does not amass such a winning streak without guts, and the young women fought back to trail only 34-33 as the matchup neared its climax.
Kebbe, however, fouled out, and the Bucks county-based teenagers pulled off the upset by making crucial free throws and forcing the Saints into desperate attempts.
“I’m proud of our girls,” Peterson said. “… I told them after the game that nobody’s perfect 24/7. … We fought hard, but Wood had a phenomenal game.”
The Saints return to action Saturday at Lincoln High School, where they will face Imhotep for the District 12 AA title following the 3:30 p.m. Class AAA championship game.
Though it yielded a higher-scoring affair and a similar comeback from an early deficit, the boys’ contest ended with the same sense of what-might-have-been for the Saints’ faithful. The youths entered with a 15-0 mark against Catholic League constituents, including an 85-68 thumping of Roman Jan. 6, and coach Carl Arrigale’s bunch, looking to exorcise the demons from last year’s championship setback, wanted to stay hot, especially against the team for whom its fanbase has such disdain. That disgust only grew as the Cahillites galloped to an 11-0 edge, but the East Passyunk Crossing-situated heroes held their heads high in chipping away at the deficit, with a balanced scoring attack orchestrating a 13-10 run the rest of the frame. Neumann-Goretti swarmed the offensive glass in the second, but a virtual game of bucket trading still left them trailing 32-27 at the break.
Arrigale, the league’s co-coach of the year, boasts five All-Catholic selections, with first-teamers Quade Green and Zane Martin bedazzling the crowd in the third, combining for 14 points. They experienced a low and a high in the session, as the latter player, a senior guard headed to Towson University, needed to leave when incurring his fourth foul with 4:34 left, and the former performer, a junior guard who is receiving ample attention from schools, swished the three-pointer that tied matters at 44.
Green, however, would suffer ridicule from raucous Roman fans as the final quarter commenced by hoisting consecutive airballs. He would go scoreless over the last eight minutes, but tenacious efforts from his teammates, including junior forward Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree, another first-team honoree, who collected 18 rebounds and deposited 14 points, kept the Saints around. However, after missing a string of charity stripe offerings, the Cahillites nailed enough freebies to make the clock the Saints’ enemy and commenced their second-straight victory celebration to the dismay of Neumann-Goretti’s throng.
“It’s going to hurt when we put in the time that we have and for the game to go that way,” Arrigale, who would have stood alone in the parochial championship ranks with 11 titles had the Saints won, said following the loss. “… We’ll get them to the next practice and try to keep moving forward.”
The Saints will square off against Del Val Charter at approximately 8:45 p.m. tomorrow for the District 12 AAA championship. SPR
Contact Editor Joseph Myers at jmyers@southphillyreview.com or ext. 124.
