LOOK BELOW FOR SEPARATE GAME STORIES AND ABOVE FOR VIDEOS AND PHOTOS FROM ALL THE QUARTERFINALS!
By Ryan Mink
rmink@digitalsports.com
The teams at the top each had their respective scare, but all but one came out victorious in Saturday’s WCAC boys basketball quarterfinals.
The upset of the night came in the final game at Galludet University, in which sixth-seeded Paul VI rolled to a 52-34 win over Virginia rival O’Connell. The Panthers avenged a buzzer-beater loss from early in the regular season and a blowout loss at the hands of the Knights from a few weeks ago.
The other three games were certainly exciting as well.
Fifth-seeded Good Counsel led for almost the entire game against Bishop McNamara, but the Mustangs were able to force overtime and came out victorious once there, 65-58. Brandon Coleman sealed the win with a thunderous dunk in overtime.
Second-seeded Gonzaga was in a very similar situation before winning, 73-68, in overtime. The Eagles trailed St. John’s, who they had beaten three times already this season, for much of the game. The Cadets had the final possession in regulation with the game tied but were unable to win it on the final shot.
In overtime, Gonzaga’s Tyler Thornton continued his dominance, scoring five points to push his game total to 26 points. Cahli Thomas also hit a big-time three-pointer in overtime to help the Eagles come reach Sunday’s semifinals against Paul VI.
Even top-seeded DeMatha got a scare from eighth-seeded St. Mary’s Ryken. The Knights jumped out to a 9-0 lead and trailed by just one point entering the fourth quarter. DeMatha senior point guard Marcus Rouse got the Stags on track, however, with 10 points in the fourth quarter en route to a 55-42 win.
Paul VI Gets Revenge
Paul VI had lost to O’Connell twice this season – once in heart-breaking style and once in embarrassing fashion.
Saturday night, the sixth-seeded Panthers repaid the favor both ways, beating the third-seeded Knights 52-34 in the WCAC boys basketball quarterfinals at Galludet University.
Paul VI (14-14) will next take on Gonzaga at 7 p.m. Sunday at American University.
“We’ll take the win in the playoffs,” Paul VI coach Glenn Farello said. “It’s a fair trade.”
O’Connell (21-7) beat Paul VI (14-14) on a buzzer-beating layup on Jan. 16 in their first meeting this season. Then the Knights took it to O’Connell less than two weeks ago with a 61-37 home victory.
The Knights knew that heading into the final regular season home game, they would need a win over St. John’s to get a rematch with O’Connell in the WCAC playoff quarterfinals. So that became the most important game of the year. They wanted another shot at their Virginia rivals.
“After what happened, we had to get them back,” senior forward Raven Barber said. “I was angry; it was bad man. We had to bring it together and come out here and ****.”
Big men Eugene McCrory and Barber led the way for the Panthers. McCory scored 15 points and grabbed 14 rebounds and Barber notched 13 points and 10 boards.
Their performance was drastically different from the one they had in the second meeting with O’Connell, in which McCrory said he and Barber were “dominated” by O’Connell’s Jordan Burgess and Larry Savage. The Knights have more offensive rebounds than the Panthers’ total rebound count in that game.
“Last time we played them, their bigs really handled us,” Farello said. “This is their first year in WCAC’s so they’ve had to learn a lot. They’ve gone through their ups and down and handled the adversity of it.”
Much like their bigs, Paul VI had undergone its share of tumbles and triumphs this season. The Panthers opened the year nationally ranked and were expected to be beating some WCAC powerhouses. But the Panthers stumbled to a 7-11 conference record.
Still, Paul VI came into the playoffs thinking anything could happen. And despite losing more games than expected, the Panthers were right there in a majority of them.
“We’ve been right there knocking on the door and tonight we were able to burst through it,” Farello said.
Paul VI broke out to a big lead early and never looked back. The Panthers scored the game’s first six points and went into the second quarter with a 16-4 lead.
The Panthers led by nine at halftime, which was as close as O’Connell would ever get. The Knights also pulled to within nine down with about three-and-a-half minutes left, before McCrory converted and and-one opportunity.
Erick Green finished with 10 points and fellow guard Deon Jones notched nine. O’Connell was led by David Eismieier’s 11 points and Kendall Marshall with nine.
Thornton, Thomas Lead Gonzaga in Overtime
It was the start of overtime and Gonzaga had just narrowly escaped regulation still wearing last year’s WCAC crown.
And on the end line, getting ready to inbound the ball was Tyler Thornton, joking and smiling.
It seems that for the Duke-bound junior guard, nothing can get him rattled. And thus was the case Saturday afternoon, when Thornton’s cool 26 points led Gonzaga to a 73-68 overtime win over St. John’s in the WCAC quarterfinals.
“The playoffs in the WCAC, you can’t for anything better than an overtime game with your biggest rival,” Thornton said. “I was happy, ready to get the game going in overtime and I knew we were going to pull it out.”
Second-seeded Gonzaga (25-4) trailed the seventh-seeded Cadets (13-17) — whom they had beaten three times this season already — by nine points more than midway through the third quarter.
That’s when Thornton turned it on, notching and and-one conversion, then another jumper bucket before the end of the quarter. He had eight of Gonzaga’s 12 points in the quarter.
“He’s our leader,” Gonzaga coach Steve Turner said. “He stayed focused tonight and made big plays when we needed them most.”
St. John’s maintained a steady lead for most of the fourth quarter and led by one point with 32.3 seconds after a free throw by Erik Koebke, who was subbed in for the first time all game for injured Denzel Primus-Devonish just for the free throw.
Thornton took the ball on the next possession and drove down the court to draw the foul with 26.6 seconds remaining. He sunk one of two free throws, but Primus-Devonish missed a three-point attempt to win the game, sending it into overtime.
“I knew we had the momentum, I knew they were on the down a little bit,” Thornton said. “It was time for us to attack.”
Thornton converted a lob pass from Ian Hummer for an and-one just 11 seconds into overtime, giving the Eagles even more of a boost. But St. John’s responded with a deep three pointer from Chris Martin.
Next was what Thornton called the biggest shot of the game. With about three minutes left, the ball came out to Gonzaga sophomore Cahli Thomas, who wasn’t even guarded most of the game and who was very reticent to shoot from behind the arch despite that.
Thomas, despite hitting huge game-tying or game-winning shots in games against Good Counsel and O’Connell this year, has had a self-admitted mental block.
But this time, Thomas caught the ball and shot in stride. It swished through the net, giving Gonzaga a lead that it would never surrender.
“I just wanted to step up for my team again; I’m used to it now,” Thomas said. “That shot I was actually kind of nervous, but you still have to step up and take it.”
McNamara Comes From Behind to Beat Falcons
It seemed that Good Counsel had an answer for every advance Bishop McNamara had in Saturday’s WCAC boys basketball quarterfinals.
That is, except for a monstrous Brandon Coleman dunk. Coleman threw down a two-handed slam in overtime to lift fourth-seeded McNamara to a 65-58 win over Good Counsel, sending the Mustangs into Sunday’s semifinal against DeMatha.
“Like I’ve said all year, the dunk is to get momentum on our team,” Coleman said. “We had the momentum going into overtime and that just sealed the deal. I felt like that was the ****** blow.”
Fifth-seeded Good Counsel (18-11) took an early lead in the first quarter and had Bishop McNamara (21-8) chasing from then on.
The Mustangs pulled even by the end of the first quarter, but Good counsel continued to hit big shots to maintain the lead. Julius Francis became a big force inside for the Falcons and finished with 12 points. Louis Young also got hot, scoring nine points in the third quarter alone.
The Falcons built and eight-point lead at one point before McNamara came out strong in the fourth quarter. Usual leaders Rashad Whack and Talib Zanna found the net for big buckets and the Mustangs helped themselves by going 10-for-10 from the free throw line in the quarter.
Good Counsel, meanwhile, missed four straight free throws in the final minute, including with the game tied and 11.2 seconds remaining. McNamara had the ball for the final possession in regulation. Ryan Washington, who found Coleman for his overtime dunk, tripped and a jump ball was called, giving possession to the Falcons.
“We knew we had to get it done, we knew we had to strap up and forget about the first half,” Coleman said. “We had the crowd on our side. We knew we fought hard to be here and this is our time.”
Whack opened overtime with a jumper and Coleman followed with his dunk after the Mustangs ran 1:15 off the clock. Good Counsel got a pair of free throws following, but Zanna dealt a heavy blow by rebounding a missed free throw and putting it back in for a four-point lead.
From there, McNamara hit its final six free throws to seal the game while the Falcons managed just one field goal in overtime.
“Our guys really hung tough mentally and physically down the stretch,” McNamara coach Marty Keithline said. “The game up there was a battle, the game at our place was a battle so everyone knew it was going to be a battle today.”
Even DeMatha Gets a Scare
It seemed that at any moment during Saturday’s quarterfinals, top-seeded DeMatha was simply going to start pulling away.
But when St. Mary’s Ryken kept delaying that moment, and delaying it more, a certain sense of concern started to creep over the Stags.
“It was scaring us for a little bit,” senior guard Marcus Rouse said.
But in the end, DeMatha finally went on the run many expected and came out with a 55-42 win over the scrappy Knights behind a scrappy senior of its own.
Rouse was pivotal down the stretch, scoring 10 points in the fourth quarter to seal the game for the Stags. More than scoring the points, he made other critical plays like steals, assists and rebounds to jumpstart the Stags.
“This is my last year, I’m a senior. So I’m trying to win a championship, point blank,” Rouse said. “Whatever I’ve got to do to get my team rolling, that’s what I’ve got to do.”
St. Mary’s Ryken took a 9-0 lead off the start with three three-pointers, including two from Gokhan Sirin, who finished with a team-high 10 points. DeMatha charged back to take a lead in the second quarter, but St. Mary’s Ryken just wouldn’t go away.
“It’s the toughest game,” DeMatha Coach Mike Jones said. “You’ve got all the butterflies and the build-up. A lot of guys, this is their first varsity WCAC playoff game. There’s a lot of reasons to expect the youth on our team to respond the way they did today.”
The Knights (12-17) scored six straight points to start the third quarter and were just one point entering the fourth quarter after a last-second steal and layup by Kai Smith.
DeMatha sophomore Quinn Cook kicked off the fourth quarter with an and-one play, followed by back-to-back field goals by senior Naji Hibbert. The final blow was back-to-back three-pointers by Rouse that gave the Stags a 14-point lead in a matter of minutes.
“We’ve got some seniors that didn’t allow us to stay dead,” Jones said. “Marcus Rouse had a great day today. He kind of played us out of it himself.”
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