It just wasn’t their night.
The Bishop Loughlin boys basketball team couldn’t maintain the momentum from its two-overtime victory two nights before, falling 80–67 to top-seeded Archbishop Molloy in the Brooklyn-Queens Catholic High School Athletic Association final on Feb. 24.
“I don’t know if the last game took it all out of us, but that one felt like the championship game,” Loughlin coach Edwin Gonzalez said after the loss. “They didn’t come to play today and I told them that. The energy was low.”
Loughlin stumbled from the start as senior guard Keith Williams was whistled for a foul on the very first shot attempt of the night, sending Molloy’s Moses Brown to the line.
That foreshadowed how the rest of the night would go; Williams — the hero of the Lions’ Feb. 22 semifinal victory — picked up his second foul with 1:32 left in the first half and failed to find any kind of rhythm on offense.
“I’d just say today was a bad day for us,” said Williams, who notched just three points in the first half. “We started off slow and (the second foul) just kind of stopped the whole game.”
Williams wasn’t the only Lion who struggled, and the team couldn’t grab any momentum as Molloy continued to switch up defensive looks throughout the game. The Stanners alternated between man-to-man and zone defenses, and even ran a half court trap that forced Loughlin into several turnovers that triggered Molloy’s transition offense.
“We change defenses a lot when we play against them,” said Stanners coach Mike McCleary. “We don’t usually do that, but we need to when we play them because they’re very strong offensively. If we get them thinking and changing their offense it slows them down and we got some breakouts because of that.”
Loughlin tried to claw back in the second half, making it a six-point game with just under seven minutes left in the third quarter, but couldn’t quite stage another rally.
Molloy point guard Cole Anthony controlled the game from the opening tip, racking up 32 points and setting the tone on both sides of the ball. Brown chipped in 16 points of his own, his seven-foot frame making it difficult for the Lions to work their way into the lane.
“It was kind of tough to guard (Brown),” Williams said. “Our tallest player is 6-foot-9. And he’s just a tremendous player; it’s tough to stop him.”
Williams finished the game with 18 points, while Markquis Nowell added 17, but it wasn’t quite enough for the Lions. There is, however, a bright spot – Loughlin’s semifinal victory secured a first-round bye in the intersectional playoffs and the Lions are certain they’ll be ready for their March 5 quarterfinal matchup.
“We’ve got to turn this into a positive,” Gonzalez said. “We’ve got to get back to the drawing board. We’ve got some time off, which will let them recoup their bodies and get back at it.”
