Bishop Loughlin’s girls out-played a tired Christ the King squad the last time the teams met — but a rested Royals club was a different story.
The Lions gave the Royals the fits at times, but the Queens team’s relentless senior attack in the second half overwhelmed Bishop Loughlin, handing it a 96–71 defeat in the Brooklyn school’s first Brooklyn-Queens Division I basketball final on Feb. 28.
“They played better,” Loughlin coach Chez Williams said. “Congrats to Christ the King. They played better. They were the better team tonight.”
It was a game of runs early on in the match-up. The Lions got out to a roaring 7–2 start, holding Christ the King’s offense at bay for the first three minutes.
Then the Royals exploded, going on a 14–0 run and jumping out to a 16–7 advantage. The Lions (19–7) got close, but Christ the King (17–8) ended the quarter on a 7–0 run — and a 25–18 lead.
The Lions clawed back the lead early in the second quarter, but control was brief — the Royals’ seniors stepped up. Dominique Toussaint drained two threes, and Sydney Zambrotta made two free throws in the half’s final minute to propel Christ the King to a 41–35 lead it would not relinquish.
“I feel that my girls have to learn that you cannot allow a team like that to come back once you put them down, you have to put them down,” Williams said. “We just didn’t do a good job of that.”
Christ the King outscored Loughlin 55–36 in the second half. Creating offense became tougher as Laysha de los Santos, Lynette Taitt, and Skydajah Patterson got in foul trouble.
The defeat ends the Lions’ season, because the league changed its Catholic state tournament criteria a week before the playoffs. Under the previous plan, Loughlin would be the diocese’s Class-A representative — instead it is going home.
“It’s disappointing the way it was done,” Williams said. “It’s not disappointing that we lost — it’s what happens. But you change the rules a week before, so kids were set on what we told them the rule was already. So that’s the bad part. When you do that to kids, it doesn’t set a good precedent.”
