Archbishop Carroll outlasts Archbishop Wood in 2OT classic in PCL quarters

RADNOR >> Six days ago, Archbishop Wood and Archbishop Carroll played a classic game on the final day of the PCL regular season.

Meeting again in Carroll’s gym on Friday night, the two teams topped it with an even better contest. A remarkable game between two squads with a lot of fight and not a lot of quit stretched long into the night with Wood and Carroll trading quaking haymaker after haymaker.

It took two overtimes and a couple of fortuitous bounces, but Carroll emerged, weary and bruised, with a 77-70 win in the PCL quarterfinals.

“They’re fighters, they’re tough as nails,” Carroll senior guard and league MVP Ryan Daly said of Wood. “I knew they were going to come and they kept coming and kept coming and luckily we got the win. That program is going to be full-fledged soon.”

That is if the Vikings aren’t already. Three years ago when John Mosco left Neumann-Goretti to take over in Warminster, he inherited a program without a long history of success. Now, he and his team have the respect of the entire league and they believe they’re only going up.

Much of that success has come on the shoulders of Tommy Funk, the senior point guard who poured his heart and soul onto the floor in his final high school game. The loss ended Wood’s season, but it wasn’t done without a remarkable fight.

For much of the first half, Funk said his squad was settling for shots and more importantly not rebounding. Yet, they were right in it, down just 25-20 at the break. The third quarter started well as the Vikings got within 29-26 before Carroll raced out to a 39-26 lead in a blink.

“We know we can play with them and the game of basketball is a game of runs,” Funk said. “They had the run early. In the second half, the big thing was rebounding and getting into the lane and we finished strong in the second half.”

Wood didn’t wilt and clawed its way back to tie the game when Funk pulled off a spectacular spin for a layup, then put his team up with the ensuing foul shot. That hoop started a chain reaction of one-upsmanship, with Daly’s younger brother Colin sinking two huge 3-pointers in a 35-second span.

A traditional three-point play by Collin Gillespie staked Wood to a brief 57-56 lead before Ryan Daly split freebies to knot it with 44.6 left. Wood had the possession to end the game and got four chances to win the game, each of them agonizingly refusing to fall.

“That’s the way it goes sometimes, I couldn’t be any happier with the way we got there,” Funk said. “Collin got a nice easy shot, he got in the lane, got the rebound then Tyree (Pickron) got an open shot. That’s all we can ask for. Some things won’t fall our way but we had more chances in overtime.”

“My heart rate still hasn’t come down,” Carroll coach Paul Romanczuk said.

Funk, who will play at West Point next year, scored 16 with nine rebounds in his final game for Wood. Gillespie had 15 and Pickron knocked in 14 points for the Vikings. Romanczuk said Friday was one of the best games he’s been involved with at Carroll and confessed the difference in the game really came down to a few bounces in the Patriots’ favor.

It also helped to have Daly (30 points) and Josh Sharkey (17 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists) on the floor in the OTs to work for shots and make Wood work for its shots. Daly scored five of Carroll’s seven points in the first overtime, then he and Sharkey scored all but one of the 13 points in the second overtime.

“Was it two overtimes? It felt like three,” Mosco said. “They made a couple bigger plays than us in the second overtime. A loose ball here, loose ball there, we missed a couple fouls shots and put up a few rushed shots that we weren’t doing earlier. There’s a reason (Carroll) finished second in the best league in the state.”

Aside from Daly and Sharkey, John Rigsby had 10 points and Colin Daly nine while Jesse McPherson had four big blocks on defense.

Gillespie staked Wood to a 70-69 lead with 1:33 to go on a three-point play, but Daly showed his MVP form by responding with a hoop of his own. Daly and Sharkey then hit 6-of-8 at the line to seal the deal while Wood’s legs seemed to be devoid of energy.

Daly still admitted he and his teammates were spent after the game, but they could ride the energy of victory. Funk said it’s difficult to play Carroll because of how physical and aggressive the Patriots are and it was the same thing the Vikings experienced last Sunday.

“That was a great game, they gave us everything they had,” Daly said. “That’s the best game I’ve had since I’ve been at Carroll.”

“These two teams are separated by one possession here and one possession there, this could have been their win,” Romanczuk said. “All credit goes out to them. We were up the entire game, then they kept battling back and took the lead. Fortunately we had enough battle in us as well.”