Conwell-Egan Catholic basketball captures 2nd straight District 12 crown
PHILADELPHIA – The Conwell-Egan Catholic Eagles have proven the doubters wrong.
At least, according to senior guard LaPri McCray-Pace.
“After Steve left, nobody ever thought that we would get back to where we are,” McCray-Pace said.
“Steve,” of course, is former Egan point guard Stevie Jordan, whose sudden transfer to Advanced Prep International in Texas prior to this season left the Eagles without one of the leaders of the 2015 District 12 AA championship team.
Without Jordan, Egan was left with a gaping hole in its lineup heading into the 2015-2016 season and head coach Frank Sciolla tasked seniors like McCray-Pace and forward Vinny Dalessandro with picking up the slack.
They did just that, as the Eagles (15-9) walked away with their second consecutive District 12 AA championship in a 70-58 victory over the Pumas of Mastery Charter North (24-3) on Feb. 26 at Hagan Arena on the campus of St. Joseph’s University.
McCray-Pace and Dalessandro led the Eagles in scoring with 20 and 15 points, respectively, while junior forward Daeqwon Plowden paced the Pumas with 20 points, including four made threes.
“Vinny was solid inside and LaPri really made some good decisions in the second half because he played with foul trouble the whole time,” Sciolla said, adding that McCray-Pace had already committed two fouls within the first four minutes or so of the first quarter.
Following a more than two-week lull in their schedule following their disappointing first round exit at the hands of Bonner-Prendergast in the Feb. 10 opener of the Philadelphia Catholic League tournament, Egan had two weeks of “brutal” practice – as Sciolla put it – to prepare for Philadelphia Public League AA champions Mastery Charter North.
In that game against Bonner, McCray-Pace had the ball stolen from him by Bonner junior guard Christian Lane in the waning moments of the tied game and converted what turned out to be the winning basket on an easy layup with 10.7 seconds left to give Bonner the 49-47 victory.
“After our loss to Bonner, I kind of blamed myself,” Pace said. “Me and my coach talked about it and we decided that in the last three or four minutes, I’ve got to have the ball in my hands no matter what. If I’m tired or not, I have to bring the ball up. That’s how we lost the Bonner game. I made bad turnovers and I blame myself. I didn’t put people in the best situations for us to win.”
Egan got an unexpected early boost from sophomore guard Eric Esposito, who converted two corner threes and made all three of his shots – including an and-one – at the free throw line to finish the first half leading all scorers with 13 points.
Esposito was only just told on the way down to the game that he would be getting the start for the Eagles.
“We actually decided to start him on the bus ride here,” Sciolla said. “He can make shots for us, he’s super confident and he’s got a great stroke. We just thought maybe with them coming out in a zone, we would beat them with him out on the floor. I was more impressed with some of his passing. He took care of the ball well, hit guys with some backdoor [passes] and he played with a little flair.”
Trailing 37-28 at halftime, Mastery North came out of the locker room and switched from a zone defense to playing man-to-man and the change clearly gave the Eagles trouble.
The Pumas went on a 7-3 run to start the second half and reduced their deficit to 40-35 thanks to a handful of forced turnovers and steals leading to transition baskets. Mastery North’s tightened up defense limited Conwell-Egan to just 10 third quarter points.
“They came out and played some man-to-man, which we were okay with, but they forced some turnovers a couple times,” Sciolla said. “I think we kind of over-dribbled and got ourselves into tough spots.”
Senior forward Vinny Dalessandro said Mastery North switched between 2-3 and 3-2 zones throughout the first half and the switch to man defense was a bit of a surprise.
“We were ready for their zone because we didn’t even think they could match up with us man-to-man,” Dalessandro said. “I think we were getting out our nerves and everybody was just nervous because it was a big game. Once we started making plays and shots, we started to relax.”
A 30-second timeout later in the quarter gave Sciolla a chance to calm his guys down.
“We just talked about how the key with [Mastery North] would be to spread the floor,” Sciolla said. “We needed to play the game in space because even though they’re probably quicker, we could negate that advantage if we could get some matchup situations.”
Despite a late push by the Pumas, Egan managed to match every Mastery North bucket with a bucket of their own. Junior guard Karron Johnson helped secure the victory for the Eagles by converting on all six of his attempts from the charity stripe after being intentionally fouled three times in the final minute of regulation.
Egan got to the free throw line early and often and shot at an 81 percent clip from the line, converting 17 of 21 attempts. Mastery North, on the other hand, shot just 7-12 (58 percent) in the same category.
Conwell-Egan 70, Mastery North 58
(Feb. 26 at Hagan Arena)
Conwell-Egan: 16 21 10 23 – 70
Mastery North: 11 17 11 19 – 58
CONWELL-EGAN (15-9) – Eric Esposito 13, LaPri McCray-Pace 20, Karron Johnson 14, Vinny Dalessandro 15, James Leible 2, Daniel Green 5, Drew Burton 1; TOTALS – 25 17-21 70.
MASTERY NORTH (24-3) – Daeqwon Plowden 19, Rodney Ross 15, Asa Kitchen 7, Eric Spann 5, Eli Alvin 9, Benford Jones 3; TOTALS – 22 7-12 58.
3-POINT GOALS: CE – Esposito 2, Dalessandro; MN – Plowden 4, Ross, Alvin, Jones.
