Archbishop Wood holds off Holy Ghost Prep in PIAA-5A 1st round

RADNOR >> Archbishop Wood’s Daeshon Shepherd says he and Rahsool Diggins have the innate sense to know when it’s the perfect moment for an alley-oop.

“That’s me and ‘Shool’s connection,” Shepherd said. “Whenever he looks at me, I just tell him throw it up. We do it every game. I don’t remember one game where we didn’t do that.”

Friday night, the right time for the juniors came at the start of the second quarter, Shepherd rising to the rim to receive Diggins’ pass from beyond the 3-point arc and hammer it down.

“It always gets Daeshon going when he gets involved,” Wood coach John Mosco said. “It gets everybody’s motor going on the bench and the crowd and players.”

Shepherd followed with another two-handed slam a few minutes later off a drive, the pair of dunks helping to thaw the Vikings’ offense in their PIAA Class 5A boys basketball first-round match up with Holy Ghost Prep at Archbishop Carroll.

After ending the first quarter even at nine, Wood opened the ensuing period with a 12-3 burst to go up 21-12. The Firebirds mounted a few runs, but the Vikings never gave back the lead and in the fourth pulled away to reach the state round of 16 with a 52-41 victory over District 1’s sixth-place side.

“It was a wake-up call for us. We never start off right,” Shepherd said. “So we had to pick our energy up and get back in the game and that’s what we did and came up with the W.”

Diggins scored 11 of his team-high 16 points in the first half, Shepherd finished with 11 points while Muneer Newtown added 10 points as District 12 champ Archbishop Wood (17-8) finished strong in both of the final two quarters for a win in the Vikings’ first state game since they claimed the 5A title in 2017.

“I thought the first quarter we were a little tight, worrying about playing defense, so it took away from our concentration in scoring on offense,” Mosco said. “And we stayed with the defensive end, we were able to keep working and getting the defense stops that we needed. As the game progress, those balls were finishing.”

Wood advances to the second round face District 1 third-place finisher Penncrest, which topped District 2’s No. 3 seed Wallenpaupack 53-42, Tuesday at a site and time to be announced.

Tyler Mish knocked down five 3-pointers in scoring a game-high 17 points for Holy Ghost Prep (20-10), which was looking for its first PIAA win since besting Bermudian Springs in the 2014 Class 3A first round.

“Our players did everything I asked that they could do,” Firebirds coach Tony Chapman said. “We worked on trying to control the tempo and I thought for most of the game we did. They’re tremendous in transition and in the end the difference in the game is some turnovers that got them into transition.

“I’m very proud of the fact that we didn’t quit. We fell behind probably three different times in seems seven, eight or so and we got ourselves back.”

After trailing 27-22 at the half, Holy Ghost scored the first four points of the third to pull within a point but Wood finished the quarter with a 9-2 run to lead 36-28.

“This is only our second game since the 15th of February so I thought it took a little bit to get our legs and our shooting touch and stuff like that,” Mosco said. “We wanted to just keep attacking, we didn’t want to settle for jumps so and I thought we did a good job.”

The Vikings were up 42-33 after Shepherd hit both ends of a 1-and-1 with 5:04 remaining but Mish scored the next five — draining a corner three then hitting a runner to get the Firebirds’ deficit down to 42-38.

But Newton quickly answered, scoring in the lane and drawing a foul to push the lead to six at 3:53. After a Shepherd layup, Newton sliced to the hoop for two and the foul for a 48-38 advantage.

“When we got it to four, that was probably I think our worst part of the game,” Chapman said. “We came down and after we got it to four, then my memory would be for the next two minutes it became a track meet. We took a quick shot, they came down, can’t play that way at all. And in the end, that may have cost us.”

The Vikings extended the lead to as much as 13 after a Jaylen Stinson free throw at 45 seconds.

Holy Ghost Prep got off to a quick start, taking a 6-1 lead on a Jack Rittenmeyer jumper with the BAL Independence Division co-champs again leading by five after Mish’s first three of the night made it 9-4. Diggins, however, scored five straight points to tie the game at nine at the end of the quarter.

Shepherd’s alley-oop slam gave Wood the lead for good while the junior’s dunk driving in from the left wing put the Vikings up 13-10. A Sean Elliott jumper had the Firebirds within 15-12 but Diggins found Newton inside for a one-handed slam and a five-point edge. Baskets from Stinson and Diggins off steals had Wood’s lead up to 21-12 before Mish connected on a three.

Another Mish triple had Holy Ghost down 25-22 but Brennen Kersey scored on a putback and was fouled with 45.4 seconds to give the Vikings a 27-22 lead at the break.

Back-to-back buckets from Rittenmeyer and Greg Calvin to start the third had Holy Ghost within one. But Diggins found Julius Phillip inside to make it 29-26 while two Stinson free throws had Wood up five at 3:26. A Newton reverse layup pushed the lead to 33-26 before an Elliott basket but Shepherd hit a 3-pointer to put the Vikings ahead 36-28 going to the fourth.