Coolahan leads Holy Ghost Prep basketball past Bristol (VIDEO)

BRISTOL BORO – Holy Ghost Prep (HGP) senior Jack Coolahan opened last night’s battle at Bristol with a pull-up jumper that was good for three points. It was the last jump shot the 6-4 forward took in the first half however and one of only two jumpers he took in the game.

Big Jack scored the rest of his game-high 26 points under the basket, helping the visiting Firebirds to a 60-35 win over the home town Warriors.

“Their kid, number 21, Coolahan – he had his way with us, especially down low,” said Bristol head coach Matt Gasper, afterward.

“He got 26 points and he took only two or three jump shots. He wanted the ball down low and he forced his way inside, got a lot of offensive rebounds and a lot of easy buckets.”

That, he did.

Coolahan hit a driving layup in the first period to go along with a pair of putbacks and a turnaround one-hander before going coast to coast with a layup in the second. Jack registered 14 points in the first two periods, earning Ghost a 29-15 edge by the intermission.

“Jack played very well but he’s played pretty well all year long,” said HGP head coach Tony Chapman. “Tonight, he just had a few more shots go in.”

The coach liked the fact that most of those points came in the paint.

“I’m trying to harp on the whole team to not shoot as many threes and try to get to the hoop more,” said Chapman. “Tonight, we did it pretty effectively.”

In the first half, Ghost scored all of their points underneath, save Coolahan’s 3-pointer and another by junior Mike McFadden (16 pts.) in the second period.

Defensively, the ‘birds kept Bristol senior standout Deonte Harris at bay, limiting the leading scorer for the Warriors to seven points in the second period and 15 for the game.

“The thing that pleased me the most was our first-half defense,” said Chapman. “I thought we played really well. We did a good job on Harris; we worked a lot on trying to keep the ball away from him. Aidan Bauer did a nice job on that and when he did get it, we got some help from other people to make things difficult.

“He’s a really good player; he makes shots that a normal high school kid is not going to make. When you play them, you have to focus on trying to contain him.”

Combining on 50 of the 60 points registered by Ghost were Coolahan, McFadden and senior Julian Turner (8 pts.).

“They are our prime guys. We’ve had a few games where John McCrane and Aiden Bauer have had double digits but primarily, they are our top scorers and they are going to wind up near the top.

“But it’s better than having just one scorer; it gives us some flexibility.”

Turner hit six of his eight points before the break including a putback early in the first period and back-to-back layups in the second that put the ‘birds up, 18-6.

After registering a 3-point play in the first period, McFadden added a 3-point jumper in the second that countered the only three in the game by Harris and put Ghost up 21-11 with three minutes to go until the half.

In the second period, Harris got his game going, scoring an early jumper midway down the lane to go with a 3-pointer and two free throws. He also fed the Kelley brothers – one each to Carter and Parker – for easy layups.

In the second half, while Bristol turned up the pressure on defense, the Warriors really didn’t get much in the way of offense.

“At one point, we forced four turnovers in a row but on the other hand, we only got one point out of it,” stated Gasper. “Whenever we did something good on defense, we seemed to lose it on offense.”

While Parker Kelley opened the second half with a putback and Harris added a jumper, the Firebirds countered with a layup by Turner, two free throws by Coollahan and four points scored by McFadden. Even with the turnovers, Ghost mounted a 10-4 scoring run, capped by a Coolahan layup that put the ‘birds up 39-19 with 1:30 to go in the third quarter.

Coolahan hit for another eight points in the period including a forced jumper taken near the end of the quarter with Bristol defender Ronnie Garrison draped all over him.

“We started running other guys at (Coolahan) to get him to give it up but they had some other players step up for them in the second half,” explained Gaper.

“We talked about doubling (Coolahan) in the post but once we did that, number one (McFadden) had a pretty big second half.”

“At some point, it has to come from within the players; they have to want to stop this kid.”

Ghost opened the fourth quarter with a 7-2 run, a scoring spurt that included a jumper by HGP junior Jack Beck and a pair of field goals by McFadden, the second of which was good for three points.

With the win, the Firebirds pushed their way to 13-3 overall, 8-1 in the Bicentennial Athletic League (BAL) while the Warriors fell to 4-12, overall, 2-7 in the BAL.

NOTES: Coolahan shot 7-for-8 at the foul line. Garrison was 1-for-6.

Contact the author at ssherman@21st-Centurymedia.com, or @BucksLocalSport on Twitter

Holy Ghost Prep 60, Bristol 35

 (Jan. 19 at Bristol)

Bristol            4 11   7 13 – 35

Holy Ghost 12 17 14 17 – 60

BRISTOL — Carter Kelley 2, Parker Kelley 9, Dom Sica 2, Samir Brisbon 2, Adrian Ellerbe 4, Deonte Harris 15, Ronnie Garrison 1; TOTALS — 13 8-17 35.

HOLY GHOST — Jack Beck 2, Joe Calvin 4, Jack Coolahan 26, John McCrane 2, Dan Pawluczyk 2, Julian Turner 8, Mike McFadden 16; TOTALS — 23 11-13 60.

3-POINT GOALS: B — Harris; HGP — Coolahan, McFadden 2.