McDevitt finds safety in Marsico’s shooting, ousts Carroll

NEW HOLLAND >> For the first 30 minutes Tuesday night, Alex Marsico seemed destined to influence Bishop McDevitt’s PIAA Class AAA second-round game without the ball in his hands.

But when the rock found the senior guard in the final minute, he rose to the occasion.

Marsico buried the go-ahead 3-pointer with less than a minute to play, putting the Crusaders ahead for good and ending an uncharacteristically error-prone Archbishop Carroll’s season, 62-60, at Garden Spot High School.

The shot was Marsico’s only made basket of the night on just his second attempt. But when Bryce Hall drove the lane and found his progress blocked, he fed Marsico on the left wing to bury a triple in front of the McDevitt bench and put the Crusaders ahead, 56-55.

No matter how much energy he expounded defensively as Ryan Daly’s shadow, he had no problem rising and hitting.

“When it’s that close, you don’t feel tired; you just want to step up and make a play for your team when you’re given the opportunity,” Marsico said. “… They kicked it out to me and I was wide open. I tried to fire it up for my team and hope it went it.”

Carroll traveled on the ensuing inbounds play, one of 17 turnovers for the usually sure-handed squad, and James Williams finished an old-fashioned three-point play to stretch the margin to two possessions at 59-55 and send the raucous McDevitt bench into paroxysms of joy.

Carroll wasn’t done, with Ryan Daly banking home a 3-pointer from the right wing with 14.8 seconds left on a play where he appeared to get fouled without a call, but McDevitt inbounded up 61-60.

Carroll got two cracks at the tie off an inbounds play with 2.4 ticks left, Daly missing a long jumper that hit nothing but air and Colin Daly’s one-handed put-back attempt rimming out as the District 12 third-seed Patriots (23-4) saw their quest for a third trip to the state final in four years dashed.

Ryan Daly finished with a game-high 24 points, but thanks to Marsico’s intervention, that total was achieved laboriously. Marsico used his training as a free safety on McDevitt’s state-powerhouse football team to faceguard Daly up and down the court, denying him touches and disrupting the Carroll offense.

“I pretty much used my football techniques to try to not let them catch the ball,” Marsico said. “… I was just trying to not let him get the ball, and if he does get the ball, I was trying to crowd his airspace to make his shots tough.”

Daly had four points at halftime, and while he erupted for 13 in the third quarter, they came at a tiring price that was paid by a sluggish Carroll effort in the middle of the fourth.

Ryan Daly hangs, hits. after 3, Carroll leads McDevitt 43-36 https://t.co/z8XHjCsckZ

— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) March 9, 2016

“They were face-guarding him all over the court,” Colin Daly said. “It’s hard when your best player isn’t getting as many touches as they usually do and you have to find offense different ways.”

“We knew going into the game that they would faceguard us, try to pressure those guys,” Carroll coach Paul Romanczuk said. “Maybe we just underestimated the effect that would have on our guys. As the game wears on, you tire a little bit. You lose a little composure here and there.”

Daly eventually got his points, as Marsico expected. Josh Sharkey added 20 to go with five assists, all on a 13-4 third-quarter spurt that put the Patriots up 43-36 entering the fourth.

Exacerbating the sting, both players end their careers agonizingly close to 1,000 points. Sharkey, who played as a freshman at Abington Friends School, compiled 990 points. Daly, who didn’t play as a freshman in State College, tallied 992.

Most disappointing from Tuesday’s effort was that Carroll appeared to flex its muscle in the fourth quarter. Despite wearing the white jerseys, District 3 champion Bishop McDevitt (22-6) played up the angle of the underdog, hoping to exact revenge down the line for last year’s exit in the quarterfinals against Neumann-Goretti.

When Carroll pried open distance early in the fourth quarter, leading 48-40 on a Khari Williams bucket, the Crusaders could’ve packed it in. Instead, they embarked on a 9-0 run, aided by a technical foul for the fifth personal on Carroll senior John Rigsby, who was disqualified with 5:10 to play and just four points.

“We lost a captain, so that’s always tough,” said Colin Daly, who was held scoreless. “John’s been our leader. We just got ahead of ourselves. We let the game slip a couple of times, careless with the ball down the stretch.”

The lead see-sawed back and forth until Marsico’s triple, one of several big contributions from McDevitt’s balanced attack. James Williams, the 1,000-point scorer, paved the way with 18 points, despite strong defense from Miks Antoms on the smaller and swifter forward. Hall added 14 and Kobay White, who was hit with a technical in the first half to inflame tensions, scored 11.

But the entire roster chipped in, typified by Marsico. Jody Morales banked home a running 3-pointer at the first-half buzzer, sending the teams into the locker room tied at 23, and McDevitt was steady at the line in the fourth, cashing in on 15 of 21 trips to the charity stripe.

Where McDevitt flourished, Carroll fell just one stop, one incisive play shy of what was needed to advance.

“I just think we had an eight-point lead there early in the fourth quarter, and we lost a little composure and we did some things out of character,” Romanczuk said. “You don’t expect that from a senior-laden team, and experienced team, and unfortunately it happened at a bad time.”