Roman Catholic serves up lesson in win over Archbishop Wood

PHILADELPHIA >> Archbishop Wood looked like it was on to something at the start of Monday’s third quarter.

The Vikings had come out of the halftime break firing, punching PCL champion Roman Catholic with a 9-3 run and trying to make a statement they’re weren’t going away yet. Roman coach Matt Griffin called a timeout and when it ended, his team punched back.

Led by Lynn Greer III and Hakim Hart, the Cahillites served up a valuable but tough to take lesson to the Vikings in an 86-65 win over Wood at Community College of Philadelphia.

“We don’t handle adversity well yet, we’re young but you’re more than halfway through the season so you have to be able to handle adversity,” Wood coach John Mosco said. “You can’t just show up. They think you’re coming to take their title and they’re not letting you take their lunch money. They’re punching you and counter-punching you.”

For stretches, Wood showed it could hang with the defending PCL and 6A state champions. But for most of the game, it was Roman doing the teaching on both ends of the floor.

Greer III and Hart each scored 26 points with Greer tallying six rebounds and nine assists as part of a terrific all-around game. Hart, who has committed to St. Joseph’s, was extremely efficient shooting 10-of-12 from the floor.

After senior Seth Lundy hit a 3-pointer to open Roman’s scoring, it was the combination of Greer, Hart and 6-foot-9 freshman Jalen Duren who scored the next 18 in the first quarter.

“We carried over our chemistry from last year to this year and added a few new guys,” Greer said. “They’ve clicked with us pretty easily.”

Duren, who along with freshman guard Justice Williams, found their way into the starting lineup right away for Roman with good reason. Both highly touted young players, Duren in particular has impressed in his first high school season. The forward showed why Monday, throwing down five first half dunks and finishing with 13 points, 10 rebounds and two assists.

Lundy, a senior and Penn State signee, made it an offseason priority to bring the newcomers into the team’s family by getting their phone numbers and inviting them to workouts, pick-up games and plenty else away from the court with the rest of the team. The 6-foot-6 wing scored 12 on Monday but was most pleased with how his team played on the defensive end.

“We talked on defense in this game and that was a big part of it,” Lundy said. “No offensive player wants to hear a defense yelling. We practice that, so we try and practice good habits every day and hopefully they translate into the game.”

Wood trailed 21-13 after one quarter and 44-26 at the half and the Vikings could squarely pin much of it on their defensive effort. Roman feasted in transition, with no example better than a sequence in the second quarter.

Vikings point guard Rahsool Diggins attacked the rim, got his shot swatted by Lundy. Duren recovered it, then flung an outlet pass down to a wide-open Hart for a dunk.

Greer was also really good in transition and the Cahillites had plenty of two-on-one or three-on-one breaks going the other way off a Wood miss or turnover.

“My teammates did a great job of getting me the ball and I feel I did a great job of getting them the ball,” Greer said. “It was a good team game.”

Diggins led Wood with 20 points but only had three assists. He and his teammates never really found a consistent offensive flow and fell into a lot of isolation and one-on-one action and the sophomore point guard lamented his team’s overall effort.

“We just didn’t bring it today,” Diggins said. “We didn’t defend, that’s it. We didn’t share the ball, we didn’t communicate and we got humbled.

“You have to have that in you; you have to want to defend. It’s not hard, if you help the helper, it’s not that hard to play defense.”

Diggins, who started as a freshman, knows he and his teammates are as good as anyone else in the league but they have to do a better job of showing it night in and night out.

“Our guys don’t realize what it takes to play defense for 32 minutes and compete at a high level,” Mosco said. “When you don’t do it, and you play teams like Neumann, Roman and La Salle in our league, you get your butt kicked, plain and simple. Defense is about effort and hard work and if you want to be ranked up with the big guys, you have to show up and beat them.”

Both Lundy and Greer have been in the shoes most of the Wood players now fill as young guys in one of the most difficult leagues in the state. Lundy called Wood “next up” in the PCL and said that because all the players on Wood’s roster can handle and shoot the ball, they’re going to cause a lot of trouble the next few seasons.

 As a freshman, Lundy was a reserve on a senior-heavy PCL and state championship team then got his first real experience the next season where he too learned some tough lessons.

“I remember my sophomore year playing against Quade Green and Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree, we lost to them in the (PCL) semifinals at the Palestra and it really woke me up,” Lundy said. “I told myself ‘I’m making sure next year we don’t lose.’ Just seeing how hard they played, the passion they had for the game, it woke me up and that’s why I play as hard as I do now.”

Greer, who’s started since his freshman year, noted that managing emotions is one of the biggest factors to success in the PCL.

“You can’t get too high and you can’t get too low on yourself,” Greer said. “When you have bad games, you just have to get back in the gym and keep working. If you have a good game, it’s the same thing, get in there and keep working.”

Wood still has games with Neumann-Goretti, Archbishop Carroll, St Joe’s Prep, La Salle and Archbishop Ryan to end its PCL slate, so the Vikings will have opportunities to prove themselves before the league playoffs. Diggins said he wanted to see the Cahillities again, knowing his team was capable of a better showing.

Roman also has a tough slate to end the regular season with PCL dates against Carroll, the Prep, La Salle, Cardinal O’Hara and Bishop McDevitt coming in the next three weeks.

“The scary thing about it is, we believe we haven’t played our best basketball and we want to be playing our best basketball in February,” Lundy said. “We’re a family now, we’re all brothers. We’ve created a bond.”

ROMAN CATHOLIC 21 23 21 21 – 86
ARCHBISHOP WOOD 13 13 18 21 – 65
Roman Catholic: Lynn Greer III 9 7-7 26, Hakim Hart 10 3-4 26, Seth Lundy 5 0-2 12, Justice Williams 1 2-3 4, Jalen Duren 6 1-2 13, Louie Wild 0 1-2 1, Michael Anderson III 1 0-0 2, Chad Anglin 1 0-0 2. Totals: 33 14-20 86
Archbishop Wood: Rahsool Diggins 7 4-9 20, Julius Phillips 5 3-3 14, Jaylen Stinson 3 1-2 8, Daeshon Shepherd 6 2-3 14, Robert Jackson 1 1-2 3, Muneer Newtown 1 2-5 4, John Donahue 1 0-0 2. Totals: 24 13-23 65
3-pointers: RC – Hart 3, Lundy 2, Greer; AW – Diggins 2, Stinson, Phillips.