Shooting hurts as Lower Moreland falls to Neumann-Goretti

PHILADELPHIA >> First, Danny Duffey got an embrace from Dicky Rhoads, then with 54.6 seconds left in the fourth quarter, he walked off the court as a high school basketball player for the last time.

As he did a crescendo of applause rained down on the Lower Moreland senior from both sides of the gym at Philadelphia University. The student section full of people he had helped get to start coming to the games gave him a loud “M-V-P” chant as he shared a moment with coach Seth Baron.

With the way his last game had gone, the senior deserved the moment.

Duffey was simply fantastic in his last game, scoring 33 points in a 78-52 loss to Neumann-Goretti in the PIAA Class AAA quarterfinals Friday night. While the Lions battled valiantly against the defending state champion Saints, they felt they left some things on the floor.

“I’m proud of my boys but we know our shooting performance was not what we are capable of doing,” Baron said. “You do the math and if we have an average shooting night, we win that game by eight. (N-G) is a great team but we feel like we let one slip away a little bit.”

Lower Moreland shot just 5-of-30 from 3-point territory, a massive aberration for a team that had so much success shooting the ball all year. Baron felt the Lions got every look they wanted from distance and even Saints coach Carl Arrigale felt LM had far too many open shots.

But they wouldn’t go down. The Lions trailed 36-21 at half and were just 1-of-16 from 3 in the opening two quarters. The only thing keeping them afloat was Duffey, who had all eight of the team’s second quarter points.

“We knew we could win the game, our team’s never really intimidated by anyone,” Duffey said. “It’s not something that happens. If we look intimidated, we’re not intimidated it’s because we’re playing poorly. I don’t think we were intimidated it’s like Coach said, shots weren’t falling.”

Neumann-Goretti threw everything it had at Duffey, from Vaughn Covington to Quade Green to Mike Millsip and the guard got by all of them. The only thing that seemed to slow Duffey down was foul trouble, he picked up his third in the second quarter then his fourth with 5:46 left to play in the third.

The fourth foul limited what he could do on defense, but Duffey never stopped coming on offense, slithering and maneuvering his way into the lane and contorting the ball in over the Saints imposing big, Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree.

“They like to pressure you and pick you up 94 feet,” Duffey said. “If a guy’s that far up on me, I’m usually pretty confident I can get around them. But that’s not the type of athletes and defenders you see in our league or really even in our district but I work hard at my game, I’m confident that I can handle the ball and beat my man when I’m that far under the basket.”

Duffey said that given the team’s off shooting night, it was going to come down to Goretti missing shots for Lower Moreland had a chance. That didn’t really happen, as the Saints started 10-of-12 and scored 25 points in the first and third quarters.

Arrigale wasn’t pleased with his team’s defense overall and felt it let Lower Moreland hang around and play with confidence. But he also paid due diligence to No. 4 in blue and gold.

“He played well, I’m happy for him really, he has a lot of heart, that kid,” Arrigale said. “He has a lot of guts and he did a lot of it with four fouls. He also did it a lot without taking jump shots, he drove into the lane and I don’t know how he got a lot of those shots off.”

The loss ends the most successful postseason in school history, with the Lions winning their first playoff game as an AAA school and advancing to the quarterfinals for the first time. The team’s seniors built an identity the last two years and the undersized team built a scrappy identity that served it well.

Baron said Duffey would be the first person in line to trade in 30 of his points for a win, but he added that a loss shouldn’t take away from the guard’s final performance. Friday afternoon, Lower Moreland had a huge school pep rally, something Duffey hadn’t seen in his four years.

“What we did for the school is pretty unbelievable, I think the two best seasons in school history,” Duffey said. “It really stings to lose this game knowing that if we shot well, we could have hung with arguably the best team in the state. I think I showed I can hang with some good players.”

“He was the best player on the floor tonight, in my opinion,” Baron said. “We keep coming back to shooting but if we shoot a little better, we’re right there.”

Aside from his 33 points, Duffey had six rebounds, three steals and three assists. Nick Smolda was the second-highest scorer with six points, Tyler Millan had five in his final game, Rhoads had three in his last LM performance and Jake Fazio and Mike Gould, also seniors, each had two and several of the hustle plays they’re known for.

Duffey said that if the program wants to keep climbing, the guys coming back will have to work hard, especially in the offseason. He and his classmates set the bar high and with a career worthy of highlight coming to an end, his coach demanded one last moment of recognition.

“He deserved it, that’s no question,” Baron said. “It’s a great senior class, Tyler, Dicky, Mike and Faz, they’re great players but we all rally around this guy here. He deserved that moment. He’d be the first one to say he didn’t need it but we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t put him in the spotlight there.”