Christ The King sends message to Molloy

“We wanted to send a message that CK is still here,” Tahira Johnson said.
After Saturday’s 56-45 defeat of Archbishop Molloy, the senior forward can consider it sent. Put to bed are the bad memories of last season, in which Molloy ended Christ The King’s 108-game winning streak and won once more, just for good measure, in the Brooklyn/Queens championship game.
To be fair, CK’s 2007-08 nemesis has changed a bit. Then-Molloy head coach Dom Cecala has since parted ways with the Stanners and joined up with the Christ The King JV squad, advising the varsity Royals all season long and establishing an unmistakable sideline presence on January 17. Molloy’s roster is not what it once was, either: Kelly Robinson, now a junior guard, currently plays for Francis Lewis, while ’08 stars and team leaders Kerri White and Molly Dreyer graduated last year.
To be fair, there remain some good memories from last year. CK’s run to the ‘Class A’ state championship should suffice as such.
Still, the Royals knew another Stanner-induced loss would be particularly bitter. Head coach Bob Mackey, sensitive to this fact, charged up his players by posting in the locker room a score of “45-41.” That’s the margin by which the Stanners deprived CK of its 24th consecutive Diocesan trophy back in March 2008.
“They took our trophy,” Johnson said. “We wanted to go out there with fire in our eyes.”
The Royals did. Led by Johnson’s 20 points, they put on a clinic in the second half that outscored Molloy 31-16. A defensive clampdown was central to the Royals’ late-game surge; CK’s defenders, feet planted in the paint and blocking any forward movement, always seemed one step ahead of Molloy scorers like junior forward Kyra Aloizos, who had had a much easier time finding space in the first and second quarters.
When it came to Molloy’s Kelly Guerriero, blocking the sharp-shooting junior guard was a primary concern. She characterized the opposing defense as “guarding me tight [and] breathing on me” - although she still managed to score 19 points and pull off a running, off-balance shot that led Mackey to call her “a hell of a player.”
“We wanted to shut down Kelly because everybody knows she’s an awesome scorer,” Johnson said.
With Molloy forced to the outside and Guerriero kept off-balance for much of the second half, it came as no surprise that Christ The King was particularly impressive on the boards - underscored by the height of frontcourt players like Johnson (6’1”), junior forward Ariel Edwards (6’2”), and senior center Taylor Burner (6’4”). Guards like senior Geleisa George moved in as well. Edwards tallied an astronomical 17 rebounds.
“Underneath, I don’t think as a whole we were boxing out as well,” Guerriero said, “because Nicole [Marciniak, a senior forward], in one of the timeouts, said, ‘It’s hard enough for me and Kyra when we have to box out Tahira and all those other girls, but when we have Geleisa and the guards, it’s a lot.’ ”
CK also took advantage of some superior ball control, which Mackey credits to the experience of the Royals’ recent travels. Sites have ranged from Rhode Island to Phoenix, opponents from Long Beach (CA) Poly to Shenendehowa of suburban Albany.
“I like the way we’re moving the ball. Now we’ve got a little more versatility on the offense,” Mackey said.
“Turnovers are our main problem on the team,” Guerriero said.
Such stories, of course, neglect the fact that Molloy was actually leading 39-34 at halftime. Molloy junior guard Marielle Duryea was arguably the star of the first half, at one point finding herself trapped among three committed CK defenders and coolly passing to the wide-open Guerriero, who dropped a three-pointer. Earlier, sprinting to her right about 10 feet from the basket, Guerriero had heaved an off-balance shot from her right shoulder that landed in the netting and drew considerable applause from the audience.
“They shoot so well, you can’t give them an inch,” Mackey said.
When the Royals responded with a flurry of missed jumpers, their coach grew concerned.
“Why are we shooting jump shots?” Mackey asked afterward. “We had a serious size advantage.”
But in the second half, CK rarely wavered from its game plan of stopping Guerriero and focusing on the boards. The Stanners wouldn’t hit off-balance jumpers forever. As long as the Royals connected with their giants, players like Tahira Johnson could score 20, and Christ The King would notch the latest conquest of the teams’ burgeoning rivalry. The Royals are now 4-0 in league play, the Stanners 2-4.
I wanted this so bad,” Guerriero said. “We all wanted to get King again. We’re all really, really disappointed. We scrimmaged hard for this.”