By Mike Morton
Archbishop Molloy couldn’t complete its quest for a diocesan title.
The Stanners beat Bishop Ford in a tiebreaker game for the regular season crown two weeks ago, but dropped a dramatic 51-45 decision to the Falcons in the Brooklyn/Queens Division I girls’ basketball final Saturday at St. John’s Prep.
Despite the best efforts of senior Amani Tatum, who scored a game-high 24 points, the Stanners could not handle Ford’s tandem of Aaliyah Jones and Aaliyah Lewis. Jones, who was suspended for fighting and missed the tiebreaker, scored a team-high 16 points and Lewis added 14 for the Falcons (21-7).
In a game that was tightly contested throughout, the Stanners could not hold on to a 41-39 lead with under four minutes remaining.
“I thought that we played hard, I thought that we left it all out on the floor,” Molloy Coach Scott Lagas said.
The Stanners (20-7) experienced an uncharacteristically poor performance from Carolyn Gallagher. The Columbia-bound forward scored just six points in the loss, which left Tatum to pick up the slack.
“She’s got a lot of heart,” Lagas said of Tatum, who will be playing at James Madison next fall. “When the team’s not doing well, she wants to try to carry them on her shoulders. She cares so much about the team and so much about winning that she tries to do whatever she can.”
Molloy was also plagued by foul trouble, as sophomore Aryn McClure fouled out in the fourth quarter on a questionable call, which Lagas believes shifted the momentum in Ford’s favor.
“After that, things just started to fall apart a little bit,” he said.
St. John’s Prep falls to Kearney in Division II final: Carla Marfe laid on the ground next to her team’s bench, writhing in pain with tears flowing down her cheeks after the third quarter. The St. John’s Prep senior had reinjured a sprained ankle, triggering emotions of frustration and pain as her team trailed by 17.
Marfe could have decided she didn’t want to play the end of the game, but she instead decided to gut out the fourth quarter of St. John’s Prep’s 44-33 loss to Bishop Kearney.
Marfe limped through the fourth quarter and scored a game-high 23 points in the loss. Jennifer Kaye paced Kearney with 15 points off the bench and Christina Heyer had nine.
“Sometimes she overdoes it,” Red Storm head Coach Ed Flood said of Marfe. “Her enthusiasm gets the best of her. She’s always in every play.”
