Monday —
B Division, at Mount St. Michael:
Blessed Sacrament vs. Sacred Heart, 5 p.m.
Cathedral Prep vs. Salsian, 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday —
A Division, at Cardinal Spellman:
Cardinal Hayes vs. St. Joe’s by the Sea, 5 p.m.
Stepinac vs. Xavier, 6:30 p.m.
Since I’ll still be at the County Center Tuesday, one of my colleagues will be out at Spellman for the Stepinac game. I’ll have him send me live updates. It is obviously a great opportunity for Stepinac.
Yes, to those who asked, Iona Prep’s season is over after its 78-75 loss to Xavier. (BOX SCORE) I know the Gaels led 22-9 after the first quarter but that lead slipped away to the point where they trailed the entire fourth quarter. Brian Voelkel scored 24 points for Iona, and Jeff Mack added 20.
I have never seen them obviously (has anyone? details?), but was told Xavier is not an overly talented team, just very hard-nosed and very tough. But it is not a team that Stepinac will walk over by any means.
Neither was McClancy. But Stepinac led late and then used six clutch free throws in the final 40 seconds from James Chillemi to seal the victory. (BOX SCORE) Rich Whitten led all scorers with 20 points in the 57-52 victory.
For more CHSAA info, check out the league’s website.
6 Comments
Put it this way….for Xavier to get to the Quarterfinals to play against Iona Prep it took double overtime to beat Regis in the last round. That’s how big of an upset this was! It shouldn’t have been a game and Iona took them for granted. I don’t think Stepinac will because of what they just saw and it will be a Stepinac vs Hayes final with Stepinac winning a championship.
????,
I didn’t see the Iona/Xavier game – I didn’t think it would be a close game so I, like a lot of Stepinac fans, left in the 1st quarter. I’ve talked with several people who saw the game. What I’ve heard is that Xavier played an outstanding game the last three qtrs and was actually more physical/tough than Iona. Judging by the box score, Carissimo and Bronner did not have great games. Definitely a huge upset, but Xavier just played excellent basketball. If Xavier plays this good on Tues, Stepinac will have their hands full. As much as I would like to see a Stepinac/Hayes final, I think St Joes and Xavier will be very difficult opponents.
By the way, for Stepinac’s interests I’m not upset that Iona Prep is not still alive. However, I can’t help but feel for the seniors at Iona. They had a tremendous three year run. Last year was probably the best team in Iona Prep history and they have a state title to show for it. I wish them all the best in college.
the chsaa “a” has a lot of parity. with a total of 18 teams making the play-offs a lot of crazy things can happen. the championship is up for grabs now with iona out. should make for some really good games on tues.
and fri. good luck to the teams left:
st. joe’s / stepinac / hayes / xavier!
Hey does anyone have predictions for class b
can someone please explain to me why the Iona and Stepinac quarter-final games got two lines in the paper, and there was a full page article on the Irvington-Kennedy Class B girls game?
The fact that Iona lost makes this an even bigger crime.
coverage,
I hate to say it, but the coverage for the CHSAA playoffs is notoriously poor. There were 4 big local CHSAA quarterfinal games at Mount on Saturday, featuring 3 local teams who happen to be among the handful of best basketball teams around this year (Iona, Stepinac and Mount). There were no boys games at the CC on Sat, but still there was next to no coverage of the boys games Sat. There’s nothing wrong with covering girl’s games, but on a day that there are no boys games, I’d assume the Journal News could figure out a way to get better coverage of the CHSAA.
The CHSAA semis are Tues at Cardinall Spellman. Hopefully the Journal News is able to get some coverage for that game.