Christ the King Ends 4-Game Slide
MIDDLE VILLAGE, NY – The last time the Royals won a game was 12/5/19. The last time Christ the King lost four games in a row and was unranked by NYCHoops.net was never but on Sunday, CTK finally righted the ship, hopefully, with a 58 – 47 victory over the Holy Trinity Titans but it wasn’t pretty.
“We go through offensive slumps,” said Royals head coach Joe Arbitello. “We gotta get out of those slumps.” Ryan Myers ‘20, who led the Royals with 19 points scored all but 4 of them in the first half. “We score 34 points in the first half and we had a slump in the third quarter."
Christ the King got the ball rolling early in the game paced by Myers with perimeter buckets from Nicholas Molina ‘20. Leading by 10 to start the second quarter, Holy Trinity slashed their deficit to 18 – 16 with 5:50 left in the half as Mike Sixsmith ‘20 and T.J. Long ‘20 stepped it up offensively.
Lovell Smith ‘20 ended the Titans 8-0 run with long balls and aggressive play. Myers and Smith closed out the half strong and Christ the King increased it advantage to 34 – 21.
The duo Long and Sixsmith carried Holy Trinity on offense but would only at best be enough to keep the Long Island school at status quo. Still trailing by 13 points at the end of three quarters, the Titans valiantly narrowed the Royals lead to 9 points 1:57 left in regulation.
Holy Trinity went down swinging but went down nonetheless led by Long with 18 points and Sixsmith with 11 points. Molina added 14 points to Christ the King’s scoring total.
Coach Arbitello attributed Myers subpar second half to exhaustion from his defensive assignment, guarding Long. “In that stretch, he was tired after guarding [Holy Trinity’s] best player but he’s our guy. We go as he goes.”
Christ the King's record is still 0 - 3 in league play and 2 - 4 overall. Their next CHSAA league game is against #3 ranked Xaverian on 12/29. Will the Royals notch its first league win? We'll see.
