Cross Ends Molloys Season with an L
It was senior night at Holy Cross and recognition of Molloy Coach Jack Curran's fifty years of coaching. While this was the Knights last home game of the season it didn't take long for the players to wipe away the tears and proceed to wipe the floor with their opponents. Unfortunately for the Archbishop Molloy Stanners, they were the opponents on this Friday night as they were soundly defeated 76 – 59.
Immediately after the tip off, the Knight went on a 8 to 2 run punctuated by a Sylven Landesberg dunk from off an assist by teammate Blaise Ffrench.
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Ashton Pankey would stop the bleeding for Molloy scoring on a strong inside move followed by a mid-range jumper by Mark Wnukowski but the Stanners were never in this one as the quarter ended 21 – 10.
Holy Cross would push the lead to 16 points and eventually Coach Paul Gilvary would pull out the starting five except for Landesberg when the score hit 30 -12. Eslyn Hernandez would finally score for Molloy and Coach Gilvary would reinsert his starters.
Stanners center Jin Hong would start to heat up but Landesberg and senior Forward Kayvon Roberts would counter. At the half the score would be 39 – 23 with Virginia-bound Sylven Landesberg scoring a blistering 27 first half points which initiated whispers of Landesberg scoring back-to-back 50+ points games. Landesberg recently scored 51 points in Holy Cross's last game against All Hallows.
In the third quarter, the Knights lead would extend to 19 before Molloy star Russ Smith would finally get hot and drain a three-pointer that would spark a Stanner run. Pankey would make an emphatic slam-dunk followed by two more three-pointers by Smith and a put back by Hong and suddenly the Stanners were within 8 points of tying the game with 6:34 left. But that is where the fantasy ended as Robert nails a three ball from the corner followed by a three ball from Landesberg. Knight's center Ernest Freeman would score off a Ffrench assist and the Knights lead was back up to 19 points.
With 37 seconds left, Coach Gilvary again pulled his starters including Landesberg ending the chance of back-to-back 50's and 37 seconds later ending the game with a victory.
Landesberg did however manage to be the games high scorer with 39 points with Russ Smith being Molloy's high scorer with 18 points.
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