FLUSHING, NY – With only one CHSAA league win this season, it’s been a steep uphill climb for Holy Cross. Friday’s home game versus the NYCHoops.net #6 ranked Molloy Stanners could’ve been a step in the right direction. Scarcity of height would quickly become the Achilles heal for the Knights en route to a 65 – 53 defeat.

Holy Cross came out swinging in the opening quarter, spearheaded by effective perimeter scoring from 6’3” Tyler Castro ‘23 and 6’3” Jacob Moreno ‘24 quickly taking an 11-point lead into the second quarter. With such explosive shooting from the arc and beyond by the Knights, the conventional wisdom should be for Molloy to counter with man-to-man defense.

Anticipating that the Knights long distance shooting was simply an aberration, the Stanners instead countered with an aggressive zone defense, and dared the Knights to shoot. That bet paid off in the second quarter with Holy Cross perimeter game only able to score one bucket. Molloy also used its substantial height advantage with 6’7” Elijah Small ‘24 dominating in the paint and reduced their deficit to 28 – 23 at the half.

Castro was the Knights most consistent scoring option but surprisingly, there were few if any plays run for him. Instead, the senior had to scrounge for buckets and boards. The momentum drastically changed in the third quarter as Holy Crossed was consumed by the play of 6’4” Jayden James ‘23 and 6’7” Jahmire Brewer ‘24.

Trailing by 12 points entering the final quarter, Holy Cross simply did not have the hardware on this night to compete. James led Molloy with 21 points with Smalls adding 12 points. Castro paced Holy Cross with a game high 25 points.

Archbishop Molloy improves to 4 – 2/ 9 – 3 while Holy Cross falls to 1 – 8/ 3 – 11.