Shattered Glass, Shattered Dreams

FRESH MEADOWS, NY- Thursday saw the final two CHSAA Intersectional Second Round matchup's take place at St. Francis Prep as Archbishop Molloy took on St. Peter's in the opener, with Iona Prep squaring off against Bishop Loughlin in the nightcap.

This wouldn't be a normal couple of games though as a shattered backboard on a dunk attempt by Molloy's Christian Bliss '23 early in the third quarter left everything in a standstill for nearly 90 minutes. Play would eventually resume after a delay with everyone in attendance truly having a story to tell.

Both games were tight and competitive contests, though the talking point of the evening will be able to backboard and everything that happened after that as it was surely a day to remember in CHSAA history.

The opener of the evening was going along extremely well with both the Stanners and Eagles putting together strong opening halves as while Liam Murphy '20 had 18 points it was still a balanced Molloy attack that allowed them to cling to a 30-29 lead at halftime.

A finish and the foul from Kawar Singh '21 opened the third to open up a 33-29 lead for Molloy, and then off a miss from St. Peter's it was a transition opportunity from Bliss who went up for the dunk but saw the ball slip out of his hand and when his hand grabbed onto the rim the glass from the backboard shattered.

With 6:29 left in the third quarter and Molloy up 33-29 at 6:42pm the backboard was shattered and with glass was all over the floor immediately Stanners head coach Mike McCleary said he felt they were done for the night.

"As soon as it happened I thought we were playing the game tomorrow, that's honestly what I thought," McCleary said.

St. Francis Prep AD Sal Fischetti though had an idea pop in his mind. He knew he had a construction crew working building new locker rooms and offices around the building so he decided to make a call.

"I know these guys work late so my initial thought was let me see if they are still here and when I called he said we are just wrapping up and I said Ed I need you in the gym and he said no problem I'll be right there." Fischetti explained.

The Ed that Fischetti was talking to was Eddie Slampiak who is the owner of CRM Construction, and who also happens to be a St. Francis Prep graduate Class of 1990. He was a member of the school's swim team during his days as a Terrier and as soon as Fischetti called he said he knew it was time to jump into motion.

"He called me and said I have an emergency and to see if I could help and when I came in I saw the hoop was shattered so we kicked it in to high gear," Slampiak said.

It wasn't easy as Slampiak, his crew of six other men, and three scissor lifts, went to work to carefully remove the backboard that was shattered, then they needed to take a backboard from a side hoop and unscrew that and bring it to the main hoop, measure it to make sure it would fit, and finally after that put it into place.

All in all, it took just over 75 minutes but they were able to do everything, getting the new backboard on so the game could continue. One man who was stunned to see everything be put into place the way it was McCleary who said he couldn't believe the people at St. Francis Prep were able to get everything done in that short of a time period.

"No other school could've done that. I know my guys would've had one guy showing up with a mop an hour later," McCleary said with a laugh. "This is the only school that was capable of getting it done that's quickly because anywhere else these games are played tomorrow at another gym."

With the hard work of everyone involved at exactly 8pm the game resumed. Both teams left the court for some time to relax and not be so focused on what was happening on the court, but keep themselves in a zone knowing that the job wasn't done that someone here was moving into Sunday's quarterfinals, and someone else was going done for the season.

Just a couple minutes after resumption it was Murphy on a putback dunk scoring his 1,000th career high school points to get St. Peter's back within a couple. It was a milestone achievement for the Columbia bound senior, though there was still work to be done as the Stanners would maintain a 42-34 lead heading to the fourth.

Murphy would do all he could for St. Peter's to try and will the Eagles to the win as he would finish with 40 points and get the deficit down to 53-51 with 49.1 seconds left in the game, but a big runner in the lane by Michael Hernandez '21 would push Molloy's lead back up to 4, and after a miss from deep it was the Stanners in firm control.

St. Peter's would score a bucket at the buzzer to make the game just a bit closer but paced by 15 points each from Bliss and Hernandez, and the 12 points from Singh, it was Archbishop Molloy moving on with a 60-58 victory.

Bliss after the game gave credit to Murphy for keeping the Eagles in the game, but he made sure his team stayed composed down the stretch as they were clutch from the FT line and limited the mistakes showing that while they may still be young this Stanners group is coming of age as they now move on to take on St. Raymond in the CHSAA Intersectional Quarterfinals on Sunday afternoon at Fordham University.

It's a game and day that McCleary said he will absolutely never forget from the backboard shattering to his team coming of age will Thursday's win as he admits that Sunday will be a challenge but he is excited to have his team get the chance to play on the big court, and prove themselves on the big stage.

"That's where you want to be, you want to be in the elite eight," McCleary stated. "You want to separate yourselves from the ones playing tonight to the ones playing Sunday and now we get to play on Sunday. It's going to be tough on Sunday but you know what, at least we're still playing."

With the second game originally scheduled to tip at 7:30pm and not tipping until just before 9pm it meant the players and coaches for both the Gaels and Lions would likely be affected as well by the backboard issue.

Iona Prep head coach Steve Alvarado though said that wasn't going to be the case for his team as it's not like his kids haven't been delayed in games before, and with so much on the line he wasn't about to allow an excuse to get in the way of a trip to the CHSAA Intersectional Quarterfinals.

"They should be excited to play and have a chance to be in the quarterfinals again so I don't think that meant anything," Alvarado stated. "They have all waited longer for AAU games so I said it should be no excuse."

Even though the Gaels did come out somewhat flat to start as they trailed by one heading into the second quarter, Iona Prep put things together as R.J. Greene '22 had a massive throwdown late in the half to see them take a 26-20 lead into the locker room.

Bishop Loughlin played a very physical and tough style and attempted to drag Iona Prep into a more helter skelter type of game in Alvarado's mind, but he was proud of his group for not allowing that to happen. They stayed the course as Aidan Hilderbrand '20 hit a couple of clutch shots, and with Greene and Keeshawn Jones '20 continually finding lanes to get into and finish it was the Gaels who wouldn't be denied.

Greene would lead all scorers with 21 points while Jones would add 18 as Iona Prep would move into Sunday's quarter's by pulling away down the stretch for a 61-49 victory over Bishop Loughlin.

The win now gives Iona Prep a third game against their rivals from Archbishop Stepinac in the CHSAA Intersectional Quarterfinals at Fordham on Sunday. The two teams split the regular season matchup's this year and while not many may be predicting a Gaels win this time around Alvarado says that's ok by him as he is just excited and ready to show what his team is all about.

"If you ask 100 people maybe 1 might think we will win but the good thing is we will be unafraid, we will compete very hard and if we make shots we will have an opportunity," Alvarado admitted. "They are heavy favorites for a reason because they are very good and well coached but everyone knows we always give them a hard time, probably more than most, so we are excited to go out and try and maybe steal it from them."