Stepinac Beats St. Ray’s Over Time

BRONX, NY – In addition to the battle for who’s number one in the CHSAA NY Class AA standings, there were quite a few subplots. Sunday’s finale of the PSA Prep Tournament between Archbishop Stepinac was also a Westchester vs the Bronx war with St. Raymond’s located in same borough as Yankee Stadium and Crusaders hailing from White Plains, NY.

After a hard fought war, it appeared as if St. Raymond’s was going to notch its second substantial victory this week, beating Mt. St. Michael on Friday. With a minute left in the game and the Ravens up by 6 points, most of crowd in the packed gym at Mt. Saint Michael’s headed for the exits. By the time they got home, they would’ve been shocked to find out that Stepinac not only overcame their deficit but beat St. Ray’s in overtime, 100 - 93

“The game is not over until the clock hits zero,” said R.J. Davis ‘20. “With 45 seconds left, there’s a lot of game left so in my mind, I wanted to do everything I can to tie the game or get the lead.” The North Carolina bound point guard walked the walk netting 41 points, 7 assists and 2 steals which included draining two free-throws to knot the game at 80 at the end of regulation.

While the Ravens used its speed and ball movement to keep Stepinac on its heels for most of the game, the Crusaders felt that bigger would be better. Duke commit A.J. Griffin along with forward Malcolm Chimeze ‘21 attacked St. Ray’s front court with the goal controlling both the paint and perimeter. “St. Ray’s is not very big,” said Chimeze who scored a double-double (16 points & 10 rebounds).

With Malachi Smith ‘21 and Luis Kortright ‘20 matched up against Davis and Griffin one on one at times, the duo from St. Ray’s tried to out do Stepinac’s blue-blooded high-major commits. While the Davis-Griffin combo proved to be lethal especially in overtime, Smith and Kortright proved that they were top level prospects as well. Kortright finished with an impressive 33 points and 12 rebounds while Smith scored 30 points and 10 assists.

Davis picked up his fourth foul early in the third quarter but managed to play smart and stay in the game. In the overtime after Kortright served up a bucket over Griffin, the ACC bound junior seemed to take it personal and went into full on beast mode scoring seemingly at will. Stepinac outscored St. Ray’s 20 – 13 to get the win with.Griffin scoring 29 points, 17 rebounds and was a human flyswatter with 5 blocks after having a relatively quiet first half.

To beat, the Ravens, Stepinac head coach Pat Massaroni said his team had to do three things. “One, we had to limit our turnovers. Two, we had to match their physicality and three, we had to match their defensive intensity. We had to get them to make tough shots. It took 35 minutes but it worked ”