BRIARWOOD, NY – There was a lot of incentive for the unranked Archbishop Molloy Stanners to put their best foot forward on Tuesday versus Westchester/Upstate’s #1 ranked Crusaders. Unfortunately for Molloy, that plus homefield advantage would not be enough to surpass a determined Stepinac, who toppled them, 68 – 53.

The Stanners did not go down without a fight. A barrage of perimeter scoring from 6'3" John McCabe '22 and 6'3" Jayden James '23 was able to effectively counter the Crusaders output spearheaded by 6’2” Boogie Fland ‘24 during the warmup quarter. This gave Molloy a six-point advantage to start the second quarter.

The game evolved into an “anything you can do; I can do better” brand of basketball as each team tried to one-up the other but Crusader’s 6’6” Braylan Ritvo ‘24 began to display his full repertoire of assets. The multi-positional sophomore showed command of the paint along with his ability to score from the arc facilitated the turning the tide midway through the quarter, giving Stepinac a 37 – 32 lead at the half.

The Stanners found themselves in quicksand as the second half got underway. Stepinac’s crisp ball movement and discipline slowly extracted Molloy’s momentum like pulling teeth with no painkiller. In the arrears by 13 points to start the final quarter, Archbishop eventually went under, losing by 15 points.

Ritvo led Archbishop Stepinac with 20 points and six rebounds with Fland adding 13 points, five rebounds and five assists. James was high man for Molloy with 17 points.