Newton boosts Neuman-Goretti in tough title game
UNIVERSITY PARK -- With 5 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter of Friday night's Class AAA basketball final, the PA announcer came within a whisker of renaming one of the competing schools.
He intoned, "Time out called by Newton-G . . . Neumann-Goretti."
In his spare moments, the guy must be a seer.
Ss. Neumann-Goretti High now owns a third consecutive state championship and, down the stretch at Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center, sophomore guard Ja'Quan Newton was indeed the primary contributor.
Not to an outrageous degree, mind you, because it wasn't that kind of game . . . witness the 48-45 final score.
The Saints wound up on top, Montour (Pittsburgh suburb) settled for the bottom and Newton made that happen, in part, by owning the middle. Well, eventually . . .
He began seizing control by capping a hard drive with a perfect dump-off pass to La'Quan Coaxum, whose layup made it 39-34 with 4:21 remaining. He added three field goals, including a dunk, as the session progressed and got to the line for six total free throws. (However, ouch, he hit just one. At least his aggressiveness caused the Spartans' foul problems to increase; three starters incurred five personals).
Overall, Newton finished with 17 points and two assists as N-G became the state's first threepeater since Kennedy Christian captured four in a row in Class A from 1998-2001.
All season, coach Carl Arrigale used a six-man rotation with three seniors, two juniors and Newton, a sophomore. So much for the notion that young-'uns should be seen more than heard, especially when surrounded by highly seasoned vets.
"I saw a couple of open lanes, so I went to the basket and scored the ball for my team," Newton said. "I forgot all about the other three quarters, when things weren't going so great. I erased them from my memory. The fourth quarter is when I play my best.
"It wasn't like coach Carl told me to take over. That's not our style. It's never about one person. Whoever's open gets the ball or whoever can take his man to the bucket, it's go ahead and do it."
While we're on that subject . . .
N-G experienced major flow problems for much of the night. In fact, it finished the first half with NO assists and totaled just four (on 16 field goals) for the game.
"That was probably the best defense we saw all year," Newton said. "They were faceguarding me and Billy Shank and just kind of roaming around with the other guys. I guess they didn't know our other guys can make plays. But still, we just weren't clicking. And Montour deserves a shoutout for that."
The Spartans nearly forced overtime.
With 6.8 showing, senior forward/center Derrick Stewart missed both parts of a double-bonus and Montour's Dillon Buechel rebounded. Camped out in the left corner, bursting with confidence because he'd nailed a right-corner trey at 8.1, was Kevin Scuilli.
Scuilli accepted the pass. Coaxum ran toward him and jumped. The threeball wound up short and the Saints, cheerleaders included, stormed the court to celebrate.
"I knew that guy was gonna get the ball," Coaxum said. "I wanted to contest it as best as I could without fouling."
So, had he ever-so-slightly nicked the ball, as it appeared from far away?
"I did," he said. "I got a little piece with my finger."
Montour was also N-G's victim in last year's final. Aside from posting four consecutive Catholic League championships and a 70-0 mark in league play, including playoffs, N-G also went 21-1 in other postseason contests -- 4-0 in City Titles and 17-1 in state playoffs. Its only slip-up came against Archbishop Carroll in a 2009 quarterfinal. The Patriots charged ahead to capture the state title so the CL has every one in AAA since starting PIAA competition in 2008-09.
Stewart, for one, is impressed.
Admittedly, his shooting (1-for-8 floor, 0-for-3 line) was abysmal. But he posted game highs in rebounds (11) and blocks (five).
"It felt great to be part of an accomplished team, one that did so much," Stewart said. "There was a lot of family, a lot of love, a lot of glue. We always stuck together, even when it was hard. When a team stays hungry and focused, the sky's the limit.
"Even though I wasn't hot on offense, I tried to do as much as I could with rebounding and blocked shots to help my team win."
When Derrick was a freshman, his brother, Danny, then a junior, was already an established star for N-G. Danny's now at Rider and Derrick will join him for the 2012-13 season. Derrick said he had played in every game since maybe midway through his freshman campaign.
After the Saints, who received 11 points and eight rebounds from junior forward John Davis and 10 points (two treys) from Shank, hammed things up for fans and cameramen, they moved to a corner of the arena for postgame interviews with PCN's crew.
Standing off to the side, watching the proceedings, was mega-fan Ralph Digneo, a former Catholic League football referee.
"That wasn't a Rembrandt," he said with a laugh.
Hey, sometimes even a kindergartner's finger painting is beautiful.