St. Anthony’s girls can look back with pride
St. Anthony's Sarah Edmond (5) moves the ball past Long Island Lutheran's Alyssa Torres (25) during the New York State Federation Tournament of Champions girls' Class AA high school basketball semi-final on Friday, March 18, 2016, in Albany, N.Y. Credit: Hans Pennink
ALBANY – There was no fantastic finish for the Friars’ Fab Five. But the St. Anthony’s quintet left a formidable legacy.
“They did a great job. It was a special group,” St. Anthony’s girls basketball coach Ken Parham said after a tough 41-40 loss Friday to Long Island Lutheran in a tense Federation Class AA semifinal. “One was from Freeport. One was from Holbrook. They were from all over. They didn’t know each other when they got here. They weren’t seeing each other in the neighborhood pizza place.”
But seniors Jayla Jones-Pack, Taylor Goode, Etalyia Vogt, Ally Murphy and Sarah Edmond delivered. All five developed into Division I college players and along the way brought St. Anthony’s some nice hardware. “It’s tough to get here,” Parham said of the Federation Tournament of Champions. “They got us two state Catholic league titles.”
And they came oh so close to getting the Friars into the Federation championship game. Despite a leg injury to 5-9 junior starting guard Maia Moffitt late in the third quarter that kept her out the remainder of the game, the Friars cut a four-point deficit to one in the final minute.
They played stellar defense on Lutheran to force a rushed, off-target shot that gained them possession with six seconds left. Parham could have called a timeout once the Friars corralled the rebound, but decided to let the final act play out.
“We were struggling offensively after the injury. We went really small and when they set up in their zone, it was hard to get off a shot,” Parham said. “If I call timeout, they get to set up their defense.”
So when Edmond dribbled down the court trying to beat the clock and the Lady Crusaders, Parham just watched. “I knew we were going to get that stop and get the ball back,” he said. “We had almost six seconds to go coast to coast and we had a speed advantage.”
Parham said he thought there was some contact between Edmond and Lutheran’s Sarah Mortensen that prevented Edmond from getting a clean layup, but he never argued the call and didn’t second-guess himself or the officials afterward.
“We hit a pocket in the second quarter where we just didn’t score,” Parham said of a stretch where neither team scored for more than five minutes. “But we found a way to skin the cat a little differently.”
Though the Friars couldn’t give their Fab Five one more shining moment, Parham was smiling when he reminded, “This is not their last chapter on a basketball court.”
