RallyNorth.net

Central holds off the Prep

Monday, February, 20 By Jeff Hamrick

LAWRENCE — If there was any doubt Central Catholic deserves the top seed in the upcoming Division 1 North Sectionals, it was removed in the final 4 seconds of last night’s IAABO Board 130 Classic championship.

After holding a lead it took 45 seconds into its game against St. John’s Prep, third-ranked Central fell behind by one with 18.5 seconds left. A Raider timeout set up a Joel Berroa pass to a backdoor-cutting Nick Cambio for the game-winning layup. The victory was secured when the Prep missed a last second shot from the paint to give Central its 20th victory in the 21-game regular season.

“Coach (Rick Nault) was too nervous writing the down the play (in the timeout),” said Cambio, who sat much of the game with foul trouble and finished with only four points. “He forgot to tell us what it was ... but that’s what the play was.”

Central led by as many as 11 and by eight entering the final quarter despite the foul troubles of Cambio and Berroa, who was limited to only 3 1/2 minutes of first-half court time. In their absence, Mike Barry came off the bench for some big first-quarter minutes on the defensive end while Doug Gemmell and Tyler Nelson took care of the scoring.

The 6-4 Gemmell connected from the inside and even added a 3 while scoring 14 of his team-high 18 in the first half. Nelson helped pick up the slack with 13 of his 15 the opening two quarters.

But the Eagles, who dropped a 24-point decision to the Raiders less than a month ago, broke out of a shooting slump that saw them  miss 16 of their first 18 attempts from 3-point land. The Prep used Stephen Haldyna, who scored nine of his 25 points in the fourth, and made their last three treys to eventually take the lead on a pair of free throws by Haldyna.

That’s when Berroa, who helped keep Central in control with 11 of his 13 in the final 6 minutes, made the pass to Cambio.

“We ran a play that we run every day in practice,” Nault said. “It’s something that we know what it is, but I kind of forgot who was supposed to come to the ball ... but the kids knew exactly where we wanted to go.

“It’s an out-of-bounds play that we get a backdoor screen on it. We didn’t get the screen, but we got the back-door cut. I was hoping to get the look with about 2 seconds left.”