Recap of St. Joseph's Prep vs Roman Catholic Basketball 24-25

On Wednesday, St Joseph’s Prep defeated Roman Catholic in a game that was close throughout the entire contest and have now made people second guess their PCL champion picks. With 5 seconds left, senior guard Olin Chamberlain inbounded the ball to senior guard Jordan Ellerbee, with the double team coming in, Ellerbee turned to the base line where he had a wide open layup to give The Prep the biggest upset of the season thus far as they defeated the #1 ranked team in the state. This was a low scoring game with both offenses failing to make their open shots and the defense for both teams was intense.

Throughout the game, Roman Catholic had held a lead over the Hawks. While The Prep would find ways to come back, and then Roman would take the lead right back. The game was tied at the end of the first quarter with both teams failing to get into a real rhythm. Throughout the first few minutes, Roman fed the ball to their senior forward Shareef Jackson, who was able to get a few baskets to start the contest. As the first quarter came to a close, Jordan Ellerbee was able to drain a couple of baskets to keep the Hawks in the game. 

The second quarter was the roughest quarter for The Prep as Roman switched to a zone defense where four players were on the perimeter and one man was inside the paint. The Prep did not seem to gameplan for this type of defense as their starting five seemed to be a bit taken aback by the defense. Thanks to Olin Chamberlain, he was able to get senior guard Jaron McKie and others a few good looks but not much fell in the hoop. Down six at the half, things were not looking good for The Hawks as many people know that Roman typically do not blow leads at all.

In the third quarter, The Hawks defense came out to play. All the attention was focused on Shareef Jackson as senior forward Will Lesovitz and freshman guard/forward Julian McKie frustrated the big man for the entire second half. They continuously were fighting with Jackson inside the paint and were making lots of contact even when he didn’t have the ball. Roman did not seem to expect this as their guard did not look comfortable throwing a lob pass over the heads of Lesovitz and McKie, especially with a collapsing Hawks defense ready to strike if the ball went inside. A three from Mehki Robertson and Jaron McKie helped The Prep outscore Roman 10-6 in the third quarter. 

As the final quarter began, the crowd knew they were in for a gritty and tough end to this game. The defensive tenacity from The Prep continued as Jackson was held to two points for the entire second half. However, Roman was able to make three point shots with a variety of different players to keep their lead for the majority of the four quarters. A three from Jaron McKie and two baskets from Will Lesovitz, one resulted in a and one opportunity, The Prep were able to tie the game 38-38 with just five seconds left. Olin Chamberlain delivered the inbound and as he ran to the perimeter, junior Semaj Robinson ran into the man who was guarding Jordan Ellerbee, sophomore Tyler Sutton. With that, Ellerbee took advantage of this mishap and was able to make the game winning layup as time expired to give The Prep the win.

After the game I was able to catch up with Jordan Ellerbee who had 18 points in and when I asked him if that play was designed for him, he stated, “The very last play, I would necessarily say every play is not designed for me. I have a whole team so it’s whatever the defense gives me, if I’m getting double teamed and I’m not open I find the open guy, but it was wide open for me so I just took advantage of that and scored the ball.” After this contest The Prep improve to 7-4 on the year and will play on Friday against Cardinal O’Hara. Roman fall to 8-3 and will play on Friday against West Catholic.