 Adam (L) and Pat. |
Hawk Talk Pat
Murphy and Adam Ferrone are students at St. Joseph's Prep with
an interest in writing. They lit up this site during FB season have already written for the school paper and now are taking
the plunge with our colorful crew. We welcome them. They'll mostly collaborate. When they
don't, we'll ask them to be specific (ha ha). |
JAN. 28
REPORT ON RECENT ROMAN GAME
(Mixed in here somewhere)
{yaaaawwwwnnn-stretching} OK, so after some constant prodding we’re going to
give this a shot. Let it be known we are football writers, but on the same token
we like to keep our options open. We’re like Donovan McNabb at
Syracuse—we’re stars on the gridiron, but we can also provide a spark off the
bench come basketball season. We were not planning on doing any reports on
Speedy’s gang this year, considering there are 16 basketball writers, but we
finally gave into Ted’s text messages, and desperate midnight phone
calls. Apparently after the conclusion of Hawk Talk, the visitor ticker on Ted’s
site has only received 18 hits. 5 of those hits were by Ted himself, just
checking the layout. Wayne Ellington and Gerald Henderson both
stopped by, just to see if they could find anything else to feed their egos. The
Explore This kids snuck a peak, to see if there was anything else they could rip
off, and fail miserably at duplicating. Prep sub Kevin Funston
accidentally came upon the site in his spare time, while researching the life of
Ted Kennedy’s pet gerbil, Hilary (the actual site name is TedsHilary.com).
Finally, the other seven were from Brian Sugden and Dan Jordan,
making sure their player nicknames were long enough. So the good ol’ Hawk Talk
boys are back, at least for now, so you can expect the site to get more action
than I do at parties telling girls I’m Chris Whitney.
In order to give us extra incentive for a comeback, Ted and his
staff rounded up every penny they could get their hands on. They held car
washes, robbed churches, and Ted even tapped into his, uh, "connection", John
Shaw, for some financial help. They then presented us with an offer we
couldn’t refuse: roundtrip tickets to anywhere in the continental United
States. We debated for a while on where to go. San Diego? South Beach? Heck,
Iowa even got some backing. In the end, we decided that we needed to “toughen
up” as reporters, so we agreed on a location that would really test our
tolerance for fear… Roxborough, known by many as “the toughest place on earth”.
So we packed our bags and after a 1 minute and 45-second plane ride, and half a
bag of courtesy peanuts, we were there. So for a week we jumped around from
house to house bunking up. Several Roman Catholic students opened their arms and
welcomed us into their homes. While these ‘Borough boys seem tough on the
outside, they are just big teddy bears. While staying with Ryan Weber,
I learned how to quilt, and he really knobsocked me in tetherball. At this point
you’re probably thinking, “This is a basketball article?” We’re getting to that,
seriously- we are.
So on Saturday, we (along with our new gang friends) traveled to
Philadelphia University to watch our beloved Hawks take on the Cahillites of
Roman Catholic. As legendary Pete Crispino once wrote: “Cahillite is
Latin for ‘kid who did not get into the Prep,’ ” which was funny so we’re just
going to steal that and play it off like our own.
The game itself pitted two fierce rivals and two of the top teams
in the Catholic League against one another. The Prep came in with only one loss
and Roman was the second ranked team in the city. The first quarter, as expected
by many, was a back and forth battle which was tighter than Charlie Noonan’s
shirt. On offense for the Cahillites, most of the scoring came on layups or
short range jumpers. A big contributor to that was Mike Ringgold, who has
seriously beefed up and hit the weight room in the off-season. He boasts a
max-out of 45 lbs. on his bench press (which is half his weight), and if he
keeps at it, he could eventually graduate up to putting weights on the bar.
Ringgold, Roman’s leading scorer on the year, had 10 points, 9 boards, and
popped two basketballs with his chin, which infuriated Matt Beck. As much
as Roman’s game was dominated by short-range shots, the Hawks relied almost
exclusively on the outside threat. The shots were not consistently falling for
the Prep, but they managed to come out of the first quarter with the game tied
at 11, as their small gathering of fans also matched the rowdiness of Roman's
“stage army”. This did not last long, however.
In the second quarter this one started to slip away. Sr. G Dave
Stefanski was getting some good looks not only at shots, but from some of
the ladies in the stands (Dave’s note: sorry girls but I’m so sprung- Dave <3
Marissa 4eva). If you think that you recognized Dave from somewhere, it’s
probably from the fame he gained by posing as “the before” picture in Rogaine
commercials. Though Dave is widely considered the best shooter in the Tri-state
area (more on this later), he had a rough day from beyond the arc. The Cahillite
guards took turns covering not only Ski, but also scrappy PG Matt “Superstaa”
Griffin and F Reginald E. Redding. While Redding did make it into
double figures, he did not have his best performance shooting wise, and he was
somewhat stifled by the Roman defenders. Among those sharing the load on Redding
were, Brian Whine-amaker (© Colin Wixted), Raymond Sims and
Bradley “I am the aforementioned Wanamaker’s brother, but I get more minutes
than my brother and I have slightly bushier eyebrows so that is how you can tell
us apart if you see us on the street or at the local Pizzeria or the corner
store or whatever-- I like cheese steaks without onions and maybe a bottle of
Snapple or something… probably like raspberry kiwi” Wanamaker (oops didn’t
mean to pull a Sugden to Jordan).
“Doodles” just did not have the touch, as Philly U. probably could
have added an addition with all his bricks. This was probably because we stole
his WWJD bracelet and gave it to Speedy, who hid it in the rafters next to
Herb Magee’s jersey.
The game continued to get out of hand into the second half as Roman’s
athleticism began to reign supreme, and the Prep continued to struggle from the
field. The player with the best looking stroke for the visitors was Griffin, who
hit three 3-pointers, and kept the ball on a string for most of the game. Griff
has the best handle in the Catholic League, and dare I say all of basketball,
has ever known. He is not as big as his brother John (now at Bucknell),
but he is quicker, probably because he’s not weighed down by the three pounds of
hair gel John used to apply. Down low, it was a physical battle between soph. C
Larry Loughery and Roman F/C Rockeed McCarter. Rockeed grunts more
than DMX, but is really a soft spoken, kind-hearted individual deep down.
Loughery did hold his own against the athletically imposing McCarter, managing
10 points and 9 boards.
One of the darker moments in the game was when the Prep decided to
let Roman dribble out the final minute and a half of the third quarter. It was a
move that showed both the players and the fans that Morris may have chalked this
one up in the loss column a little early, as he was clearly displeased with his
team’s offensive execution, and may have been sending his troops a message. On
the defensive end the Crimson and Gray did a good job of getting back, and at
times the D looked impressive. This can probably be attributed to the hard-nosed
work of the role players. Sr. F Mike McCauley, has been busting his butt
to fill the void left by the injured James Oberlies, and has really
stepped up. With the Prep down by 16 points late in the fourth quarter, the
bench was cleared, as the likes of Srs. Charlie Schrier, Matt Beck, Kevin
Funston and Kevin Fox got into the game. The four have often been
referred to as “Simba’s Stunna’s” because of their heart and how they play with
reckless abandon. Schrier didn’t even have his shoes tied. Funston was only
wearing a white T-shirt. Beck was watching ‘Pretty Woman’ on a DVD player on the
bench, and Fox was ironing a shirt for his dad, the sharpest dresser in the
Catholic League, at the time SS got the call. It didn’t matter. Someone hit a
three… I would tell you who but these guys don’t want self-recognition. Someone
stole ball and made a layup. They got another stop and scored again, and then
followed that with another three. At this point the Roman players knew-- they
had been struck by Simba’s Stunna’s. In the end the Prep ended up losing by 8,
but it was not that close as Roman looked VERY impressive. As the buzzer sounded
someone yelled, “They’re handing out free pocket knives on the court!” So
naturally, all of Roman’s student sections went jolting onto the hardwood.
Game
Notes:
After the game Brian Sugden drove up and down Henry Ave in his baby blue Ford
Taurus yelling at us, but we didn’t even care because at least this time he kept
his shirt on. We thought we saw Dan Jordan but we weren’t sure since his face is
tough to see in the darkness of his brother’s shadow.
We have no real qualms with Danny and Brian though. When they keep
their nicknames to under a paragraph, they can even be kinda funny. We are
perfectly happy with them being the MAD TV to our SNL.
One of the few chants that was not stifled by the administration
was when the Prep faithful chanted “you wear purple” which they must have
misunderstood because they chanted back “we wear purple”, which was in fact what
we had just said.
While Roman was just dribbling out the third quarter Cahillites
running back Sean Woods stood up and yelled, “Just take a knee." He
probably learned that from Prep’s 3rd string QB, Aaron Haas, when the
Prep beat Roman 41-0 this season.
On Friday the Prep held “Speedy Sweater Day”, in which all the students wore
sweaters, except Mike McCauley, who went bare-chested.
SJP students should take a page out of Roman's book (do they
read?)…. Their fans come out in huge numbers and are absolute wild men. There’s
no way 4 seniors and Brian Brinkmann can compete -- if the crowds don’t start
improving we're gonna start throwing Reggie ‘bows.
New section: Story of the week.
So here’s the story… Do we have time for this? (Ted gives the
thumbs up) OK here goes.
So studmuffin Dave Stefanski invited Adam and Yours Truly to what
he liked to call the “good-looking people” party one night. So we’re standing by
the soda bar, and Dave turns to a girl and asks “Hey baby, you know why it’s
always so dark when I show up?” Before she could even think to respond he said
“Oh yeah, it’s because I shoot the lights out.” We practically watched her knees
buckle. The girl happened to be Sean Woods' girlfriend, but he wasn’t even mad-
just amazed. In other news, Sean Woods is now single.
Game Prediction:
The Hawks battle Neumann-Goretti on Friday, and while I already know the outcome
of the game I am going to pick the Prep anyway, because I love Speedy that much.
We’ll see you next time . . . or maybe not, who knows.