After about 4,000 student athletes participated on 383 Catholic Youth Organization basketball teams in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington this winter, girls and boys champions were crowned following the recent 14U Mid Atlantic CYO basketball championship games. The archdiocese’s CYO youth basketball program is believed to be the largest youth basketball program in the Washington area.
Our Lady of Mercy girls win ninth championship
The 14U girls’ CYO Mid Atlantic basketball championship was held on Feb. 23 at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School in Washington between teams from Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Potomac and St. Elizabeth’s Parish in Rockville. The girls’ team from Our Lady of Mercy prevailed, 21-16, in a tense defensive struggle that saw only eight points scored by the two teams in the first half.
St. Elizabeth’s was missing two starters and with a limited bench was forced to play a sagging zone defense. Mercy used their size advantage to out-rebound the Saints by a four to one margin, but their outside shooting remained cold, and St. Elizabeth’s managed a 5-3 lead at the end of the first half.
Mercy opened the second half in a trapping zone defense designed to bottle up St. Elizabeth’s Katie Splaine by cutting off her driving lanes. The tactic worked and allowed Mercy to build a 10-6 lead with eight minutes left.
Suddenly, shots for both teams began to drop, and Clara Aschenbach (8) and Adanna Igwe (6) combined for 14 points down the stretch to provide the final margin for the Our Lady of Mercy team. Quinn Russell was outstanding for St. Elizabeth’s, scoring nine points in the final six minutes to keep her team’s hopes alive.
The Katie Fitzgerald Trophy was presented to the girls’ team from Our Lady of Mercy following the game by the Fitzgerald family. The win marked the ninth title for Mercy, the most in the history of the event. Olivia Clarke of the Our Lady of Mercy team was picked by her coaches as the MVP of the tournament.
St. Jerome’s wins record-breaking fourth consecutive title
The boys’ team from St. Jerome’s Parish in Hyattsville defeated the team from St. Thomas More Parish in Washington in the CYO 14U boys’ Mid Atlantic basketball championship game played on Feb. 25 at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville. The 47-29 victory gave St. Jerome’s team their fourth consecutive championship, eclipsing a record shared by three teams that dated back 30 years.
The Jaguars wasted no time establishing their dominance, racing to a 29-2 halftime lead. The surge was led by Dylan Higginbotham (6), the tournament MVP, and Yusuf Zaid (8) who scored 14 of their team’s points, but all five starters scored, showing the impressive balance of the St. Jerome’s attack.
The St. Thomas More team regrouped at halftime and to its credit, did not concede. The Raiders, led by the spirited play of Trevon Epps (14), and Darius Collins (7) found their footing and actually outscored St. Jerome’s in the second half, 27-18. The team also played without one of its best players, Sincere Scott, due to a broken thumb suffered in the semifinals.
St. Jerome’s has assembled one of the most powerful teams in CYO history. They finished the season 40-6, won four out of five tournaments, and defeated five freshmen and JV high school teams. Eight of the ten players dressed for the game scored, and they are expertly coached by Joe Sego, who won his seventh title at St. Jerome’s, the second most in CYO history. The team is so deep that if it was broken into two teams, they still might finish one-two in the league standings.
