Where do Saints go from here now that they won’t have Kingston McKoy?
2023 Berks basketball coverage presented by
Utilities Employees Credit Union
Parker Nein, Josh McKoy, and their teammates played on emotion when Berks Catholic lost star player Kingston McKoy to a broken leg Tuesday during a fierce battle against Reading High.
They pulled together, rallied from a 13-point deficit, and beat the Red Knights 61-59 on Josh McKoy’s go-ahead bucket with six seconds left.
In the wake of their 14th straight victory the question now is: What’s next for Saints?
How do they carry on without arguably the best player in the league? Without their top defender, their point guard and best ballhandler, one of their leading scorers and rebounders, and their on- and off-court leader?
“Obviously, we have to do different things,” said Saints coach Snip Esterly Wednesday, after Kingston McKoy had surgery to repair the broken tibia in his left leg.
The tibia, or shinbone, is the larger and stronger of the two bones in the lower leg. It can take 4-6 months to fully recover, which means the sophomore guard will miss the remainder of the season and much of the spring AAU season.
McKoy was injured in the final minutes of the third quarter when he took off from the right wing and had a clear path to the basket. After pushing off his left leg he grimaced in pain. The bone apparently snapped on his push-off, and without contact by another player or with the floor surface.
By the time he landed he was in great pain and appeared to know the extent of his injury, and its implications.
His teammates either didn’t realize it at the time — or didn’t want to. They continued to play and overcame what was a 10-point deficit when he was carried off the floor and taken to Reading Hospital.
“I knew he was (badly) hurt because I’ve never seen him like that,” brother Josh said of seeing his brother writhing in pain on the floor. “I thought: ‘That’s not good at all.’ ”
Kingston’s teammates learned later in the night the severity of the injury and that they’ll be without him the rest of the season.
“It was a very restless night,” admitted Esterly, who has coached, and won, more games than anyone in Berks history.
Despite coaching for 35 seasons and more than a thousand games Esterly has never faced such a situation, losing a star player at midseason with so many possibilities ahead.
The Saints (8-0, 14-0) are in first place in Division II of the Berks Conference. They are ranked No. 1 in the District 3 Class 4A power ratings. They were considered the favorite to win league and district championships.
Now the path of their season becomes a mystery. Rather than being the hunted the Saints – even with a perfect record – are back in the pack as one of the hunters.
They have a two-game lead over Exeter in the division and likely will need to win two of their four remaining league games to claim that title. They have league games remaining at Twin Valley (4-14), vs. Conrad Weiser (6-8), at Exeter (10-6) and vs. Daniel Boone (8-8).
As far as the league or district go no one can label the Saints a favorite. They’ll have to play a few games without Kingston McKoy to establish a new identity. Their next game comes Thursday at Wyomissing against a Spartans team which has won its last four games.
Esterly won’t use McKoy’s loss to lower the bar on expectations.
“I think we can still do it,” he said of chasing championships. “I think we can do a world of damage in the county. I think we can still win districts.”
Berks Catholic has won back-to-back district titles. Kingston McKoy was the sixth man on last year’s team as a freshman.
“I know the guys are going to respond simply because they won’t want to (let Kingston down),” Esterly said. “They want to do it for Kingston. They don’t want to give up. I think Kingston would be very disappointed in them if they didn’t give it their all.”
Obviously Esterly and the Saints will have to make changes – in every aspect of their game. Josh McKoy and guards Armanni Dominguez and Brady Altimar will have more ballhandling responsibilities.
Senior Elijah Koromo will take over as defensive stopper. Altimar, a sophomore, could move into the starting lineup at guard; he’s fourth on the team with 10 3-pointers. Zach Suski, a 5-11 sophomore, will see more minutes, too. He has proven to be a strong rebounder and scrappy defender off the bench.
Javen Diaz, a 6-2 senior center, started some games early in the season and could see extended minutes. Jackson Kozik, a 6-foot sophomore, could see his first meaningful minutes as part of the rotation.
“We’ll figure (all of) that out,” Esterly said. “We’ve all got to chip in together. We don’t expect one individual to do more. Everybody else has to do a little more for each other.”
The entire narrative of the Berks basketball season changed in a heartbeat Tuesday night. It went from: ‘Can Berks Catholic complete an unbeaten run’ to ‘Where do the Saints go from here?’
“It’s definitely gonna be a big adjustment,” Dominguez said immediately after Tuesday’s game. “(Kingston) made everything a lot easier for us. We’ve just gotta stay together and hopefully find a way through. It’s gonna be tough, though.”
