Josh McKoy rises to the occasion, carries unbeaten Saints past Spartans
2023 Berks basketball coverage presented by
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Josh McKoy looked worn out following Berks Catholic’s 52-40 win at Wyomissing Thursday.
Maybe it was the extra effort he expended in scoring a career-high 33 points, helping keep the unbeaten Saints afloat.
Maybe it was the result of an emotional week, one which saw he and the Saints rally to beat Reading High in a thriller on Tuesday, then learn hours later that his brother Kingston would miss the remainder of the season after fracturing his shin bone.
Each took its toll.
The 6-4 senior still managed to summon up enough energy to end the best game of his season with a thunderous dunk out of the Saints’ spread set.
“Frustration,” he explained of the final play of a towering performance that helped the Saints reach 15-0, breaking the program record for consecutive wins to start a season.
A week ago a mere 12-point win over their backyard rivals would’ve been surprising. The Saints were on a roll; the Spartans (8-8) hadn’t been.
Their circumstances changed quickly.
When Kingston McKoy went down in pain Tuesday night the complexion of the Saints’ season changed in a heartbeat. They lost a scorer, rebounder, defender, ballhandler and leader. Most coaches in the league will tell you the 6-2 sophomore is the best all-around player in the league.
Snip Esterly doesn’t have anyone he can pull off the JV squad to replace someone like that; no coach does.
The Saints had all of one practice to put the pieces back together before their next game. It was not surprising that their play was ragged over the first 10 minutes Thursday. They fell behind 9-4 and trailed by six points midway through the second quarter.
They walked into a tough gym, too. The Wyomissing student section was jam-packed and enthusiastic, enjoying their “White Out” night.
Mix in the fact that the Spartans (8-8) have been playing their best ball of late. They had won four straight games and were as excited to play against Berks Catholic as their fans were to watch it.
“The first quarter and a half, we played very well,” said first-year Wyomissing coach Garrett Etzel. “The effort was there.”
Logan Hyde’s free throws put the Spartans on top 19-13 midway through the second quarter but they seemed to run out of steam after that. Josh McKoy was just warming up.
He was inspired to play for his brother and was dominant on both ends, and on the boards, where he grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds. He constantly maneuvered through heavy traffic and made his way to the lane. The Spartans couldn’t stop him.
“Unbelievable,” said senior teammate Parker Nein of McKoy’s performance. “Nobody on the court can really guard him when we play teams like that, because they don’t have that big guy who can guard him. He’s strong and tall, he gets to the basket.”
The best the Spartans could do was foul him, and that didn’t work, either. McKoy hit 6-of-8 free throws in the second quarter and had 15 points at the half. He scored 12 more points in the third quarter, on a variety of inside moves and cuts.
He finished the third quarter with a schoolyard play, back to the basket, flipping the ball over his head. He was fouled and completed the three-point play for a 46-28 lead going into the final quarter.
“McKoy is good,” Etzel said. “We couldn’t keep him out of the paint. It was a tough match-up (for us). Once he got into the paint it was tough, because he’s strong, he’s big and he’s athletic. He’s a very good basketball player.”
And he was motivated.
“I knew he was gonna play for Kingston,” Nein said. “We said (beforehand) we were gonna feed him all game.”
McKoy’s performance covered up the Saints’ shortcomings. With Kingston McKoy gone Esterly was hoping to get more scoring from his role players but that didn’t happen. Josh McKoy and Nein combined for 44 of the 52 points. They had 28 of BC’s 30 in the second half.
Most of those came in the third quarter. The final quarter was an even bigger struggle than the first. The Saints scored just six points and their only basket came with 37 seconds left, on McKoy’s dunk.
“We are definitely missing a key piece to our offense, our defense,” Josh McKoy said, “so I had to pick up his slack. I was really concerned (at the outset of the game). They weren’t better than us, we just had to do what we had to do.”
McKoy had never scored more than 29 points in a game before; that came as a sophomore at Antietam. This year’s season-high had been 24, against Pottsville. He set a new standard, and did it efficiently, hitting on 10-of-14 shots (9-of-11 inside the arc). He was good on 12-of-16 free throws.
He’ll enter Friday’s game at Twin Valley with 967 career points.
McKoy may be tired but there’s no rest for the weary. The Saints have five games over the next seven days, including Tuesday against unbeaten Abington Heights and next Thursday at Exeter.
Can they adjust to the loss of their top player quickly enough to run that gauntlet and finish the regular season unbeaten?
“We’ll see,” McKoy said. “It’s too early to tell, I feel. It’s the first game without Kingston, so we’re gonna see how everything plays out.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Berks Catholic | 7 | 5 | 24 | 6 | 52 |
| Wyomissing | 11 | 8 | 9 | 12 | 40 |
| Saints (15-0) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Dominguez | 3-5 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| Nein | 4-10 | 2-4 | 1-4 | 1 | 4 | 11 |
| J. McKoy | 10-14 | 12-16 | 1-3 | 0 | 11 | 33 |
| Altimar | 0-5 | 0-2 | 0-4 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Komoro | 1-2 | 0-2 | 0-0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Suski | 0-2 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| Diaz | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals | 18-38 | 14-24 | 2-12 | 5 | 28/30 | 52 |
| Spartans (8-8) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Fleischood | 5-13 | 1-2 | 1-1 | 0 | 5 | 12 |
| Campbell | 1-2 | 0-0 | 1-2 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Schippers | 3-4 | 2-2 | 0-0 | 0 | 2 | 8 |
| Ziegler | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Hyde | 2-6 | 2-3 | 0-2 | 0 | 2 | 6 |
| Latourelle | 2-5 | 2-2 | 0-2 | 0 | 4 | 6 |
| Hardy | 2-7 | 0-2 | 0-0 | 2 | 6 | 4 |
| Tipton | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Arguelles | 0-1 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Totals | 15-40 | 8-13 | 2-8 | 4 | 24/27 | 40 |
Turnovers: Berks Catholic 7, Wyomissing 11. Team rebounds: Berks Catholic 2, Wyomissing 3.
