Josiah Jordan waits for his time, then shoots Saints into championship game
Patience is not part of Josiah Jordan’s DNA.
The Berks Catholic junior is in constant attack mode whether he’s carrying the football or has his hands on the basketball. He doesn’t sit back and let the action come to him.
Wednesday he had to. He was pulled from the Saints’ taut Berks Conference semifinal against Exeter and spent the first 5 1/2 minutes of the fourth quarter on the bench, watching and waiting.
That’s not his style, but he made it work.
“I knew I had to stay poised,” he said after the pulsating 41-40 victory that sent the second-seeded Saints to the title game. “I knew we were going to need a (big) play.”
The Saints needed it and Jordan delivered. With his team down a point in the final seconds Jordan drove hard to the basket, pulled up deep in the lane and hit a shot that gave them the lead with 7.8 seconds left.
“I mean, everyone knows that’s my game,” he said, “and that’s what I resorted to.”
The Eagles had one last gasp. Two, actually. Alex Kelsey got a good look on a drive; his miss caromed back to Reece Garvin, who put up a hurried shot just before the buzzer.
“We knew the game wasn’t over at all (after Jordan’s shot),” said Berks Catholic’s Aidan Sands. “Eight seconds is enough time to get any shot they wanted. When the ball was going around it got crazy, but we got it.”
The Saints survived and advanced. They’ll meet Reading High for the third time this season Friday at Santander at 8 for the championship.
The game came down to one possession, as Exeter coach Matt Ashcroft might have wanted. It just didn’t go his team’s way.
“Give him credit,” the former BC assistant coach said of Jordan. “He made a tough shot at the end; he hit a tough little runner. I thought we contested it pretty well, so give them credit. He hit a clutch, clutch shot.”
The Saints (20-3) needed everything they could must against the sixth-seeded Eagles (11-12), who played the game at their pace and turned it into a possession-by-possession struggle.
Jordan was the focus of the Exeter’s defensive effort, and Zyion Paschall and his teammates delivered. Berks Catholic’s leading scorer had just five points before his game-winner.
In fact, the Eagles did strong defensive work across the board; they held the Saints to their lowest scoring output of the season and 20 points below their average.
The Saints put up 60 points the last time these teams played, two weeks ago. They scored 56 in an early January win over the Eagles. They had been held below 50 points just once all season, in a 49-46 win at Pottsville in December.
“I’m so proud of these kids,” said Ashcroft, who has made defense the hallmark of his program. “They were unbelievable. I’m heartbroken for them, but I’m so proud of them.”
Jordan, ironically, scored Berks Catholic’s first two baskets of the game; he backed down his defender on the first, then went coast-to-coast with a rebound for the second. After that he went dry. He missed 5-of-6 free throws in the third quarter and soon found himself seated on the bench.
Saints coach Snip Esterly didn’t like the way his offense was operating so he pulled his point guard.
“I just wasn’t happy with the way the ball was moving,” he said. “I just thought (Jay Jay) was trying to do too much.”
Without their best player at the top of his game the Saints struggled. They got a big effort from Sands, who had 15 rebounds and 12 points. And they got some big shots from their bench, with Aron Reinhart hitting a key 3-pointer in the second quarter and Christian Cacchione nailing a ‘3’ in the third quarter after the Saints had fallen behind by five.
The Eagles, meanwhile, got 14 points from Colin Payne and 10 points and 13 boards from Anthony Caccese.
Berks Catholic’s Jack Miller snapped a 36-36 tie with a 3-pointer with 1:36 left but Payne put his team back on top with back-to-back baskets, the second a jumper from the short corner that made it 40-39 with 48 seconds left.
The Eagles left the door open when Paschall missed the front end of a one-and-one with 24 seconds left in a one-point game.
Jordan made them pay.
“He may have had a rough game,” Sands said of Jordan, “but he got that last shot. He came in and had the confidence to do it; that’s all we needed.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Exeter | 9 | 11 | 9 | 11 | 40 |
| Berks Catholic | 8 | 13 | 9 | 11 | 41 |
| Eagles (11-12) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Paschall | 2-4 | 0-1 | 0-2 | 4 | 6 | 4 |
| Payne | 5-13 | 3-6 | 1-3 | 1 | 6 | 14 |
| Snyder | 1-9 | 0-0 | 1-6 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Kelsey | 2-8 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Caccese | 5-6 | 0-2 | 0-0 | 2 | 13 | 10 |
| Garvin | 2-5 | 0-0 | 1-1 | 0 | 3 | 5 |
| Keperling | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Turman | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals | 17-45 | 3-9 | 3-13 | 8 | 28/30 | 40 |
| Saints (20-3) | FG | FT | 3’s | A | R | Points |
| Sands | 4-9 | 2-4 | 2-3 | 0 | 15 | 12 |
| Jordan | 3-8 | 1-6 | 0-1 | 1 | 5 | 7 |
| Koch | 3-10 | 0-1 | 0-5 | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| Miller | 1-6 | 0-0 | 1-4 | 0 | 5 | 3 |
| Givens | 1-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Reinhart | 2-6 | 0-0 | 1-4 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| Lawlor | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Cacchione | 1-1 | 3-4 | 1-1 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| Totals | 15-41 | 6-15 | 5-18 | 5 | 32/32 | 41 |
Turnovers: Exeter 9, Berks Catholic 10