After being lulled to sleep by St. Peter’s methodical offensive sets in the first half, St. Raymond’s turned up the heat after halftime in the icebox that was Mount St. Michael and it proved to be the big difference in a 69-59 victory in a CHSAA New York Archdiocesan tournament semifinal Tuesday night in The Bronx.
The top-seeded Ravens advance to Saturday afternoon’s final to meet archrival Rice in the title game. The second-seeded Raiders defeated No. 3 All Hallows, 65-54, in the other semifinal Tuesday night.
“We wanted to make it a track meet,” said St. Ray’s standout Daniel Dingle, who was named league MVP by the coaches Monday. “We wanted to get stops, rebounds and just push the ball and that’s what we did in the second half.”
St. Ray’s coach Oliver Antigua stressed increasing the defensive intensity and upping the tempo and his squad responded in the third quarter. The Ravens went on a 15-4 run, which included eight straight points by Larry Graves (16 points), and led by 14 heading into the final eight minutes.
“He was getting baskets because they were double-teaming Dingle,” Antigua said of Graves. “He was so unselfish after winning player of the year, he doesn’t care. He just comes out and gives the ball up. I think if we have that, it’s hard to beat us because everyone is going to try to take him away in the playoffs. We’re proving we’re more than Dingle.”
As has been the case for much of the season, St. Ray’s, ranked No. 2 in the city by The Post, had a balanced attack offensively with four players scoring in double figures. Shane Rector led with a team-high 17 points and added three assists, Graves had 16, Dingle had 14 points, 11 rebounds and four assists and Myron Hickman netted 11 points.
While he only scored four points, Kerwin Okoro grabbed 11 rebounds and had four blocks and four assists, helping spark the second half turnaround.
“I thought we were too relaxed in the first half, they got a lot of good shots,” Antigua said. “Our biggest speech was, ‘Let’s turn up the intensity and see if they can make shots in pressure.’ They came out and responded.”
Junior swingman Andrew Cannon exploded for a game-high 22 points and Stefan Bock added 14 for St. Peter’s (18-7), which meets Archbishop Molloy in the CHSAA Class AA intersectional first round Sunday at Holy Cross.
“I thought we played a very good first half,” Eagles coach Charlie Driscoll said. “We hit some shots and the defense was good, but we just turned the ball over in the third quarter.”
St. Raymond’s (16-9) will play an opponent to be determined in the Class AA quarterfinals, but first there’s an Archdiocesan championship to contend for on Saturday.
“We want to win. There’s no losing, no we’ll get them next time,” Dingle said. “We just have to go harder than them.”
