By Dylan Butle
Their punishment? Playing red-hot Bishop Loughlin, which bounced Prep from the Brooklyn/Queens Diocesan tournament with a 77-71 victory Monday night at Bishop Ford in Brooklyn.Loughlin, which has bounced back from an 0-7 start in the CHSAA, has won 11 of its last 13 games, and faces top-seeded Christ the King in a semifinal game scheduled for Wednesday night.St. Francis Prep, which has lost three straight games, will play an opponent to be determined in the first round of the Intersectional tournament Sunday at Holy Cross.”We haven't run our offense effectively in three weeks,” St. Francis Prep coach Tim Leary said. “If you look at the stats, if we make our foul [shots] we win the game.”St. John's-bound Mike Cavataio did lead all scorers with 28 points and fellow senior guard Keith Nandin added 12 points, but St. Francis Prep (15-8) struggled mightily from the free-throw line, going 18-for-29 for the game.”If we make half of them, it's a tie game or we're winning,” Cavataio said. “It hurts.”Loughlin freshman Jayvaughn Pinkston dominated in the paint, scoring 24 points. Guards Shavar Richardson and James Johnson scored 12 points apiece and Devon Elliott added 10 for the Lions.Xaverian 71, Archbishop Molloy 63. The Molloy zone has confounded teams late in the season, resulting in wins over Holy Cross and St. Francis Prep.But with a strong, athletic frontcourt, Xaverian appears to be immune to the Stanners defense and beat Molloy for a third time this year, 71-63, in a first-round Brooklyn/Queens Diocesan tournament game Monday.Molloy had no answer for Patrick Jackson, the Clippers' uber-talented 6-foot-7 forward, who scored a game-high 24 points, and 6-foot-5 Jamie Blanchard, who added 18 points. Xaverian (15-10) will face second-seeded Holy Cross in a semifinal game scheduled for Wednesday night at Bishop Ford.Senior guard Rocco Rubino struggled to find his shot and finished with 16 points, while underrated Lionel Hillaire, another senior guard, added 13 points off the bench for Molloy (12-13), which will face an Archdiocese of New York team to be determined Sunday afternoon in the first round of the Intersectional playoffs at Holy Cross.Reach Sports Editor Dylan Butler by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0030, Ext. 143.
