Park Works Overtime To Fend Off Upset-Minded St. Joe’s

Nobody gave St. Joe’s a chance heading into Thursday’s Manhattan Cup semifinal against powerhouse Park but for 32 minutes, the underdog Marauders were the better team.

Unfortunately for St. Joe’s, regulation didn’t determine this one. Overtime did.

The Pioneers didn’t take their first lead until the extra session but once they did, it was game over. Park finally pulled away for a 62-55 win over the Marauders at Canisius College’s Koessler Center.

“Once we got to overtime we knew,” Park standout Noah Hutchins said. “We just said that (regulation) is over, they gave us another chance. Once it got to OT, we had a fresh start and it was 0-0.”

Just three days after losing by 29 at home to Park, the Marauders came out firing. St. Joe’s hit five 3-pointers in the first quarter and stormed out to a 15-point lead on three occasions and led by 15 with less than two minutes left in the third quarter.

But in the end, Park showed why it is the unquestioned power of the MMAA.

“We had to and we did step up,” Park coach Rich Jacob said. “Postseason, you don’t take anyone for granted. They came out on fire and shot very well. We dug ourselves a hole but we dug ourselves out of it and into a position to win.”

Now they’ll have a chance to win the Manhattan Cup for the second straight season. The Pioneers will face Canisius at 7 p.m. Tuesday back at the Koessler Center. The Crusaders beat St. Francis in Thursday’s second semifinal.

Hutchins finished with a game-high 24 points and kept his team afloat for the first three quarters, scoring more than half of his team’s points in the first three periods.

Quentin Nnagbo came alive after that, scoring 12 of his 20 points in the fourth quarter, including a bucket with 28 seconds left that tied the game at 53. The Marauders had a chance to win at the end of regulation, but Daesean Ashley’s drive to basket came up empty in the final seconds.

Keonjay Carter was the man for Park in overtime. He gave the Pioneers their first lead of the evening 17 seconds into the extra period and scored six of his 12 points in the extra session.

St. Joe’s was limited to just one basket in the overtime.

“It was defense in the end of the game. It was not defense in the beginning,” Jacob said. “I thought we stepped up on the defensive end when we needed to and started to attack the basket.”

The Marauders built a lead as large as 24-9 in the second quarter, thanks to six 3-pointers from four different players and took a 28-16 lead into the locker room after a put back by Greg Poland beat the buzzer.

“Hats off to St. Joe’s,” Hutchins said. “They made their shots. We got hit pretty quickly and it took us a while to get back. But we knew as long as we had an opportunity, we were going to take it.”

Will Ostrowski scored 15 points and Tino Martone added 10 for the Marauders. Their season ends at 12-13.

“It sucks because your season generally ends like this,” St. Joe’s coach Gabe Michael said. “It’s so rare where you win your last game. But I’m really proud of where we’ve come from and where we started. They were so competitive. No problems with anything that happened. Our seniors left a legacy today, I think.”