Tourron Whitfield doesn’t get many opportunities to shoot, but the few he does take make a huge difference for Archbishop Molloy.
The senior guard, who already sank a buzzer beater against Half Hallows Hills West in a non-league game earlier this month, came up huge Tuesday afternoon. His 16-footer from the wing with 34 seconds sealed the Stanners 58-57 CHSAA Class AA league victory against Xaverian at Jack Curran Gymnasium.
“All game my teammates have been encouraging, ‘It doesn’t matter if you miss one shot, just keep shooting the ball,’” said Whitfield, who was 1-of-3 from the field. “When I got a little bit of daylight, I put it up and luckily for me it went in.”
The Stanners have been making a habit of dramatic last-minute victories this year. Chris Dorgler beat the buzzer in a 61-59 victory against Bishop Loughlin on Jan. 11 and on Friday night, Molloy defeated rival St. Francis Prep, 76-71, in double overtime.
In both of those games, Dorgler came up with clutch shots down the stretch. The Saint Rose-bound swingman had 15 points, five rebounds, five steals and four assists, but it was fellow senior Whitfield who found the basketball in his hands with the game tied at 56.
“He’s basically our best shooter but he doesn’t get enough shots and doesn’t play as much,” legendary Archbishop Molloy coach Jack Curran said. “Technically he has the best shot. He’s got good form.”
Led by Mark Parisi, who scored a game-high 22 points on 9-of-12 shooting in his second consecutive solid performance, Archbishop Molloy (12-5, 3-3 Brooklyn/Queens) rallied from a nine-point deficit midway through the third quarter for its second consecutive league win.
Trailing 40-31 with 4:49 left in the third quarter, Parisi buried back-to-back 3-pointers and Dorgler followed with a bucket from beyond the arc. Parisi also gave the Stanners their first lead of the second half on another 3-pointer with three minutes left in the fourth quarter. For the game, Molloy was 9-of-24 from beyond the arc.
“It’s very big to pull these out,” Parisi said. “It’s going to help us out later on.”
Brian Bernardi had 16 points and Marist-bound Manny Thomas added 14 points for Xaverian (8-6, 2-5), which had won two of its last three league games, including an upset of defending CHSAA Class AA intersectional champion Christ the King last week.
While the Clippers are showing improvement, coach Jack Alesi didn’t like the way his team closed the game out Tuesday. Thomas had a chance to tie the game from the foul line with 12.8 seconds left, but after making the first he left early on a miss and was called for a lane violation.
With 1.6 seconds left, Travis Gill passed to Thomas, who turned and fired off a shot at the buzzer. But it rimmed out.
“I thought this was our worst loss of the season because this was completely a mental breakdown,” he said. “We shot the ball well enough to win. We were running our stuff good. The disappointing part today is that they weren’t physical plays, they were mental breakdowns.”