Rice’s Jermaine Sanders (l.) goes up to shoot as St. Ray’s Myron Hickman blocks. (Christina Santucci)
Jermaine Sanders wanted to set the tone, to answer what he said was St. Raymond trash-talking in the media.
The Rice senior swingman buried a 3-pointer just 13 seconds into the New York Archdiocesan final and the Raiders cruised to a shocking 93-64 rout of the Ravens yesterday at Mount St. Michael.
Rice claimed its sixth consecutive New York Archdiocesan championship, beating the Ravens each time. It sent a definitive signal, not just to their biggest rivals, but to the rest of the CHSAA, as well.
“I think it’s a big statement to show everyone in the city that we’re a real team to beat during the playoffs,” Sanders said.
The Cincinnati-bound swingman scored a team-high 17 points, one of five Rice players to score in double figures in a remarkably lopsided victory.
“I was very surprised,” Sanders said. “They were talking a lot of trash this week in the paper so we just wanted to come out and play hard and show we’re the best team in the city.”
Melvin Johnson had 15 points, Richard Council and Joshua Gomez added 14 points apiece and Emmanuel Andujar had 10 for Rice, which never trailed after Sanders opening 3-pointer.
“The Rice tradition and spirit kicked in today,” Rice coach Dwayne Mitchell said. “That’s what I told the guys at halftime. They made a little bit of a run in the third quarter and we said we worked too hard to give it away and then we bounced back and took control of the game.”
Meanwhile, St. Ray’s got off to a bad start and never recovered.
“We didn’t even guard the first play of the game right,” St. Ray’s coach Oliver Antigua said. “That was kind of where everything went wrong. It just showed me that we weren’t ready.”
Rice most certainly was. The Raiders set a blistering pace and never let up. They led 25-16 at the end of one quarter and 54-30 at the half in their best game to date.
“We were inconsistent all year, we weren’t playing as hard as we’re supposed to, but today we came out and did what we had to do and it paid off basically,” said Johnson, who missed Rice’s semifinal win against All Hallows Tuesday with a bruised knee.
Kerwin Okoro had a game-high 21 points and Daniel Dingle added 18 for St. Ray’s, which made a mini-run at the start of the third quarter and yet still trailed by 20.
“We didn’t compete hard enough,” Antigua said. “My thing was toughness, effort and play defense. We score in the 60s, that’s who we are. We can’t win a game in the 90s and we gave up 50 at halftime. We allowed that to happen.”
The teams split a pair of regular-season meetings with St. Ray’s (16-10) earning the tournament’s top seed courtesy of its74-69 win at home on Super Bowl Sunday. After that game, Antigua declared his team one of the best in the city.
But yesterday, Rice (17-9) put the rest of the CHSAA on notice with the Class AA intersectional tournament starting Sunday.
“If we bring this effort every game, I think we should be the champions at the end of the season,” Sanders said.