Blaise Ffrench saw Sylven Landesberg with the ball, a decent look at the basket and time winding down in Holy Cross’ CHSAA AA semifinal game against Rice last night. He was sure the Virginia-bound senior was going to put up the potential game-winning shot.
“I thought he would,” Ffrench said. “He’s a great player. He’s supposed to take that shot and I knew he’d make it.”
Instead, Landesberg found Ffrench posted up on a smaller player and passed the ball to him. Ffrench rewarded Landesberg’s faith in him by hitting a layup and was fouled to give the Knights a two-point lead with 5.2 seconds to play.
Ffrench missed the free throw, but when Rice’s Kemba Walker slipped as he was putting up a final shot at the buzzer, Holy Cross was able to advance to its first CHSAA final since 1978 with a 64-62 victory at St. John’s.
Holy Cross will play Christ the King in Sunday’s championship game at Fordham at 3 p.m. The Royals took a 69-56 victory over Bishop Loughlin in last night’s other semifinal as Ryan Pearson led CTK with 23 points.
“He looked confident,” Landesberg said of fellow senior Ffrench, who had 17 points, while Landesberg had 30. “That’s why I gave it to him.”
The move didn’t come as a surprise to Walker.
“Sylven is unselfish, and Blaise got the job done,” Walker said.
Still, it wasn’t until Walker’s feet went out from under him that Holy Cross could breathe a collective sigh of relief.
“I thought it would go in,” said the UConn-bound Walker, who had 19 points. “When I saw it was short, it just hurt.”
Walker had given Rice its first lead of the second half when he drained a pair of free throws with 6:29 to go.
“I felt we had the game won,” Walker said. “But it seemed like they wanted it more than us. They played harder.”
And at the very end, better.
The result means the Knights have a chance to capture their first league title since 1968 and avenged a semifinal loss to St. Raymond’s a year ago, when they blew a 19-point halftime lead. This time, they relied on the experience gained from that game and now will be able to talk about this game for a long time.
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In the PSAL, fifth-seeded Cardozo survived with a double-OT win over No. 12 Canarsie, 100-90, to reach Saturday’s quarterfinals; eighth-seeded JFK advanced with a 77-69 win over No. 9 Robeson; No. 11 Edison knocked off No. 6 Curtis, 71-56; seventh-seeded Campus Magnet advanced with a 69-48 win over No. 10 Wings.