West Catholic, though, answered every attack Riverside made and earned a 58-50 win Saturday afternoon to advance to the semifinals to face Notre Dame-Green Pond on Tuesday<\/a>.<\/p>\nRakim Johnson led West Catholic (15-12) with 20 points, and Kingston Wheatley added 10 points, seven rebounds and two blocks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told coach (Josh Aniska), no matter what defense they threw at me, I was going to make shots,\u201d said Antoniacci, a sophomore who will continue to collect NCAA Division I offers. \u201cThey sent double teams, and I split them to make some 3s.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love this senior class. They left it on the court every single night. I will miss playing with them. I wanted to get it done for them; unfortunately, I couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Riverside players, after a collective shout of \u201cfamily\u201d in the previously silent locker room, held their heads high, proud of a memorable 25-2 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are guys who have the heart, and every game we played, we gave it all we had,\u201d Rose, a junior, said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we are a family. It stinks to go out this way, but we are happy with what we accomplished this year.<\/p>\n
West Catholic, which ended Riverside\u2019s and Holy Cross\u2019 seasons last year, got off to a fast start and maintained a lead throughout the entire game.<\/p>\n
Nyeire Farlow buried two early 3-pointers to help West Catholic build a 15-7 lead. Rose and Antoniacci injected life into the team and the fans by scoring four straight to get to 15-11. Schimelfenig hit a layup off an assist from Rose to start the second, and the Vikings had some momentum.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we were down, I did everything I could to get to loose balls, just anything to get us some momentum,\u201d Schimefenig said. \u201cThis was a great year, and this is one of the best teams at Riverside ever, so it was special to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
West Catholic, as it did all game, had an answer. The quickness fueled a 6-2 surge for a 21-15 lead. Rose and Antoniacci came right back with four, but so too did the Burrs as the see-saw second quarter became intense.<\/p>\n
On West Catholic\u2019s final possession, holding for a final shot, Antoniacci made a steal and layup that brought the fans to their feet and brought Riverside to within 27-24.<\/p>\n
That carried over to the third quarter. Rose and Antoniacci finally pulled the Vikings even at 27-27. After a technical foul call on West Catholic, Antoniacci\u2019s two free throws tied the game again at 30, and after guard Rakim Johnson made three free throws for West Catholic, Antoniacci drilled a 3-pointer, one of his five in the game, on an offensive rebound and assist from Connor, to lock it up at 33 with 2:20 in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing into this season, we knew that we were undersized,\u201d said Connor, who had four rebounds. \u201cWe had a lot of heart out there. I am so proud of how much effort we put in. We worked hard and have no regrets.\u201d<\/p>\n
West Catholic responded with an 8-2 closeout of the quarter that put it back in control, 41-35. The lead increased with three straight points to start the fourth.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when Antoniacci started launching 3-pointers and making plays, trying to get the Vikings back in the game.<\/p>\n
He had all 15 points for the Vikings in the fourth quarter. However, to make a run at the lead, Riverside had to foul. Johnson made 6 of 10, and Jayden Ortiz-Muhammed finished the game going 4 for 4 to hold off Riverside.<\/p>\n
Antoniacci finished his sophomore season with 1,383 career points.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a great group of guys,\u201d Antoniacci said. \u201cWe got the league title. We got the district title. We made a great state run. We have a lot to be proud of. We have to focus on the offseason now, and I am going to work hard to be better than I was this season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM \u2014 Nico Antoniacci gave everything he had to try and will his team to victory. Brayden Rose…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[305,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-139142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-high-school-sports","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}