Tyrese Williams and Michael Richardson led the way for Cardinal Hayes in the SNY Invitational against Lou King and Hudson Catholic.
NEW YORK, N.Y.—It seems like over the course of the past few years that buzzer-beaters and nail-biting finishes are the norm for Cardinal Hayes High School. Whether it’s outlasting Archbishop Molloy for a city title or consistently taking the air out of the sails of bitter interborough rival St. Raymond’s High School: high stakes games are the Cardinals’ specialty.
And the raucous crowd at the Nat Holman Gymnasium on the campus of CCNY witnessed more of the same last night.
“We caught a dub (W). That’s what we did”, said an elated Tyrese Williams after another pressure-packed win by his Cardinals, 57-55 over a very thorough Hudson Catholic (Jersey City, NJ.)
Williams led the way along with fellow senior Michael Richardson, each scoring 16 points.
However, it was the defense which was front and center as Cardinal Hayes frustrated the Hawks (10-4) all night long, especially their highly touted swingman Lou King. The Cardinals made it a point to make sure King was a non-factor on the court: he was. Joe Lods’ Cardinals contained King and he was only able to go 2-for-12 from the field putting up four points paired with nine rebounds.
“We outplayed them,” Williams said afterward. “We flat out outplayed them. It’s going to be good for us going into the playoffs.”
To the surprise of no one, Cardinal Hayes was able to beat another team with a greater size advantage without their center, Adam Cisse. Williams would also make it a point to tell reporters that Lods stressed rebounding all practice long to his players prior to the game.
“We just had to find a way to rebound and push the ball up the court. Any of us can dribble up the court at any given time. We’re trying to push and make transition buckets”, Williams told ESNY.
Next up for the Cardinals one more another monumental task. Defeat the biggest and deepest team they’ve faced to date. They’ll play LI Lutheran High School in the finals of the 2018 SNY Invitational tomorrow at 6 p.m. ET.
