Jair Green and his team after their CSAC semi-final game.
The Cabrini Men’s basketball team hosted Gwynedd Mercy in the semifinals of the Colonial State Athletic Conference on Tuesday night. Four seed Gwynedd Mercy got to this point after hosting Rosemont in the first round and cruising to an 83-66 victory.
Cabrini had a bye in the first round after earning the top seed and home court advantage throughout the tournament. Gwynedd Mercy got off to a quick 13-4 lead less than four minutes into the game. After calling a timeout to settle things down the Cavaliers went on a 12-4 run to cut the lead to one point.
Freshman Jair Green led all scorers at halftime with 13 points and an efficient five for seven shooting from the field. Green finished with 25 points on the night. Cabrini took a 51-47 lead into the half.
The Cavaliers continued their strong play into the second half holding around a double digit lead for awhile until Gwynedd Mercy got the lead down to four with less than four minutes to play in the game. That is the closest they would get as Cabrini went on to win 109-101.
A huge contributor to the game was Ace Henry. Henry was able to come off the bench and add 23 points. Henry was on fire from three shooting five of seven behind the arc.
“I come in to be a shooter and try to contribute right away. A three pointer is worth more than a two pointer so I try to do as much as I can to contribute right away. I was in the gym at 2:30 today. I just came in early to shoot around by myself. Once that first one dropped in the game it felt like I could make every one tonight.” Ace Henry. junior exercise science and health promotion major, said.
Senior Justin Knight was the impact player for Gwynedd Mercy with 22 points, 6 assists and 11 rebounds.
The real story of the night was Aaron Walton-Moss. Walton-Moss passed Billy Carr on the points list to become the all-time leading scorer in Cabrini basketball history. Walton-Moss recorded his 1,605th point on Tuesday night. Walton-Moss needed 18 points heading into the game to pass Carr and that’s exactly what he had. Walton-Moss finished with a line of 18 points, 13 assists, 13 rebounds and seven steals. That’s nine triple doubles this season for the reigning Division III National Player of the Year.
“It was a great accomplishment but it’s not always good to think about yourself. Everybody at Cabrini wants a championship and that’s our goal around here. I was 17 points away from the record. My main goal was to just win the game. I knew I would get it eventually so I was just trying to win the game.” Aaron Walton-Moss, senior criminology major, said.
Cabrini will host Neumann University in the CSAC championship game on Friday at 7 p.m.
