All the cheers didn’t go unnoticed.
Somewhere along a deep playoff run, the Camden Catholic High School boys basketball team captured the hearts and minds of South Jersey hoops fans. All the added attention was great, but the Irish were most impressed by their own loyal fans who emptied their lungs right up until the final buzzer of the Non-Public A state championship game March 14 at Rutgers University.
“It was a great feeling,” senior Luke Kennevan said. “We had a couple of fan buses come up for this game just to show how much they support us. It made us work even harder for our school.”
A few hundred green-clad teenagers in the Camden Catholic student section hung tightly to every possession throughout a string of several intense contests.
DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE! It was always loud, and the team loved it.
“It just shows the community that the school has,” junior Seamus Bieg said. “Our student section showed up to every single road game. We, as players, are so grateful to have them and the parents; it’s just awesome.”
The Irish nearly sent them home happy again, but five intense playoff games over a two week span finally ended at Jersey Mike’s Arena in Piscataway. Try as they might, Camden Catholic just couldn’t close out North Jersey power Bergen Catholic in the state championship game after leading by nine points in the fourth quarter. Bergen Catholic won the final stanza by a dozen points and escaped with the state championship, 52-49.
“I’m heartbroken,” said Bieg, who set a new school record for 3-pointers in a season with 74. “But at the end of the day, like our coach said in the locker room: The teams that we beat and the overtimes we went into, no matter if we won or lost this game, just show how good of a team we are.”
Camden Catholic finished its season 24-7 and won its first sectional championship since 2019. They were deemed underdogs since the semifinal round of the South Jersey Non-Public A playoffs when they shocked top-seeded Paul VI in double overtime. The Eagles had won the three previous meetings this season — two of them by double digits.
Then, the Irish took down Saint Peter’s Preparatory School in the South Jersey Final despite the Crusaders’ lofty reputation as the No. 1 team in the state. That game also went to double overtime. “We just kept fighting and fighting and things started to go our way late in the season,” Kennevan said. “We had a great season overall. We took a couple close losses that we probably wish we had back, especially this one. Coach talked to us about staying together and good things would happen, and they started to.”
Kennevan finished his career regarded as one of the best players in Camden Catholic’s long history. He ended up with 1,694 career points, which was second all-time in school history and just 79 points shy of Kyle Green’s record.
“It’s definitely tough right now,” Kennevan said. “But after a couple days, I think I’ll look back on it and realize how lucky I was for Coach Crawford to give me the opportunity since I was a freshman to play varsity. He’s taught us the right values of hard work and getting up every day. Don’t take anything for granted.”
Kennevan and teammate Sean Welde are the two starters who will graduate in the spring. Bieg, along with sophomores Bryce Clark and Azyris Richmond, will be back.
“It’s a great program from top to bottom,” Welde said. “The coach and the staff, they just push us every day to get better. [This season] was a testament to our work in the summer and in the fall and every day at practice to get to this moment. It wasn’t an easy path. So we’re proud that we did it.”
Even after the loss, the Irish were cheered loudly by their loyal supporters as they walked off the court at Rutgers one last time. The cheers didn’t go unnoticed.
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