Meleek Thomas' late bucket lifts Lincoln Park to PIAA Class 4A championship over Neumann-Goretti
HERSHEY — Meleek Thomas and Brandin Cummings have known each other since elementary school. And going way back, they talked about winning a championship. Well, they made their dream come true.
Thomas hit a floater with 11 seconds left to break a 58-58 tie and Cummings added a pair of free throws with half-a-second remaining to give Lincoln Park the PIAA Class 4A championship in a thrilling 62-58 victory over defending state champion Neumann-Goretti at the Giant Center in Hershey on Thursday night.
It was the Leopards third state title overall and second in the last five years. They also broke the Saints’ string of nine titles in nine state final appearances.
“Me and Meleek, we’ve known each other since fifth or sixth grade and we talked about this,” Cummings said. “We said we’re going to be state champions together. We put in so much work individually and together. This really means the world to us. We couldn’t ask for a better finish to the season with 30 wins. I love that guy. Me and Meleek, we go way back. We talked about this and we finally did it.”
Neumann-Goretti, the District 12 champions, got a free throw from Baylor-commit Robert Wright (game-high 27 points) with 48.7 seconds left to tie the game, 58-58. Lincoln Park (30-1) inbounded the ball and called a timeout with 20.4 seconds left. The play was set up for Thomas and he didn’t disappoint. Guarded by Saints guard Bruce Smith, Thomas, a sophomore guard who scored 23 points, went past his right side and converted a floater with 11 second left to give the Leopards the lead, 60-58.
The Saints (26-4) rushed down the floor and despite an excellent defensive effort by Lincoln Park, Wright and Khaafiq Myers were able to get off shots. Both hit the rim and failed to drop before Cummings was fouled.
“It was for me to come off the screen and just, as I would call it, just boogie,” Thomas said. “They changed defenders on me from (Amir Ailliams) to (Smith). He stepped up and I saw him playing me more aggressive. So I went past him, moved his arm and hit the floater. I like the floater, so it was efficient.”
Lincoln Park coach Mike Bariski had the winning play up his sleeve and waited until the right moment to use it.
“We had not set a down screen the whole game,” Bariski said. “Everything was ball screens. And they were doubling up on all ball screens. So we saved it and we sent Dontay Green down to set a down screen and (Thomas) came around. They didn’t switch it and it was just downhill and he made the floater. We were saving a couple of things, but that was the call that worked.”
The first half was a game of runs. Neumann-Goretti took the lead with 4 minutes, 4 seconds left in the first quarter, 9-8, when Sultan Adewale nailed a shot in the lane. The Saints went on an 8-0 run and grabbed a 15-8 advantage.
But Lincoln Park scored the last 6 points of the quarter and regained the lead, 18-17, when Cummings drained a pair of free throws with 6:38 left in the first half. The Leopards extended their lead to 26-19 on a Thomas follow shot. But Neumann-Goretti refused to roll over.
The Saints closed the quarter with a 9-2 run, culminating with a Smith three pointer from the left corner with 1 second remaining to send the teams into halftime tied at 28-28.
The second half was more of the same. Neumann-Goretti ran out to a 34-28 lead early in the quarter, but Lincoln Park responded and neither team had more than a five-point lead the rest of the way. The fourth quarter featured six lead changes and five ties, leading to a memorable ending.
The Saints came into the game ranked 20th in the country by MaxPreps, but Bariski believed his team was just as good and should be considered one of the best teams in the state, if not the country, after winning a section championship and the WPIAL Class 4A title.
“I told them that on the bus after the Uniontown game (a 85-64 win in the semifinals),” Barinski said. “I didn’t see (Neumann-Goretti) play until after we beat Uniontown and I thought, ‘We can get this’. And Meleek even came up to me and said, ‘Coach, coach, coach. We can get them. And I said, ‘I know’. So those guys have a lot of confidence in their ability.
"That’s why we’ll be watching them play one day on a high level.”
Losing just one starter and three players overall to graduation, can we expect to see Lincoln Park back on the floor in Hershey next season?
“We’ll worry about that next year,” Bariski said. “Man, that was a great night. How about that?”
It was a night where dreams did come true.
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Meleek Thomas' late bucket lifts Lincoln Park to PIAA Class 4A championship over Neumann-Goretti
