Chaminade Basketball Blasts Bayhawks from Beyond Arc

Thomas Ahern couldn’t suppress a smile Friday night. He was having a good night pounding the hardwood of the Chaminade AAC, toying with St. Dominic’s through his 29:20 minutes of court time from beyond the arc. He stepped back and deftly drained another trey, his ninth in the game against the Bayhawks, racking the score 80-46 in the Flyers favor and letting Chaminade complete a 90-49 clinic in which he served as headmaster.

“The past couple of days he’s shot ridiculous in practice,” Chaminade head coach Bob Paul said. “Any time he’s open, it’s a good shot.”

Ahern’s father had coached both of his older sisters, having the Rockville Centre native see the girls in action.

“I was always dragged around from tournament to tournament so… I just watched them play,” Ahern said, forgoing any scoring in the paint and getting a career-high total in the process.

And all this while still sporting a knee brace.

“I didn’t realize that he only had nine, I would have let him go for 10,” Paul said. “He was happy to have his teammates go out there and good for him and shame on me, I should have realized that.”

It was getting difficult to track all the shots from downtown the Flyers made last night – 20 in all – that every time you looked up it seemed the refs’ arms were perpetually going to be stuck upright.

Liam Murphy: 4 from the floor.

Thomas O’Connell: 3 from downtown.

As if accounting for nearly a third of the Chaminade offense wasn’t enough, Ahern also had to get the Flyers on the board after they failed to make a basket through the first 3:10 of the game – their worst start this season – by draining his first from beyond the arc.

“He always tells me to bring a lift when I come in so that was just what I tried to do,” Ahern said. “I just wanted to come in, maybe bring a few jumpshots, get it going and luckily my teammates were able to find me.”

Maybe the slow start had something to do with the shift in schedule Founders’ Day holiday.

“We were poor in the beginning,” Paul said. “We were off from school today, a little bit of a different routine.”

The Flyers also had an earlier practice by a few hours and “the open shots came and I was able to hit them,” Ahern said. “I think it was just more open shots today.”

Added Paul: “if you put in that much time you’re going to have nights like this.”

Because sometimes its good to vary the routine.