As a junior, Max Moshinski was one of the best backup big men in the Catholic League.
A year later, he showed the world what he could do at his natural position.
Moshinski is a senior on the Father Judge High School basketball team, and a season ago, he provided a spark off the bench for the Crusaders, coming in at either center or power forward. He’d mix it up with the best bigs in the Catholic League and he fared pretty well even when going against Division I foes.
But if you’ve been to a Judge game this year, you know he’s now a full-time starting swingman, playing both shooting guard and small forward.
Last year, he was happy to be the big, but this year he’s right where he belongs.
“I like playing the two or three better, that’s my natural position,” said Moshinski, who lives in Huntingdon Valley. “I can handle the ball, knock down shots, defend a little bit. Last year our lineup was constructed where I was more of a power forward. It changed for me, had me handle the ball a little bit. I had to help when bringing the ball up. I liked doing both, but this year I felt more comfortable.”
Moshinski’s position was different, but at least in the Catholic League, the Crusaders remain in the same spot.
Alone at the top.
For the second year in a row, the Crusaders have won the Catholic League championship. This year Judge knocked off Neumann-Goretti 55-52 at the Palestra. Moshinski had 10 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and had a crucial blocked shot on a 3-point attempt in the final minute of the game that would have tied the score.
Senior guard Derrick Morton-Rivera scored 14 points to lead the Crusaders, who knocked off Roman Catholic and Archbishop Wood in the first two rounds of the playoffs. It marked the first time the Crusaders went back to back as Catholic League champions, and it was the fourth win in two years at the Palestra for Judge.
“I was just running to my teammates, just to celebrate with them,” Moshinski said. “We are a close team, for sure. Throughout the season, we’re doing team bonding stuff, traveling, Coach Chris (Roantree) wants us to be close off the court, and that helps our chemistry a lot.
“Winning last year was great, it was something we really wanted to do for the school. I think this year for some of us means more because we did something the school has never done. We made history for Judge. It’s fun to make history, especially when you do it with a group of guys like this. It’s a good group. That makes it meaningful. We did it together.”
They sure did, from the start of the season to the end.
The Crusaders returned a lot of talent from last year’s team, but they did have a lot of holes they had to fill. And figuring it out wasn’t easy. Some thought they wouldn’t do it. None of those, however, were in the locker room.
“We had confidence the entire season,” Moshinski said. “We lost a couple games, but all close games, I think three were within five points. All of the losses though were to really good teams in the Catholic League, we missed shots we didn’t hit, we never worried about it. We stayed confident. Just get back, continue to play through adversity, play together, and we knew we would be fine.”
The team believed in each other. They also believed in their coaching staff.
“Everything we do starts with coaching and the games they scheduled at the start of the season to get us ready,” Moshinski said. “We went to DC and lost some games to really good, talented teams. This teaches us how to get better. They had us ready for everything. They believed in us.
“Experience helped a lot, too. Start off against Roman game last year, down 10-0. Game of runs. Coach tells us that all the time. It’s a game of highs and lows. Don’t get too high, don’t get too low, stay the course and eventually shots will start falling. Everything else will take care of itself. That’s how we played and it’s why we won.”
The Crusaders still have business to take care of.
Judge will compete for a city championship against Imhotep Charter, a team that defeated the Crusaders in that round last year. And Judge will look to repeat as state champion in the 6A bracket, too.
“The Catholic League was the first step,” he said. “We want to get a city championship. We didn’t do that last year. That’s our next goal. After that, we’ll get ready for states.”
When the season ends, it will mark the end of his career with the Crusaders, but he’ll continue playing basketball at Iona University in New York.
“I’ve been to campus, up for a visit,” said Moshinski, an honor student and member of the National Honor Society. “It’s really nice, close to the city so you can have a lot of things to do other than basketball. I’m going to study business. I like how there’s a lot of things you can do with it, you have a lot of options. It seems like a good fit.”
But first he still has business left at Judge.
He’s just happy he got the first one for his teammates and the school.
“This year has been fun, I’ve gone from coming off the bench to playing the majority of games,” he said. “This whole season has been fun. Last year, too. We wanted to do it for Judge. We wanted to do it for each other. And we wanted to do it for the coaching staff. All of the coaches. They believe in us, they got us here. We made history. It means a lot.”
