But then the end of the season never came.
The Knights kept pulling off one postseason upset after another — including beating Thurgood Marshall, the top-ranked Division II team in the state — and that set up Saturday’s pressure cooker of a regional final matchup at Trent Arena with powerful Dunbar. The winner would advance to next weekend’s state tournament.
Although it would be the 1,136th varsity game he would coach, all of them at Alter, Petrocelli knew his stomach still would churn, the butterflies would flutter and his blood pressure would probably spike before the day was done.
“He said to me, ‘Whoever thought I’d still be doing this after 50 years?’ ” Marianne said with a smile. “He said, ‘What, am I crazy? Why do I do this to myself?’ ”
The answer came late Saturday afternoon in what Petrocelli himself admitted was “one of the most thrilling games I’ve seen in a long, long time.”
The showdown between two of the area’s most storied programs — 21-6 Dunbar was the Division II defending state champ and had won four of the last seven state titles, 20-5 Alter had been to state eight times under Petrocelli and won three championships — drew a rocking sellout crowd and left hundreds unable to get tickets congregated outside the arena.
Riding the take-the-game-on-my-shoulders play of senior guard Jaaron Simmons, who is friends with several of the Dunbar players, Alter jumped to a 15-2 lead and midway through the second quarter had expanded the margin to 16 points.
Dunbar battled back in the second half by double-teaming Simmons and getting stellar play from its own guard, William Green, who finished with 25 points.
With 64 seconds left the Wolverines finally took the lead, 59-58, on two AJ Harris free throws. Alter then missed a shot and Dunbar had the game in its hands. Harris then missed two free throws, but as Simmons was driving for a chance at the go-ahead basket, he lost the ball out of bounds with 26.2 seconds left.
Again Dunbar was fouled with 17.4 seconds left, but this time Green missed two free throws.
With Alter still down by one, Marianne was in the stands “just shaking.” She was with her two daughters, her son and grandson. “Some of us were holding hands,” she said. “I was trying to keep everyone else calm, especially my daughter Suzanne. She just gets so excited.”
On the sideline, Joe — looking a little rumpled in his yellow shirt with a necktie that ended on his belly — was grimacing and using body English on every loose ball and rim-rolling free throw.
“I still live and die with each point,” he said. “I was probably a little wilder tonight than I have been.”
On Dunbar’s last missed free throw, Alter’s Michael Schwieterman got the rebound and got the ball to Simmons, who drove down the left side of the court. This time he roared past the place where he had lost the ball out of bounds, cut toward the basket and, just before he was going to dish off to a teammate, posted up inside and decided to take the ball up against a smaller Wolverine defender.
Although he went up off the wrong foot, he took a left-handed shot — he’s right handed — that was perfect. Alter had the 60-59 lead with 9.6 seconds left.
There was one final scrum for the ball, a timeout, and Dunbar had a last-gasp shot that was off the mark.
When the final buzzer sounded, there was Petrocelli on the sidelines, pumping his fist back and forth in pure ecstasy.
Out on the court Alter guard Darius Miller did backflips as the rest of his teammates began hugging each other.
Dunbar coach Pete Pullen, one of the classiest guys on the prep scene, headed over to Petrocelli and embraced him.
“I’m so happy and elated for Coach Petro,” he’d say later. “He’s one of the few in here that’s really been respectful to me and to my program. If I had to lose, I’ll take it to him, especially since it’s his last time around. … I went down there and just congratulated him again, and he said, ‘This is one of the typical Dunbar-Alter games. They’ve always been this way.’ It’s great for them. I hope they take it in D-2.”
Petrocelli was just as complimentary of Pullen and Dunbar.
“I’ve always been lucky, always been, and we were really lucky today,” he said. “Truthfully, I’m just shocked. Every one of these games has shocked me. We’re going back to state. When we started this year, I just hoped we’d have a winning season.”
Instead the Knights began the season 12-1 — their best start in 13 years — and now have beaten the area’s three power programs, Trotwood, Thurgood Marshall and Dunbar.
“This is pretty doggone special,” Petrocelli said as his emotions began to well up. “You couldn’t script this. The way this season is going, the way these kids are playing, you couldn’t write a better ending for me.”
Simmons, who finished with a game-high 26 points, said this is the finish they hoped to pen for Petro:
“We love the guy. He’s really a young kid in an old man’s body. He tells us jokes and stories … and we want to give him one more. Since we heard he’s going to retire, we didn’t want to lose. We want to take him out on top.”
Sophomore pivotman Kraig Howe, a 6-foot-4, 240-pound lineman for the Knights football team, agreed: “His legacy will live forever. But we just want to add to it.”
The glorious ride, though, hasn’t made Petrocelli rethink his decision to call it quits.
“There will be no amending to my retirement,” he said with a laugh.” Noooo, none at all. I couldn’t ask for any more than what is happening right now. This is as special of a season as I have ever had.”
And therein was the answer to that pregame question he posed to Marianne.
This team, this season, this moment — this is why he does it.
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