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When the dust settled, St. Patrick (N.J.) handed Brooklyn Lincoln a 63-58 loss before a packed gym at Fordham University and a national television audience watching on ESPN2.

St. Patrick (20-2), the No. 4 team in the USA Today Super 25, showed once again why it is one of the premier teams in the land and has a chance to turn around and make another statement Saturday night against undefeated and No. 3 Oak Hill Academy (Va.) in the Primetime Shootout in Trenton, N.J.

"I actually wasn't surprised. I'm really confident in my team. I don't think anybody has a chance of beating us," said North Carolina-bound senior guard Dexter Strickland of St. Patrick, who was named the game's MVP after finishing with 16 points on a perfect 6-of-6 from the field.

Junior guard Kyrie Irving, who holds offers from numerous major Division 1 programs and recently became eligible after transferring, added 16 points for St. Patrick and George Mason-bound Paris Bennett and Michael Gilchrist scored 10 apiece.

Lincoln (15-9), the three-time defending PSAL city and two-time New York State Federation champion, continued to struggle in showcase games. The Railsplitters have lost all three of their ESPN games this year and are also 0-3 against New Jersey opponents.

"To their credit they fought hard and I think they have a good chance to win the city again," St. Patrick coach Kevin Boyle said of Lincoln. "They're starting to go in the right direction."

After the game, both Strickland and Lincoln star Lance Stephenson, who led all scorers with 21 points on 9-of-23 shooting, revealed that they had been chosen to play in the McDonald's All-American Game April 1 in Miami. Both players were surprisingly not selected for the Jordan Brand Classic on April 18 at Madison Square Garden.

"I think McDonald's is more important than anything," Stephenson said. "If I didn't make the McDonald's I'd be more mad, but the McDonald's I'm happy to be in it."

The game began in odd fashion when Lincoln head coach Dwayne "Tiny" Morton was delayed in traffic and arrived 10 minutes after tipoff.

St. Patrick raced out to a 15-5 lead behind two alley-oop dunks by Strickland off passes from Bennett and never relented. It was 19-13 after one period and Strickland hit back-to-back 3-pointers to push the Celtics' lead to 31-18 before St. Francis-bound guard Darwin "Buddha" Ellis scored five straight for Lincoln to cut the deficit to 31-23. Stephenson had just five points at the half but came on strong to score 16 points in the second half.

"Mike Gilchrist and Dexter both did a great job guarding him in the first half, made some shots difficult," Boyle said of Stephenson. "But he's too good not to get his. He's going to get 20 shots and even on a bad day if he gets a volume of shots, he's going to score.

"In the second half he was able to get the basket a little bit. That's why we had to switch to zone and he got in foul trouble. I thought that was a big change. It slowed him down."

After Lincoln cut it to 38-32, the Celtics ratted off 12 straight points, including six by junior guard Kyrie Irving and a nasty dunk by the 6-7 Gilchrist, to push the lead to 50-32.

Still, the Railsplitters didn't quit.

With Lincoln down 60-51, Ellis hit a 3-pointer and Stephenson scored on an aggressive foray to the basket off an offensive rebound to cut it to 60-56 with 23 seconds left.

Irving and Bennett made 3-of-4 foul shots down the stretch for a 63-56 advantage and Stephenson scored a meaningless basket as time expired.

"The reason why we lost the game is because we didn't play as a team in the first half," Stephenson said. "We were down 16...but coach kept our momentum up and we played hard."

The night was not without incident, though.

The Lincoln coaches said Nike staffers initially put out sneakers for all the players in the locker room, but that the sneakers did not fit all the players.

The Lincoln players opted to wear a mix of Adidas, Under Armour and Nike onto the court (Stephenson wore Nike), but Nike staffers removed all the new products from the locker room.

"I don't know what their reasoning is. It's your fault not to have the sizes right when we gave you the sizes," Lincoln assistant Kenny Pretlow said.

Whatever the case, Lincoln must turn around and play national power Westchester (Ca.) on Saturday in Trenton before facing Thomas Jefferson for the Brooklyn Borough championship Sunday night at Long Island University. That will mark their fifth game in six days.

"We're running hard in practice a lot so I don't think this will mess us up," Stephenson said.