About 125 spectators were on hand for the contest at Broad Street and Snyder Avenue. Several times, chants of "Shawnee," Anderson's nickname, rang out from the section directly across from Roxborough's bench.
"It was very emotional," Stephen Brandt, Roxborough's principal, said. "The resilience of our students is amazing. It was the student-athletes who voiced their desire to play this game."
According to Brandt, 34 and a 1994 Roxborough graduate, the players gathered Tuesday morning to decide whether to play Southern at 3:15 p.m. or reschedule the playoff for another date.
"All of the kids, with Lijha being the leader, were in the affirmative about playing," Terrell Burnett, Roxborough's 12th-year coach, said. "They wanted to do this and were pretty passionate about it."
Before the game, there was a moment of silence for Anderson, who was averaging a team-high 14 points in league action and was a coaches' third-team all-Public League selection last season.
"It was hard to play, but we got through it," Lewis said. "It was best that we came out and played instead of staying home and moping around. That probably would have been tougher."
Late Monday night, Anderson, a 5-foot-9 senior combination guard, was reportedly shot nine times as he crossed a field in the East Falls apartment complex where he lived with his grandmother. He was pronounced dead at 11:45 p.m. at Temple University Hospital.
"I found out [Tuesday morning] about 12:30 a.m.," Lewis said. "His girlfriend called me. I was shocked. He was a good kid. We had planned on going to college and playing ball together."
One of the Roxborough parents in attendance said Anderson was thinking of continuing his education at Community College.
