St. Xavier’s Ethan Petter hitting a 3-pointer in mop up time pretty much summed up the day.
The Tigers hit nearly everything in their 75-61 victory over Covington Catholic in the UK Healthcare boys Sweet 16 tournament opening round on Wednesday at Rupp Arena in Lexington.
St. Xavier (27-7) hit 62% of their shots from the field and 12-of-18 from the 3-point line.
“You look at their team, they shot like 34-35 percent from three on the season,” Colonels coach Jake Thelen said. “”They have a guy come in who averages four points a game goes four-for-four for three in the first half. Tip the cap to them. They were ready to play. They made big time shots and they made big time plays.”
CovCath (31-3) opened with a blitz, creating their organized chaos and getting the game into the flow they wanted. The Colonels led 28-17 nearly two minutes into the second quarter by doing what has been a staple of their team all season long…creating turnovers and getting out on the go.
Then St. Xavier flipped the script.
The Tigers weathered an early blue storm to take a 41-35 lead into halftime. They closed the half on a 24-7 run, scoring on their final eight possessions of the half. Bryce Johnson came off the bench and was a big key in the run, hitting all four of his 3-point attempts in the half.
The Tigers efficiency lingered into the second half, hitting their first five shots and a Connor Klein layup opening up their biggest lead of the game at the time to 15 at 56-41. The Colonels chaos was eliminated.
“It’s impossible when you got to take the ball out of the net every possession, it’s really hard to play the way we want to play,” Thelen said. “That’s why we preach defense all the time. That’s why we always say defense creates our offense. When we’re at our best, we’re getting stops and we’re getting out and running. When they make shots the way they did, they shoot 62% from the field, 67% from three. I mean, sometimes teams are just better on a certain night. And I think St. X did a really good job tonight.”
CovCath was able to trim the deficit to nine by the end of the third at 59-50.
They got it down to six after a Braeden Myrick 3-pointer with 3:51 to play, but back-to-back dunks from Josh Lindsay and Jordan Jackson closed the door on any comeback attempt.
It closes Covington Catholic’s season at 31-3, returning to Rupp Arena for the first time since 2022.
Five takeaways from Wednesday’s opening round game:
Heavyweights collide on day 1, game 1
The great debate of seeding the Sweet 16 arose plenty leading into the tournament with what were the top two ranked teams meeting in the opening round in the first game of the first day of the tournament.
There’s no exact science to how seeding would be done, but both coaches were fine with how things worked out leading into the tournament.
“It is what it is. I don’t think it’s changing. I know people have talked about seeding. I don’t know how you seed the tournament without going to classes,” Thelen said. “I think the way it’s done is great. We’re very fortunate to be here. We’ve worked really hard to get to this point and at some point you got to face the other best teams. Our guys were focused all week in practice. Hats off to St. X. They’re a really good team. I know they’re hungry after what happened to them last year and I wish them luck moving forward.”
St. Xavier was making a return trip to Rupp after losing to Jeffersontown in the opening round last season.
“It’s about going 1-0, four times,” Tigers coach Kevin Klein said. “So to see this draw, it really kept us laser focused drawing CovCath, who’s obviously a heavyweight. They won five postseason games by 200 points. Guys, that’s a 40 point margin victory. And just to get on this stage, get our guys out of school, do it with these kids who I love, that are all like sons to me and they’re just super special to my son and my wife and just to see the bright lights the brightest on this stage, knowing just how badly I’ve wanted to get in this position, how badly these guys have wanted to win this game since last year.”
Tigers lights out shooting
Not only was it Petter’s triple in the last minute or Bryce Johnson’s four triples off the bench, it came from everywhere. Josh Lindsay hit 5-of-6 from deep, Connor Klein, their leading perimeter threat coming into the game was the only one around his average, hitting 2-of-5.
“They’re a big gap help team and they’re very physical,” Klein said. “They swiped at the ball very aggressively. We knew when we got to the paint we had to look for shooters, and our big thing is P to K, penetrate to kick. Played off two feet. Bradshaw is a great presence at the rim and when you are already set on the perimeter and that pass is coming, we treat it like a layup and these guys have so much confidence that it can be a combination of guys on any given night, but to see Connor, Josh, Bryce, really step up and make those big shots in those moments was fun to see, and we fed off of that.”
Harney exits in second half
A little over halfway through the third quarter, Colonels’ Cash Harney had to exit due to some pain what looked like in his lower back. He tried stretching out and loosening up along the baseline, but was unable to enter back into the game. His inability to enter back into the game put a hamper on the Colonels comeback hopes even more.
“Obviously, he’s a huge piece to our team,” Thelen said. “Dylan Gaiser came in and gave us awesome minutes. Five-for-six from the field, 10 points, he’s only minus two in plus- minus and guarded Chief Cameron for 15 minutes. So obviously, when Cash is out of the game, he’s a big piece of what we do. He had a great district and regional tournaments, won MVP in both, I think. So he’s obviously a big piece to our team, so we definitely missed him in that in that fourth quarter, but Dylan Gaiser came in and gave us awesome minutes.”
It puts an end to a storied high school career for Harney, which ended with three trips to Lexington for state tournaments, two in football and one in basketball.
Four Colonels set to graduate
Athens McGillis, Donovan Bradshaw and Dylan Gaiser will graduate for Covington Catholic. They totaled 108 wins in their high school careers in the four years in a Covington Catholic uniform. Harney joined them his sophomore year after transferring over from Beechwood.
McGillis finishes as the second all-time leading scorer in program history with 2,015 points, only the second Colonel to ever clear 2,000 points.
“I think it’s a good season to end when you ended on Rupp,” McGillis said. “I wouldn’t rather lose with anybody else than this team. I’m just grateful to be playing for Coach Thielen and have the teammates that I have.”
All four will leave a void to fill as key members of this year’s run and bringing their own set of intangibles.
What lies ahead for CovCath
In Thelen’s second season as head of the program, they hit their first goal of what the expectation is in Park Hills every season, to win a 9th Region title and head to Rupp Arena in hopes of winning another state championship.
While they fell four wins short of the ultimate goal, the Colonels were one of the most dominant teams the 9th Region has ever seen. They ran through region play undefeated, going 15-0 and not having a game closer than 18 points in those contests.
With what’s departing, it should level the playing field quite a bit as Myrick and Teegan Stava are the only two returnees expected back with significant playing time. But with the amount of blowouts they were able to accomplish throughout the year, it gave many others off the bench added playing time. They’ll feature more size next year with Dylan Courtney and Jonathan Brecount with others expected to fill into their roles as the offseason and into the season evolves.
TIGERS 75, COLONELS 61
ST. XAVIER — 17-24-18-16 — 75
COVINGTON CATHOLIC — 24-11-15-11 — 61
Scoring
St. Xavier (75) — Lindsay 21, Cameron 14, Klein 12, Johnson 12, Jordan Jackson 10, Petter 3, Jeremiah Jackson 2, Garr 1
Covington Catholic (61) — Myrick 19, McGillis 11, Stava 10, Gaiser 10, Bradshaw 8, Harney 3
Game Stats
Field Goals: St. Xavier 30/48, CovCath 25/53
3-Pointers: St. Xavier 12/18, CovCath 8/22
Free Throws: St. Xavier 3/5, CovCath 3/3
Rebounds: St. Xavier 21, CovCath 23
Assists: St. Xavier 22, CovCath 12
Turnovers: St. Xavier 11, CovCath 13
Steals: St. Xavier 7, CovCath 8
Blocked Shots: St. Xavier 5, CovCath 2
Fouls: St. Xavier 10, CovCath 11
Records: St. Xavier 27-7, CovCath 31-3