Covington Catholic kept trying to deliver the knockout blow.
Dixie Heights kept dodging it.
In the battle of the Colonels in the boys 9th Region basketball tournament quarterfinals at Northern Kentucky University’s Truist Arena, it was CovCath coming out on top, 49-47.
Rallying from a 12-point second half deficit, Owen Niehues desperation heave from about 35-feet failed to draw iron as Covington Catholic survives to Sunday’s semifinals to take on Cooper at 3:30 p.m. CovCath had beaten Dixie Heights 80-40 back on Feb. 16.
“The guys are looking at the stats of that game or the pure highlights of that game and you just look at the pure score,” CovCath coach Scott Ruthsatz said. “You knew what they were going to do, they were going to muddy the waters and give their coaching staff credit. Underdogs scrap and fight and claw and do everything they can to stay in the game and they did.”
For about 31 minutes, Covington Catholic had the feel of never really being in danger. The last minute was a different story.
It started with a Max Rubermeyer layup and after two Cash Harney free throws, Griffin Derry hit a 3-pointer and was fouled on the attempt. He missed the free throw, but Nieheus was there to clean up the miss, suddenly making it a 47-45 game with eight seconds to play.
Harney hit 1-of-2 free throws on the other end, Nieheus fouled with five seconds remaining and hitting two free throws, CovCath denying Dixie any chance at a game-tying 3-point attempt. Nieheus made it 48-47, Dixie quickly fouling Athens McGillis with 4.7 seconds remaining.
McGillis hit 1-of-2, Dixie out of timeouts and needing to get the ball up the floor quickly. Nieheus took the inbounds pass, took six dribbles up the floor and pulled up a little past midcourt. His shot hit the backboard, but was too strong and bounced off.
“It’s a wake-up call,” Ruthsatz said. “Especially for our guards who down the stretch turned the ball over and missed shots.”
Dixie took their only lead of the night at 2-0, Covington Catholic going the distance from there. They led 9-6 after one and 24-18 going into halftime thanks to their offensive rebounding, collecting eight offensive rebounds in the first half for eight second chance points.
Caden Miller was the big beneficiary there, his four first half offensive rebounds leading to a nine point, eight rebound first half.
“Obviously that’s one of my major roles on this team is to attack the glass. Knew we had to capitalize on that. Especially when they don’t have the bigs to match it,” Miller said. “I take a lot of pride in the hustle plays and rebounding.”
Miller brought some thunderous dunks with him, his one off a steal and two-hand jam in the third quarter giving CovCath a 35-23 lead with three minutes to play in the third.
Harney scored three straight for the Colonels to give them their largest lead of the night at 40-28 and headed to the fourth up 10, 40-30.
A Dixie 6-0 run cut things to 42-36, a Dixie Heights team playing their best ball down the stretch remaining poised.
“Almost, but almost is not good enough,” Dixie Heights head coach Chad Fields said. “Proud of our guys. Our pillars of our team is faith, it’s toughness, it’s sacrifice and it’s keep learning. I thought it was an outstanding example of all those things on the floor tonight. I thought our guys had a good amount of belief. I thought they played tough, 100% sacrifice for each other and we learned, we got better, we got a lot better this year.”
Miller’s fifth dunk of the night made it 45-38 with a minute to play, but Dixie made things very interesting from there.
“We’re happy to survive and advance, but we’re not happy with the score,” Miller said. “It doesn’t feel like a win, but it is and we’ll take it.”
It puts an end to Dixie’s season at 18-14 as they finished strong.
“We won seven games last year,” Fields said. “It’s hard to describe to the player’s what it’s going to be like to be a winning basketball team. And we’ve said this for a couple years and it started with Coach Stainforth as well, we said that there’s two things, there’s two lies out there. The first lie is it’s going to be easy. And then the second lie is it won’t be worth it. So you really just have to go through it on yourself to find out how difficult it’s going to be. I think it’s a good example of faith. You have to believe in that idea, despite the fact that you can’t see and that’s how we define faith belief in something that you can’t see but you just have to trust that that effort eventually is going to be worth it.”
Hudson Blank carried the scoring load early with 10 of his 15 points in the first half. Rubemeyer added 11, Nieheus with 10 and Griffin Derry putting up nine. The Colonels will graduate four seniors, two of them starters in Blank and Jaxson Gray along with key reserve Lavonte Parker and manager Doug Reynolds.
CovCath was paced by Miller’s 17 point, 10 rebound effort while Harney finished with 14 points, five assists and two steals. Outside of those two, the rest of the team went 6-of-25 from the field.
Now comes Cooper, a team that beat them in Park Hills back on Jan. 23, 65-55. That was Covington Catholic’s last loss as they enter Sunday’s game on a 11-game winning streak.
COVCATH 49, DIXIE HEIGHTS 47
DIXIE HEIGHTS — 6-12-12-17 — 47
COVINGTON CATHOLIC — 9-15-16-9 — 49
Scoring
Dixie (47) — Blank 15, Rubemeyer 11, Nieheus 10, Derry 9, Gray 2
CovCath (49) — Miller 17, Harney 14, McGillis 6, Ruthsatz 6, Hussey 5, Johnson 1
Game Stats
Field Goals: Dixie 20/39, CovCath 17/42
3-Pointers: Dixie 3/8, CovCath 6/23
Free Throws: Dixie 4/5, CovCath 9/16
Rebounds: Dixie 24, CovCath 23
Assists: Dixie 12, CovCath 11
Turnovers: Dixie 12, CovCath 7
Steals: Dixie 3, CovCath 10
Blocked Shots: Dixie 1, CovCath 4
Fouls: Dixie 14, CovCath 12
Records: Dixie Heights 18-14, Covington Catholic 26-5