Based off their early season body of work, many considered Friday night’s matchup in Park Hills between Covington Catholic and Lloyd Memorial a battle of the top two teams in the 9th Region right now.
The Colonels came in 8-2 and fresh off a holiday tournament championship in Florida. Lloyd was 9-2 with a consolation championship at the King of the Bluegrass in Louisville, defeating Newport in the championship game.
It was an ideal night for high school hoops with temps frigid outside and the gym at Covington Catholic High School stocked to the brim, filled with many alumni of the program as the school is celebrating their 100th anniversary this school year.
The play on the court didn’t disappoint, the Colonels hanging on for a 71-67 victory in front of the capacity crowd.
“It was a total team effort,” Colonels coach Jake Thelen said. “Our bench was great tonight. Credit to the team and those kids, they’re locked in on winning and that’s all they care about is being great teammates for each other.”
PHOTO SLIDESHOW: Covington Catholic-Lloyd Memorial (provided by Charles Bolton)
Here’s how it went down:
The rundown
Lloyd started strong, opening up with a 10-2 lead as EJ Walker played distributor, dishing out a couple of assists in the early spurt, Jayden Humphrey and Carter Bresser the beneficiary of the passes before a Walker layup followed by a dunk gave them an eight-point edge and forced a Colonels timeout.
CovCath gained their bearings, thanks to Athens McGillis catching the hot hand as they ended the quarter on a 9-0 run for a 13-12 edge headed into the second.
The second quarter was tight throughout with four ties and four lead changes as the Juggernauts took a 29-26 lead into halftime.
Lloyd built their lead to seven in the third before McGillis got going again, scoring 11 points during a 21-5 Colonels run as they turned the tables and led 51-42 in the opening stages of the fourth.
“That was huge for us,” Thelen said. “It all starts with our defense, if we get stops we’re really fast in transition and score. I thought we got stops there.”
Walker started to take matters into his own hands with a personal 6-0 run to make it 51-48, but then Cash Harney and Jake Stewart rose to the occasion for the Colonels, Stewart’s second triple spurred a 5-0 Colonels mini-run to build their lead back out to eight at 56-48.
Stewart hit another triple to give the Colonels their largest lead of the night at 59-48, but Walker and company weren’t going to let things get away from them. A Walker dunk followed by a triple made it 67-64 with 17.9 seconds to play, but Harney was clutch down the stretch from the free throw line and hit his final six attempts, the last making it a four-point game with four seconds to play.
Colonels bench steps up
Jake Stewart and Dylan Gaiser combined to score 17 points off the bench. Gaiser penetrated the lane and found open spots for layups as six of his eight points came in the first half, four of them in the Colonels 9-0 run to close out the first quarter.
Stewart, who had been in the starting lineup, came off the bench and provided three crucial triples in the second half, two of them in the fourth quarter to extend the Colonels lead to 11.
“The bench energy was great tonight,” Stewart said. “I fed off that energy.”
Stewart mentioned he didn’t play in the second half of the championship game of the Ram Jam Tournament down in Florida.
“That kind of fired me up a little bit,” Stewart said. ” So I called Thelen and he told me I needed to be confident. I didn’t shoot the best, I airballed the crap out of one. Came back here to CovCath and started to get into the flow of things.”
The senior made the most of his opportunity Friday night.
McGillis the Microwave
Athens McGillis game has translated to pretty much an all-around player. He posted 23 points on 10-of-19 shooting from the field to go with two assists and three steals.
Prior seasons he may have just been known as a 3-point shooter, but he’s now attacking the paint with more confidence and pulling up for a mid-range when he needs to.
“Just a lot of work in the gym. I’m confident in myself and a couple of seniors left so I had to step up,” McGillis said.
McGillis is averaging 22.8 points per game through the Colonels first 11 games of the season on 44/33/76 shooting splits.
Cashing them in
Free throw shooting just…wasn’t…good. That’s being nice. The two combined to go 14-of-32 from the charity stripe, Lloyd was 5-of-13, CovCath was 9-of-19. The Colonels were 3-of-13 until Harney hit his final six in the last minute of the game to seal the deal.
Harney finished with 14 points and four assists.
Walker efficient
EJ Walker finished with 30 points and nine rebounds, hitting 14-of-17 shots from the field, including two 3-pointers late to make it a one possession game. He also added four assists and two steals.
Covington Catholic packed in a zone on the Juggernauts and typically had a body in front and behind of Walker any time he touched it in the post. Nothing new for the South Carolina signee.
“That’s all we’ve seen all year long,” Mike Walker said. “They pack it on EJ and he scores 30 and 10.”
Walker’s 30 now puts him 41 points away from breaking the program’s all-time scoring record.
Sebastian and Humphrey step up in Blaackar’s quiet night
With Anthony Blaackar scoring four points, 13 below his season average, it was Isaiah Sebastian and Jayden Humphrey stepping up for the Juggernauts as complimentary scorers to EJ Walker.
Sebastian ended with 10 points, also pulling down nine rebounds to go with three assists and a steal.
“Petey (Sebastian) is slowly getting back into basketball shape,” Walker said. “Majority of my team is football players so we’re slowly getting better and better.”
Humphrey posted 11 points, hitting 5-of-6 shots.
By the Numbers
The box score didn’t reveal too many discrepancies. Lloyd had 15 turnovers to CovCath’s eight, but the Colonels only had a 19-15 in edge in points off turnovers.
Lloyd won the rebounding battle 30-24 and pulled down 12 offensive rebounds, but not a sizeable advantage in second chance points at 8-4.
Maybe the biggest tell was points off the bench, CovCath getting 17 to Lloyd’s seven.
“They’ve done a really nice job and played a really hard schedule as well and are a really good team,” Colonels coach Jake Thelen said. “I’m sure we’ll see them again in the regional tournament. They’ll be a hard out come March.”
Nolan Ruthsatz also provided a spark offensively for the Colonels, finishing with 10 points, hitting all five of his shots from the field. Donovan Bradshaw posted seven points with six rebounds, his main assignment trying to contain Walker.
Next up
Covington Catholic returns to action on Saturday at St. Xavier (Ohio) at 5 p.m.
Lloyd is off until Tuesday when they host Holy Cross at 7:30 p.m.
