Cooper needed to figure out how to handle Covington Catholic’s pressure in Tuesday’s St. Elizabeth Healthcare 9th Region tournament semifinals.
So instead of having one primary ball-handler, the Jaguars used all five guys on the floor to alleviate pressure.
The strategy worked as they came away with a 59-54 victory, punching their ticket to a third straight region championship.
But where the Jaguars really won this one was on the defensive end. Athens McGillis got his for CovCath, finishing with a game-high 29 points, but Cooper held every other player in to single digits as anyone not named McGillis finished 11-of-37 from the field.
Cooper’s starting five consists of Andy Johnson, Roman Combs, Jaidan Combs and Isaac Brown doing most of the damage scoring. But it was Chris Rodriguez making the difference on offense Tuesday night in Truist Arena. Rodriguez finished with 15 points on 4-of-5 shooting from the field and 5-of-7 from the free throw line. The stat he was most proud of though? Holding Colonels second leading scorer Cash Harney to nine points as his primary defender.
“I love that,” Rodriguez said. “I just had to keep him in front of me, keep my distance from him. Definitely more proud of that than the points. I like doing the dirty work.”
Rodriguez’s buy-in on the defensive end doesn’t go unnoticed by his teammates. He’s often chasing Johnson around in practice.
“He comes in every day in practice and he’s a dog,” Johnson said. “He comes in and does whatever we need him to do. He guards me in practice, we usually get in a fight, but competition is good at the end of the day. He makes it hard and I love it.”
It was Rodriguez that ignited a 9-0 Jaguars run to end the first quarter with back-to-back 3-pointers, giving them a 13-7 edge after eight minutes of play.
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McGillis really started to get going in the second, scoring 13 of the Colonels 15 points in the frame, but still found themselves trailing 26-22 at the break. He had a stretch of scoring 17 of 19 Colonels points as they got within two at 28-26 in the third.
“Sometimes you just have those nights,” Colonels coach Jake Thelen said. “I don’t think it was our offense, I think it was our defense. I don’t think we defended as well as we did against Dixie. I don’t think we were as aggressive, and I don’t think we played as hard on the defensive end.”
That’s when Cooper started to separate. They’d close the quarter on a 11-4 run to take a 42-32 lead into the fourth capped off by Colonels’ coach Jake Thelen’s technical foul in the closing seconds of the quarter. Thelen had been rather animated in the quarter as some 50-50 calls didn’t go their way.
Johnson would then hit three free throws to open up the fourth on a 3-point attempt, giving Cooper their largest lead of the night at 45-32.
The Colonels were able to trim the deficit to five, but time ran out on them for an attempted comeback, ending their season at 24-9. It’s the third straight year they’ve lost to Cooper in the region semifinals and the fifth time in a row losing to Cooper in the head-to-head matchup.
“Let’s face it, CovCath’s gotten us a number of times over the years too, but that rivalry is real. I think our kids growing up watching that rivalry, they understand it,” Jaguars coach Tim Sullivan said. “I think our kids embrace the fact that a lot of teams, when they play CovCath, they play the name on the front of the jersey instead of the kid in the jersey and I think our kids understand that they put their shoes and socks on just like we do, and I think they bring out the best in us.”
The silver lining for CovCath is they return four of their starting five and will enter the 2025-26 season as the overwhelming favorite to win the region. Nolan Ruthsatz headlines the departing senior class as the lone starter along with reserves Jake Stewart, Dolan Whelan, Hudson Schreiber, Dylan Lanham, Tate Kruer, Logan Dirks and Luke Carroll.
“Hats off to Cooper, they controlled the whole tempo of the game,” Thelen said. “It was hard for us to get in transition because we weren’t getting live ball stops and that’s where we’re great. They did a nice job defending us and getting back in transition.”
Cooper was led by Johnson’s 18 points and 10 rebounds, all 10 of them defensive rebeounds as the Jaguars wanted to do everything possible to alleviate the Colonels quickness and setting up their full court pressure.
“Coming in I was stressing to Roman and Jay (Combs) that we need to crash,” Johnson said. “We had a little game plan that Chris and Isaac would get back and we just crashed offensively and defensively. I think they out rebounded us in the third quarter, and that’s not likely for us. We usually out rebound every team, but we did a pretty good job rebounding the ball.”
Jaidan Combs added 13 points with four rebounds, Roman Combs with eight points, three rebounds and three blocked shots.
Now they look to do something they’ve come up short in the prior two seasons, winning a region championship.
“This group is so special and that’s what this is about. It’s always going to be about the kids,” Sullivan said. “I understand that my situation is what it is right now and we’ll handle that later on, but what I want our guys to do is just continue living in the moment and continue being selfless playing for one another. That’s what they’re doing and that’s kind of their way of being selfless and saying that about me. But we’re doing this for ourselves and for everyone in our program.”
They’ll face Lloyd Memorial, Tuesday’s second semifinal winner on a buzzer-beating victory over Newport. The Jaguars defeated the Juggernauts in the regular season. 63-59 on Jan. 14.
PHOTO SLIDESHOW: Cooper-Covington Catholic 9th Region semifinals (provided by Charles Bolton)
JAGUARS 59, COLONELS 54
COVINGTON CATHOLIC — 7-15-10-22 — 54
COOPER — 13-13-16-17 — 59
Scoring
CovCath (54) — McGillis 29, Harney 9, Gaiser 6, Ruthsatz 5, Bradshaw 4, Stava 1
Cooper (59) — Johnson 18, Rodriguez 15, J. Combs 13, R. Combs 8, Brown 4, Knuckles 1
Game Stats
Field Goals: CovCath 22/57, Cooper 20/40
3-Pointers: CovCath 3/17, Cooper 5/13
Free Throws: CovCath 7/8, Cooper 14/22
Rebounds: CovCath 30, Cooper 30
Assists: CovCath 4, Cooper 10
Steals: CovCath 9, Cooper 3
Blocked Shots: CovCath 2, Cooper 4
Turnovers: CovCath 5, Cooper 14
Records: Covington Catholic 24-9, Cooper 22-5