The Shadow
BUENA VISTA - The No. 3 seed Covington Cougars took on a tournament favorite in the No. 2 seed James River Thursday night at Parry McCluer. Coach Nathan Hale’s team put forth a total team effort to come out on top 70-64 to advance to the championship Friday night against host and No. 1 seed Parry McCluer.
Hale went on to say about the game, “It was a total team effort, the kids played hard, played great defense when we needed it. They kept fighting.”
The tempo of the game started off fast as T.J. Sandidge of James River got a quick opening bucket to help the Knights jump out to a 2-0 lead just one minute into the game.
Caleb Lythgoe scored the next bucket for the Knights to increase the lead to four. Chad Lipes responded with Covington’s first basket of the game to cut the lead in half, but four straight points from James River’s Bryan Hoppe increased the lead to 8-2 with 4:40 left in the first quarter.
Lipes and fellow senior Dominique Jordan were not rattled as they each knocked down successive three pointers in a 40 second span to tie the game at 8-8 with 4:00 left in the opening quarter. Hoppe again scored for the Knights to recapture the lead at 10-8. Jamie Cobb scored the first of his points in the ball game with 2:50 left in the first quarter to tie the game back at 10-10.
Half a minute later, Jordan Miller of Covington went coast to coast to score a layup to get the lead back for Covington. Miller’s bucket was answered by John Bennett with 1:50 remaining. It remained tied at 12 until Lipes got back on the scoring column to get the final two points of the quarter to give the Cougars a 14-12 advantage heading into the second.
The second quarter began with the same quick pace as the first quarter with Cobb scoring a basket for the Cougars just 40 seconds in. After that quick score, it was all about Covington spreading the floor and patiently passing the ball. A score did not come again in the quarter until three minutes later when Bennett hit two free throws to cut the lead down to 16-14 with 4:40 left in the quarter.
The slow pace did not last long as the Knights and Cougars once again traded scores rapidly for the next 2:05 where Covington was up 22-20 thanks to another Lipes score.
The pace once again slowed down towards the end of the quarter as each team was playing for the last shot of the first half. With :50 remaining, Troy Helton put the Cougars up by four, but James River responded with a three pointer 20 seconds later. Colten Harris ended the half with a basket to give Covington a 26-23 lead heading into intermission.
After the halftime break, Covington started the third quarter with a 9-0 run which had two scores from Helton, a score from Cobb and another three pointer by Jordan which made the score 35-23.
James River snapped that run with a little 7-0 run of their own which included two free throws apiece from Dylan Bryan and Bennett who also knocked down a three pointer to cut the lead down 35-30. That was about all James River could muster as Covington started to pull away and ended the quarter with a 47-37 lead.
The final quarter started with Covington continuing to build their big lead by scoring easy and often. At one point in the quarter, the Cougars had a lead as large as 14 points. Toward the end of the game where James River had to foul to get more possessions, time was simply not on their side as they made an excellent effort to come back, but just simply ran out of time.
Leading the Cougars with a career game was Cobb who paced his team with 22 points. Helton showed his ability to drive and get to the foul line in a 17 point effort, while Lipes added 16 points and was able to show his precise outside shot as he got 12 of those points from behind the arc.
Just missing out on double digits was Jordan with eight points, but he was able to show he could knock down the three as well as he made two in the game. Rounding out the scoring for the Cougars was Harris with five points and Miller with two points.
Bennett had a spectacular double-double effort despite of the loss as he scored 29 points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
Hoppe joined Bennett in double digits with 10 points. Just missing out on getting into double digits was Dylan Bryan with nine points. Chase Haynes scored seven points. Brandon Rodriguez scored three points. Rounding out the scoring with two points apiece was Caleb Aylor, T.J. Sandidge and Caleb Lythgoe.
Hale was very excited to come out with the win, but he knows that his team has to be ready to face a ready Parry McCluer team. He said about that, “As much as we’re enjoying this win right now, when we wake up tomorrow, we have to be ready to go. This game is over. Our goal was not to be James River, but win the championship.”
On championship Friday at Parry McCluer, it will be a heavy dose of blue and gold as the girls will also be competing for a district tournament title as they face the Lady Knights once again for the tournament title. The girls tipoff at 6 p.m. with the boys starting 20 minutes after the girls game ends.
