The Shadow
On Monday night in the Cougar Den, intensity on the defensive end and opportunistic offense were the two keys to Covington avenging an earlier loss to the Bobcats of Summers County.
Coach Nathan Hale said, “I thought this was one of the best efforts we had all year.”
It was a great effort to where the Cougars were able to get a tough non-district victory of 48-44. Throughout the entire game, the score remained close with neither side jumping out to a large lead and sustaining it for a long period of time.
In the first quarter, the Cougars jumped out to a 6-2 lead with 4:50 remaining in the quarter. Summers County began to respond by knocking down a three pointer to reduce the lead to 6-5. After that, Covington upped the lead to 9-5 before another three by the Bobcats reduced the lead to 9-8. For the next two plus minutes, the scoring went back and forth before a three pointer by Summers County at the end of the quarter made the score 15-12 to their advantage.
In the second quarter, Summers County kicked off the scoring with another three pointer to take their largest lead of the night of 18-12 at the 7:00 mark. Covington responded with a 9-0 run that lasted just short of five minutes then was snapped by the fourth three pointer in the game from Summers County to tie the game at 21 going into the half.
The third quarter started with Summers County’s fifth and final three pointer of the game to take a 24-21 lead.
Covington again responded with a three pointer of their own to tie it at 24. This was the beginning of a flurry of intense defense from Hale’s side where they were able to get quick points and sustain a small lead throughout the quarter. Despite of the effort from Covington, Summers County was still able to remain close by trailing 35-33 heading into the final quarter.
The final quarter started by Covington giving up a quick two which tied the game at 35. Covington, just like they did all night responded to take a 37-35 lead. From that point on, Covington never gave up that lead.
Chad Lipes and Troy Helton were two of the Cougars that provided clutch offense to help Covington pull out the win.
The biggest shots of the night possibly came from Colten Harris. With seven seconds left in the game, the Cougars were up 46-44 and Harris was fouled after working hard to get a rebound over multiple Bobcats. This chance came just after Harris was called for a foul doing that same exact thing, working hard for a rebound. Harris calmly stepped up to the line and converted both ends of the one and one to seal the game for the Cougars.
Hale also said about his team’s effort tonight, “We made mistakes, but we didn’t hang our heads and we got back on defense and that’s what really made a difference tonight.”
Lipes led the Cougars with 20 points and Helton chipped in with 16 points to join Lipes in double figures. Jordan Miller and Colten Harris each scored five points. Jamie Cobb rounded out Covington’s scoring with two points.
The Bobcats were led in scoring by Josh Graham with 18 points. T.J. Smith added 13 points for the visitors. Isaiah Brown scored five points and rounding out the scoring with four points apiece was Scott Hannah and Ashton Garten.
In the preliminary, the junior varsity Cougars had a 40-32 victory over Summers County. Trever Jack scored nine points to lead in scoring. Raquann Matthews scored eight points.
Luke Moye added seven points. Shemar Brown and Darnell Tolson each had five points. Finishing the scoring for the Covington JV’s were Austin Smith, Kashawn Carter and Derek Dressler with two points apiece.
Leading the Bobcats JV team was Tyler Bragg with 11 points.
