The Eagles season came to a close Tuesday despite leading early on, as Owensboro secured its spot in the 9th District Championship with a dominant 84-43 win behind junior Kenyatta Carbon’s 31 points.
Apollo came out of the gates looking to set the tone, breaking through the Red Devils fullcourt pressure and grabbing a 9-7 lead with 2:30 left in the first quarter.
With Owensboro playing a little lackadaisical on both ends, sophomore Eli Masterson took advantage with nine points in the quarter and gave the Eagles a 17-13 lead heading into the second.
“We just stood around and let them dictate what was going on,” Drake said. “Then once they got ahead and established a temp we finally woke up.”
Then, the Red Devils flipped a switch. Looking like a completely different team, Owensboro was running and gunning, going on a 21-0 for the first six and a half minutes of the second quarter.
“In the second half we turned up the defensive pressure on them…” Drake said. “We turned them over, held their point guard scoreless and we got out of here.”
Masterson nabbed a layup with 1:20 left in the first half to end the run, but the damage had been done and the Red Devils went into halftime leading 37-22.
The Eagles showed signs of life once again coming out of the locker room, rattling off the first four points of the second half. But Owensboro quickly responded and completely took over in the third.
Carbon got hot and rattled off 12 points in the third, helping the Red Devils outscore Apollo 24-14 and head into the fourth up 61-36. Owensboro didn’t slow down in the fourth either, scoring 20-plus points for the third straight quarter to close out the 84-43 win over the Eagles.
Junior Zjhan Tutt (20) and Masterson (18) led the way for Apollo, nearly being the sole contributors offensively by combining for 38 points.
Carbon led all scorers with 31 points on the night, while senior Amari Robinson-Wales finished with 17 points and junior Dylon Talbott was close behind with 14 off of the bench.
Despite not having a lot of players with district tournament experience, Drake was pleased with how his team persevered and kept fighting their way to the win.
“We only had one seasoned guy who’s been through this and that was Amari,” Drake said. “We didn’t have Caymen tonight. Of course, in the first round of district no matter what we did last time I knew they were gonna give us a game. We got out of it. That’s the whole thing, survive and advance.”
Owensboro advances to the 9th District Championship with the win, as they will have a day to prepare for the winner of Owensboro Catholic vs. Daviess County on Friday at 7 p.m.
“We’ll come back tomorrow, shoot some free throws and go through a normal day and then we’ll find out tomorrow night who we play,” Drake said. “But tomorrow is another work day for us.”
Meanwhile, Apollo closes out the season sitting on a 16-game losing streak and owning a 2-26 overall record. Despite the loss, Head Coach Mark Starns is proud of his seniors for coming to work day in and day out and is hopeful for the future.
“Our JV team finished with a 13-5 record,” Starns said. “We’ve got some things to build on with them, some positive things. Talking about this season, was it the season we wanted? Absolutely not. [We faced] a lot of adversity. Those three seniors in Jaden, Grant and Alex, they came to practice all the time. Even when it was tough and they didn’t want to practice because of the way things were going. Credit to them and their character for them doing that.”
