The Red Devils chaotic defense led to a dominant first half, guiding them to an 80-46 road district win over Apollo on Friday night.
Owensboro wasted no time getting going on the road, creating havoc defensively and turning it into a 13-0 run and eventually taking a 29-9 lead after the first quarter. The Red Devils stayed hot in the second quarter, getting points from seven different players while freshman Jonathan Moss drilled a pullup jumper at the buzzer to give them a 54-21 lead going into halftime.
Without starting senior Jaren Stites and junior Eli Masteron because of injury, freshman Kobe Kelly and senior Zjhan Tutt tried to bring the Eagles within distance in the second half. Kelly grabbed 13 points, while Tutt grabbed 12—with both finishing at 22 and 16 for the game—to combine for all 25 of Apollo’s points in the second half.
However, Owensboro had too much momentum and was able to stay undefeated in district play with an 80-46 win on the road. Head Coach Rod Drake was pleased with the Red Devils efforts today, fighting for a win amidst a chaotic week.
“I thought we came ready to play,” Drake said. “We’ve had a long week. We had three games with all the teams this week and then it was finals week. So it’s been a busy week for us. But tonight we just came out and laid it on the line and I thought we had some fun doing it.”
10 different players scored for the Red Devils tonight with Carbon’s 22 points leading the way, while Moss and senior Ethan Pendleton chipped in 10 each. While Owensboro had a dominant showing offensively, a large part of that was because of its efforts on the defensive end.
“Our defensive pressure kind of set the tone tonight,” Drake said. “We got up in them early and made them do some things and made them play our style of basketball. That’s what we wanted to do. They’ve been off for a whole week, so we didn’t know what to expect. So we just came out and dictated the tempo of the game.”
Now sitting at 6-2 overall and 2-0 in district play, Drake still feels like the Red Devils have room to improve regardless of the win and they’ll look to do so in practice to try to continue their winning ways against Hopkinsville at 5 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 19.
“Just want to build some momentum and we just gotta keep getting better defensively,” Drake said. “I thought we showed glimpses of it tonight, but you know as well as I do to win this region and district we gotta play better defense.”
Apollo on the other hand is still searching for its first win at 0-5, getting right back to action on Saturday against Campbellsville at 6 p.m. at home.
