For the first time in school history, the Owensboro Catholic boys’ basketball team will be making a fifth consecutive trip to the 3rd Region tournament. The Aces locked up their spot Wednesday night with a 69-50 win over Apollo in the 9th District tournament semifinals.
Catholic first moves on to Friday’s district championship, where they’ll meet Owensboro for a rematch of last year’s title game. Regardless of that outcome, both teams will advance to the region tournament.
“It’s really nice to get this win tonight” said head coach Tim Riley, who is in his fifth year at Catholic. “With the seniors going four straight times, I think that’s a big deal. It’s special to be able to go back to the region tournament.”
The Aces (18-13) were efficient and balanced in the first half of the win over Apollo (5-25), executing at both ends of the court. Catholic finished with 10 assists and just one turnover as they built a 36-15 halftime lead.
“Ten assists to one turnover in the first half is something we’re really pleased about. It’s hard to beat somebody if you don’t turn them over more than that,” Riley said. “Then we shot the ball really well. I’m not sure we can play much better than we did in the first half.”
Apollo started the game with a 7-0 run, but Catholic scored the next 10 points and rolled to a 19-10 advantage after the first period.
The Eagles went the final 3:33 of the first quarter without a field goal, and their first points of the second period didn’t come until Cameron Frantz knocked down a corner 3 with 3:55 left in the half.
Catholic’s Brian Griffith then scored six points during a 10-2 run that sent Catholic into halftime with a 36-15 lead.
Griffith quickly added five more points to start the second half, and the Aces took their biggest lead of the night at 44-19 when Ji Webb hit a pair of free throws with roughly six minutes left in the third.
Apollo didn’t give up, mounting a furious attack that got them within 52-39 by the end of the third quarter. The Eagles ramped up the pressure and started getting more aggressive with their drives to the basket.
“In the second half when they got down, they kind of just buried their head and went at us a little bit more,” Riley said. “They made a run. They’ve really improved as a team this year so we figured they would. We just tried to hold on instead of get stops like we needed to.”
Frantz tipped in a rebound to get the Eagles within 56-43 with 4:03 to play, but they never got any closer.
Catholic’s Andrew Riney scored on a pair of putbacks — drawing a foul and knocking down the ensuing free throw on the second one — to put the game out of reach at 61-43 with 3:00 to go.
The Aces were led in scoring by Griffith’s game-high 19 points. Drew Hartz added 14, while Riney and Ji Webb finished with 11 each. Riney finished with a team-high seven rebounds. Riney, Griffith and Weaver had four assists each.
Malik Wilson led Apollo with 12 points and Frantz finished with 11. They also got nine from Ryan Ash and eight from Jamen Kinison.
BOX SCORE
AHS 10-5-24-11—50
OCHS 19-17-16-17—69
AHS (50): Malik Wilson (12), Cameron Frantz (11), Ryan Ash (9), Jamen Kinison (8), DeVaughn Johnson (6), Logan Rhinerson (2), Eric Smith (2)
OCHS (69): Brian Griffith (19), Drew Hartz (14), Andrew Riney (11), Ji Webb (11), Gray Weaver (6), Everett Munsey (3), Luke Scales (3), Sam McFarland (2)
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2019-20 basketball coverage is presented in part by Rhoads & Rhoads Attorneys at Law.
