Muhlenberg County beats Owensboro Catholic for 1st regional title since 2010

March 29, 2021 | 12:05 am

Updated March 28, 2021 | 11:51 pm

Tyler Dixon | Owensboro Times

Owensboro Catholic’s run as the defending 3rd Region Tournament champions ended Sunday afternoon when the depleted Aces fell to Muhlenberg County in this year’s tournament final.

With the game tied 25-25 in the third quarter, a bang-bang play led to a foul and then a technical on the Aces. After the technical, the Mustangs found their rhythm and only allowed six points in the final 9:32 of the game as they scored 21 during that span en route to the 46-31 win over Catholic.

The victory gives the Mustangs their first 3rd Region Tournament championship since 2010, the year the school opened.

Muhlenberg coach Kyle Eades will be making his second trip to the KHSAA Sweet Sixteen as he was an assistant under Kerry Stovall in 2011 when Christian County won the state championship.

Eades said the feeling is difficult to describe.

“To be able to share this with this special group of players, with these coaches, with a community that is hungry for this, means the world,” he said. “It’s really hard to put it into words, but just my emotions, I’ve been moved to tears today. I think more than anything, it’s just the hard work and dedication from a collection of guys. To be able to share this, means the world to me.”

Catholic coach Tim Riley said he was proud his team didn’t give up.

“I’m proud of our kids,” he said. “To get to that game and it to be a game late in the third quarter. I was proud of what they did. Proud of the fight they had. Very appreciative of what our kids were able to do.”

The Mustangs started the game on an 8-0 run but it wasn’t long before Riley had the Aces back in the game.

After a 20-16 Muhlenberg advantage at the break, the Aces soon took their first lead but when the game was tied 25-25, it took a turn in favor of the Mustangs as they limited Catholic to just six points the rest of the way.

“We had to take care of the ball,” Riley said. “The big question was could we score against them. We just didn’t score enough. They’re a really good defensive team, they guard you really well. They did a nice job defensively on us. Just didn’t put enough points up. A lot of that is the fact that they really guard well.”

Eades said Riley and the Aces had a good plan when it came to disrupting their rhythm.

“To be honest, he did a really good job,” Eades said of Riley. “You’ve got to give their players a tremendous amount of credit. They had their gameplan, I thought they did a really good job of executing it. Defensively, we were fine but we weren’t getting anything really off of our defense. I felt like in the first half, I felt like the fact that we were struggling a little bit offensively kind of dictated our defensive effort in a negative way.”

Catholic junior Ji Webb had a game-high 14 points in the loss, including eight in the first half.

Webb had to take on the bulk of the scoring the last few weeks for the Aces with Brian Griffith and Gray Weaver out.

Riley said Webb stepped up when it mattered.

“He’s played real well,” he said. “He averages 13 in the regular season, he averaged 21 in the tournament … Tonight was hard. He tried to do it by himself. He tried, he gave it everything he had. They were real physical with him inside and kind of forced him away from the basketball a little bit. Made it hard on him.”

The Aces graduate one senior in Weaver and return every other player from this year’s roster.

Despite what he has returning, Riley said he and his team still had their sights set on Rupp.

“You don’t know when you’re going to get a chance,” he said. “We might not get another chance so when you get one, you want to win one. I’m never going to go let’s look ahead to what’s next. We wanted to win today. A lot of these guys are back. We wanted to win today because you don’t know what tomorrow holds.”

Catholic ends the season at 18-10.

Muhlenberg County improves to 19-1 as the Mustangs now head to Rupp Arena. They’ll take on 9th Region champion Highlands at 11 a.m. EST on Thursday.

MUHLENBERG COUNTY 46, OWENSBORO CATHOLIC 31
MC (19-1) 14 6 14 12–46
OC (18-10) 9 7 11 4–31
MC: Isaac Rose 4, Brayden Lovan 2, Trey Lovell 7, Madox Jernigan 1, Nash Divine 7, Cole Vincent 10, Davion Summers 5, Asher Carver 6, Donovan McCoy 4
OC: Parker Gray 6, Tut Carrico 2, Ji Webb 14, Sam McFarland 7, Jari Barber 2

2021 basketball coverage is presented in part by Rhoads & Rhoads Attorneys at Law.

March 29, 2021 | 12:05 am

Share this Article

Other articles you may like