Owensboro Catholic jumped out to a big lead and maintained their distance for a 72-50 win over Apollo in a 9th District boys’ basketball game Friday night.
The Aces (13-5, 3-1) got 19 points from Drew Hartz and 17 from Brian Griffith, but they rode the hot hand of Zach Cecil to take a 20-2 advantage to start the game. The Eagles (1-17, 0-4) finally stopped the bleeding when Malik Wilson converted a layup attempt to stop the bleeding. In just his second game of the season, Wilson scored a team-high 13 points.
The rest of the game consisted of trading buckets back and forth, with Apollo never closing the gap to single digits. Eagles’ head coach Steve Barker was proud of the resilience his team showed after falling behind early.
“We’re slowly getting better this season,” Barker said. “Entering the season, Dan St. Claire hadn’t played a minute of high school basketball. Couple with that the fact that I’m starting three sophomores and two juniors and it makes for slow progress. I appreciate the guys’ effort, coming in each day and putting in the work in practice to battle it out in the games.”
Aces’ head coach Tim Riley attributed the victory to hard work, focus, and energy. After winning the 3rd Region All “A” title earlier this week, Riley mentioned his fear of falling into what he called a trap game. However, his players did what was required of them and jumped out to an early lead.
“I was really pleased by our effort in the first half,” Riley said. “Zach Cecil gave us a lot of energy early on — his effort led to several easy baskets. The team that wins most games is the team that finds easy baskets and we did that tonight. You always worry about a game like this after a tough contest with Trinity (Whitesville).”
Hartz, the leading scorer for the game, also received high praise from his coach after the game.
“Drew Hartz is a good player,” Riley said. “Even though he didn’t get a lot of minutes last year on a senior-dominated team, he was certainly good enough to play at this level. He is a scorer and the rest of his game falls in line when he is making shots. I fully expected nights like this one from him coming into the season.”
Owensboro Catholic faces an All “A” State Tournament tune-up on the road against Central Hardin Monday night at 8 p.m.
Originally scheduled for a 7 p.m. start time, Apollo’s game at Evansville Central on Saturday was moved up to 3:30 p.m. due to inclement weather.
Scoring
O. Catholic 22-16-14-20–72
Apollo 8-10-14-18–50
O. Catholic: Drew Hartz 19, Brian Griffith 17, Ty Vincent 9, Ryan Ogle 7, Peyton Survant 6, Zach Cecil 5, John Parker 4, Ji Webb 3, Max Byrne 2
Apollo: Malik Wilson 13, Harrison Bowman 10, Dan St. Claire 6, Darius Rigdon 4, Evan Deaton 4, Camron Frantz 4, Jaden Kelly 3, Ryan Ash 2, Logan Weedman 2, Luke Girvin 2
