In a tale of two halves, Owensboro came out 60-40 winners against tournament host Apollo on Tuesday to claim a spot in the 9th District boys’ basketball championship game.
The first-round butterflies affected the Red Devils (19-7) in the first quarter, as Apollo (3-25) jumped out to an early 8-point advantage. By halftime, Owensboro had settled in and held a 22-21 lead.
In the second half, Apollo’s 1-3-1 defense, a tactic that had proved effective early on, began to falter and the fouls started to tally up. Both Dan St. Claire and Ryan Ash fouled out as the physicality of Owensboro’s full-court press stymied any positive play Apollo had hoped to maintain in the third and fourth periods of play.
Red Devils’ head coach Rod Drake was happy to see his team respond after falling behind early, tipping his cap to a hard-fought battle from his team’s opposition.
“I told our guys all week, it doesn’t matter who you play, but the first round game is going to be tough,” Drake said. “I’m glad we got the first one under our belt. We only have one guy with a lot of varsity experience, and it took us a couple of quarters to calm down and play our kind of basketball.”
Drake was complimentary of Gavin Wimsatt, a freshman big man who scored 17 points for Owensboro — all of them coming in the second half.
“I thought he played really well,” Drake said. “Tonight was an example of what he has been doing all year long. It’s crazy to think that he is only a freshman.”
Apollo finished the game just 6-of-16 from the free throw line, with two of those misses in the first half being the front end of a 1-and-1 opportunity. Altogether that amounts to an opportunity to put an additional 12 points on the scoreboard, which head coach Steve Barker felt would have undoubtedly led to a much more interesting second half.
“I was proud of the way we played in the first half,” Barker said. “I wasn’t so proud of the way we shot free throws, but with the atmosphere that we were playing in tonight, it is understandable why they missed those free throws. Had we converted a few more of those free chances we could have taken a lead into the halftime break, which would have been huge for us.”
After an emotional night for his young team, coach Barker was proud of the way each of his guys battled. After surrendering their early lead, the Eagles hung tight with the heavily-favored Red Devils, thanks in large part to St. Claire’s efforts on the glass and in the paint. St. Claire, in his first year playing high school basketball, finished the game with 15 points and 12 rebounds.
“I thought we showed a lot of grit up until the very end of the game tonight,” Barker said. “St. Claire had a really good game and I was proud of the way he rebounded the basketball. We’re talking about a kid who had previously been homeschooled before this year. He has improved so much this year.”
Owensboro advances to play the winner of Wednesday night’s matchup between Owensboro Catholic and Daviess County. The championship will be played at 7 p.m. Friday, and both teams in the title game automatically advance to the 3rd Region Tournament next week.
Scoring
Apollo: 15-6-11-8–40
Owensboro: 9-13-23-15–60
Apollo: Dan St. Claire 15, Malik Wilson 9, Harrison Bowman 6, Ryan Ash 6, Landon Hamilton 2, Cameron Frantz 2.
Owensboro: Darrion Wimsatt 21, Gavin Wimsatt 17, Amari Wales 7, Adante Greer 7, Isaac Humphrey 4, Areon Phillips 2, Jaden Greathouse 2.
