The Owensboro Red Devils are near the bottom in games played this season in the region, but coach Rod Drake thinks his team is trending near the top after they grabbed the 9th District’s top seed Tuesday at the Sportscenter.
After an even first quarter, the Red Devils built a lead in the second and extended it in the second half to take down Owensboro Catholic 79-51.
Drake said the top seed is nice but there’s still plenty of work to be done.
“We’ve got the target on our backs,” he said. “That’s three years in a row we’ve got the number one seed. We earned it and it really doesn’t mean anything. All we got guaranteed is one more game and that’s it. We’ll have to get ready for Apollo, just be ready. They’re playing better ball than they were the last time we played them.”
From the opening inbound Tuesday, Owensboro’s Kenyata Carbon caught fire.
Carbon scored 21 of his game-high 27 points in the first half, which paired well with Red Devil senior Amari Robinson-Wales and his 18 points.
The duo nearly took down the Aces on their own, and Drake said they’re clicking more than most.
“I think our guard play is just about as good as anyone in the state right now with Amari and Kenyata,” he said.
For the Aces, things didn’t go their way in the second half as two of their leading scorers went down with injuries, in addition to the injury senior Gray Weaver sustained against Clinton County in the All “A” Classic Tournament opener.
Catholic coach Tim Riley said the Red Devils didn’t make it easy on them.
“Playing without Gray, that’s 28 minutes a game that we earlier in the year then Brian gets hurt and Ji cramps up,” he said. “A little bit of that, Ji cramping up, is Owensboro forces you to play faster than you want to play and they got us into that. We couldn’t get out of it. I tell them, got to keep the ball on the offensive end. We just couldn’t do that.”
Webb cramped up with 3:00 left then in the third, then Griffith went down with a knee injury at the 2:20 mark. Riley said Griffith will be evaluated today.
Sam McFarland led the Aces with 17 points while Griffith finished with 11 and Webb chipped in 10 in the loss.
Riley said it’s now about how they respond now with the Aces hosting Meade County Thursday before next week’s 9th District Tournament.
“You get punched and see what happens,” he said. “Learn. Just trying to recover and figure out who gets to play.”
Owensboro now sets their sights on their 9th District Tournament opponent.
Drake said the Eagles are now the only thing on their minds.
“Everything is beating Apollo,” he said. “That’s all we’re focused on.”
OWENSBORO 79, OWENSBORO CATHOLIC 51
OHS (9-5)19 21 25 14–79
OC (15-7) 19 13 11 8–51
OHS: Kenyata Carbon 21, Amari Robinson-Wales 18, Jeremiah Goodwin 14, Matt Brown 5, Ethan Pendleton 3, Jalen Rogers 3, Maurice Moorman 2, Trey Hinton 2, Devonte McCamblee 2, Talas Taylor 1
OC: Sam McFarland 17, Brian Griffith 11, Ji Webb 10, Braden Mundy 6, Parker Gray 2, Luke Scales 2, Jari Barber 2, Tut Carrico 1
2021 basketball coverage is presented in part by Rhoads & Rhoads Attorneys at Law.
