By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Ernest Hemingway was talking about bankruptcy not basketball. But in “The Sun Also Rises,” he perfectly described what happened here at Truist Arena as Cooper and Covington Catholic battled for the final spot in Tuesday’s Ninth Region championship game.
“How did it happen, your bankruptcy?” Hemingway’s character was asked.
“Two ways,” he explained, “gradually, then suddenly.”
‘Way to go, guys,’ says Cooper Coach Tim Sullivan. (Photo by Dale Dawn/NKyTribune)
Losing for the second straight year in the semifinals against Cooper, CovCath Coach Scott Ruthsatz had pretty much the same explanation.
Quarter by quarter, it happened in small increments as the relentless Jaguars just ground down the Colonels a little bit at a time in this matchup of the Region’s No. 2 and No. 3 teams for the right to face Newport.
When CovCath sparkplug sophomore point guard Cash Harney drove to get the scoring started in the fourth period, the Colonels trailed by just four – 40-36 – and had a spark, the Colonel Crazies hoped.
But no, they did not. That was it. Cooper’s shut-down, show-no-mercy defenders would not allow another CovCath score in a game-ending 15-0 run for a hard-to-imagine 55-36 final score that no one could have seen coming.
Just the way when Cooper Coach Tim Sullivan said that even after losing 60-28 to Cincinnati Elder in the third game of this season, “We had a vision.” Maybe he and his team had. But no one else. And then gradually they worked their way back through all sorts of injuries and forced improvisations to where they are now.
CovCath’s Cash Harney splits the difference between Cooper’s Jaiden Combs and Isaiah Johnson. (Photo by Dale Dawn/NKyTribune)
“All those little things take the air out of you,” Ruthsatz said of each little battle the Jaguars won. Like the way with 2.0 seconds left in the first quarter with CovCath up six, 14-8, Cooper managed to score four points in the blink of an eye after point guard Yamil Rondon was fouled on a fallaway three-pointer that had him landing in the first row.
He would hit the first two and big-time football prospect Austin Alexander, a spot replacement would bat the rebound on the third up into the air and into the basket. Four points in two seconds.
Then in the third quarter, with 2.1 seconds left, Cooper kept the ball alive for three rebounds before Shaun Pouncy got it, got fouled and hit one. But CovCath when the Colonels had a chance for the last shot right before halftime, Cooper stripped the ball: no shot.
So that’s five points right there. CovCath would have taken the lead on Harney’s drive. After all that effort and coming close, but not getting there, “We just lost our confidence,” Ruthsatz said.
And then it happened “suddenly” after the gradual amping up of the Cooper pressure. Rondon hit on an acrobatic drive, although that may be a redundancy. Is there anything the 6-foot junior does that he doesn’t need a net for after appearing to re-injure his left shoulder – the injury that caused him to be out a couple of weeks down the stretch — just a bit.
Cooper’s Andy Johnson with a perfectly timed block on CovCath’s Athens McGillis. (Photo by Dale Dawn/NKyTribune)
Then Isaiah Johnson hit a perfectly timed follow stick-back. Then two straight possessions Rondon knocked down free throws. Then Pouncy did. Then Jaiden Combs did what the tough junior does so well, put his head down on two straight possessions to score at the basket through traffic.
And finally, to put a cherry on top of this one, the driving Rondon found Pouncy to finish off what well may have been the 6-6 senior’s best all-around game (18 points, 12 rebounds, four blocked shots) for a game-ending alley-oop jam.
Count those up and that’s 15 straight Cooper points. And none for CovCath. “I felt like they gave it up after I blew by Cash,” Rondon said of the matchup against the explosive Harney, who also scored 15 points, adding four rebounds, two points and two steals to his day.
But other than Brady Hussey’s 11 first-half points – his total for the game – a CovCath team that was 7-4 coming back from Florida after the holidays before finishing 26-6, didn’t have a lot going for it.
A 24-8 Cooper team did, however. Defense “is a strength of our program,” Sullivan said. “Just be simple, stay in front, make ‘em score over you.”
Did they ever do that. A CovCath team that hit 10 of 24 shots the first half hit a mere five of 21 the second half. That’s why when Sullivan thinks back to how if you look at the video of that Cooper team losing to Elder in Game 3, “you wouldn’t recognize this team.”
Cooper’s Shaun Pouncy makes his move past CovCath’s Caden Miller. (Photo by Dale Dawn/NKyTribune)
Gradually, week by week, this Cooper team has evolved. It beat CovCath twice in the last six weeks. And lost to Newport by only six, 48-42, Feb. 13, with both Rondon and Andy Johnson out.
Speaking of Andy, he’s made his rep as a scorer but on this day, the 6-3 junior was asked to play defense and rebound, which he did grabbing nine, more than any Colonel as Cooper dominated the boards, 36-19.
That was one of the two parts of the Cooper gameplan: “No. 1, outrebound them,” Sullivan said. No. 2? “Play 32 minutes.” The Jags did both. Like the way Combs delivered the coup de grace with those two dagger drives in the fourth quarter.
But no one mattered more here than Pouncy, whose size, strength, anticipation and toughness took 6-9 CovCath center Caden Miller out of his game. “Shaun’s our guy,” Sullivan said.
“Caden was neutralized by Pouncy,” Ruthsatz said. “I think that’s the best game he’s played . . . When we can score inside, it opens up everything outside . . . Caden was a blessing to us coming here this year but that was a tough matchup against Pouncy . . . he just lost his confidence.”
Cooper’s Yamil Rondon with his left hand against CovCath’s Noah Johnson. (Photo by Dale Dawn/NKyTribune)
“I knew coming into the game it was going to be a battle,” Pouncy said. “He’s strong. I had to figure out how to get below him,” and because his teammates are depending on him “to be the tough guy out there.” Which in figuring that out made Shaun the smart guy out there.
So here they are, after a 9-7 start that didn’t cause Cooper to lose that “vision” from back in November.
That vison, well, it’s pretty much the same as that of the Cooper Lady Jaguars, who won the Ninth Region title Saturday night with the very same approach.
And yes, Sullivan and girls’ coach Justin Holthaus do sit down and talk and pick each other’s brains.
What do they talk about?
“Defense,” of course. That’s how you win. And what you can look for more of Tuesday.
“We’re going to line up and play them,” Sullivan says of No. 1 Newport. And have fun with what could well be another capacity crowd in the 9,000-capacity Truist Arena.
“You just embrace the environment,” Rondon said, although Yamil seems to embrace everything that comes his way.
SCORING SUMMARY
COOPER 12 10 18 15—55
COVCATH 14 10 10 2—36
COOPER (24-8): Blackburn 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Brown 0-1 0-0 0-0 0, Combs 3-4 0-0 0-0 6, Murphy 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, I. Johnson 3-4 1-1 0-0 7, A. Johnson 2-7 1-6 0-0 7, Rondon 5-14 1-4 4-7 15, Alexander 2-3 0-0 0-0 4, S. Pouncy 7-11 0-0 4-5 18; TOTALS 22-44 3-11 8-12 55.
COVCATH (26-6): McGillis 0-7 0-1 2-2 2, Gaiser 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Harney 7-16 1-5 0-0 15, Miller 2-5 0-0 1-2 5, Johnson 1-4 1-4 0-0 3, Wermuth 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Bradshaw 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Kennedy 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Hussey 5-11 1-3 0-0 11, Ruthsatz 0-2 0-1 0-0 0, Kruer 0-0 0-0 0-0 0; TOTALS: 15-45 3-14 3-4 36.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.
