By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Interesting call for the homestanding Holy Cross Indians in their opening District 35 matchup Wednesday against a 20-win Beechwood team in their battle to go on to the Ninth Region tourney March 7.
Here’s how they would beat the Tigers, a team they split with in almost identical home wins: By playing a basketball version of the sport that’s made Beechwood famous – football.
Or a basketball version as close as the officials would let them. Maybe this would be the day that former Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins liked to preach about explaining his Bearcats’ oh-so-physical defense, saying “they can’t call ‘em all.”
No they can’t. And no they didn’t. And from the tip, it looked like Holy Cross had started five linebackers. And they were playing goal-line defense.
“Defense was the main thing . . . don’t let them get an open shot,” Holy Cross senior Luke Arlinghaus, better known for his offense, said. And that was after hitting the game’s biggest shot after Beechwood failed on two chances to tie the game, down just 33-31.
But on the next two possessions, Holy Cross did not with Arlinghaus nailing an open three for a 38-31 lead. And then continued to score, putting up the final dozen points on a 12-0 run over the last 6:43 that saw Beechwood miss every single shot the Tigers took.
And the Indians did “contest every shot,” shutting down any sort of Beechwood offense in a 45-31 slugfest to advance to Friday’s 7:30 p.m. championship game against a CovCath team that bounced back from only its second loss in a 26-2 season to demolish a game Holmes team, 101-43.
The game plan didn’t say how to “contest every shot,” it just said get after ‘em. And in this case, the Beechwood shooter clearly most in focus was sophomore Dylan Topmiller, averaging 20.9 points a game – No. 43 in the state – and coming off an effort against favored Highlands in which he scored 31 points on just 11 shots, hitting six of seven three-point attempts.
Whether they got to him on his cut, on the dribble, in the air, across his arms, on his wrist or across his nose, Dylan had an Indian defender Velcro-ed to some part of his anatomy. And it seemed to take a while for Beechwood’s players to realize how tournament basketball when the officials “let ‘em play” is a whole different animal.
“We couldn’t quite get over the hump,” Beechwood coach Ross Hart said, focusing on what his team couldn’t get done rather than what Holy Cross – and the officials – may have done. “Give Holy Cross credit,” he said, “it wasn’t just a bad shooting night for us.”
But it was certainly that, as well, with the Tigers hitting on just nine of 37 field goal attempts – just two of 20 from behind the arc – a very chilly 24.3 percent for the game – and just 20 percent (four of 20) the second half after falling behind 21-7 at the end of the first quarter.
Some of that was the constant contact, Some of that was a Beechwood shooter rushing his shot to avoid the contact. How bad was it? Only three times – all losses — in 29 games had Beechwood scored less than 50 points but never in the 30s.
“I’m really proud of my team,” said Holy Cross coach Ricardo Johnson of the defensive stand his guys took in front of a capacity crowd with many home fans seeming to cheer with as much desperation as their Indian defenders played with. “Coach Hart is doing a great job with the Beechwood program.”
Maybe it was the chip on their collective shoulder when after opening with 10 straight wins, after splitting with Beechwood, they found themselves the third seed in the district behind the second-seeded Tigers. Maybe it was the six losses in their last 10 games.
“Shout-out to our strength and conditioning guys,” Johnson said of the preparation for this effort, not unlike most every winning football coach these days. “And a shout out to our community . . . we’re going to need ‘em . . . “ against CovCath.
He’ll also need more scoring although senior Nate Rominger gave the Indians a terrific effort with his game-high 18, mostly drives to the basket, on eight-of-12 shooting while two more seniors – Arlinghaus and 6-foot-6 Brady Gabbard added 12 and 10 respectively.
CovCath 101, Holmes 43
Tough way to go out for the Mark McCutcheon-led Bulldogs who were coming off a 12-win season. Not only were they facing No. 1 CovCath, but a 26-2 CovCath team that had lost its 20-game win streak and its No. 1 overall ranking in Kentucky with a 10-point loss Friday at new-No. 1 Madison Central. That’s a CovCath team whose last loss in the district came in 2019.
And the Colonels weren’t about to lose this one, nearly outscoring Beechwood for an entire game with their 28-point first half while senior Ninth Region MVP Athens McGillis did outscore Beechwood by himself with his 34 points and he played just three quarters.
And with Holmes (12-17) not backing down and slowing the game to keep the scoring down, CovCath earned a second-half running clock with a 35-point lead. Two stats tell the story here: CovCath had 18 assists to Holmes’ two. And forced 27 turnovers while committing just nine – almost all forced by the Colonels on themselves as they still work off “some of the rough edges,” as coach Jake Thelen likes to say.
McCutcheon with his bull-like power moves to the basket led the Bulldogs with 18 points as he almost always does. And from coach Sam Elsbernd down through his players, it’s obvious Holmes hadn’t quit on this season or this game.
SCORING SUMMARY
Holmes 14 12 10 7—43
CovCath 28 29 21 23–101
Holmes (12-17): Thompson 0/2 0/1 0/1 0/0 0 0, Whitfield 5/7 5/7 0/0 0/0 10, Chames 3/6 3/6 0/0 1/2 7, Thomas 0/1 0/0 0/1 0/0 0, Holloway 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0, Walker 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0, Jennings 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0, McCutchen 7/12 7/9 0/3 4/5 18, Rhodes 1/3 0/0 1/3 0/0 3, Jackson 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0, Mayes 2/5 2/5 0/0 1/2 5, Edwards 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0, Lockett 0/1 0/0 0/1 0/0 0, Foster 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0; Totals 18/37 17/28 1/9 6/9 43.
Covington Catholic (26-2): McGillis 14/19 9/13 5/6 1/1 34, Harney 3/5 2/4 1/1 2/2 9, Gaiser 2/5 0/3 2/2 0/0 6, Bradshaw 4/9 4/9 0/0 3/3 11, Bode 4/6 4/5 0/1 0/1 8, Myrick 4/8 3/3 1/5 0/0 9, Courtney 2/4 2/3 0/1 0/4, Myers 2/6 2/3 0/3 0/0 4, Stava 2/4 2/2 0/2 0/0 4, Hoyt 1/3 0/0 1/3 0/0 3, Brecount 3/4 3/4 0/0 0/0 6, Smith G 1/1 1/1 0/0 1/1 3; Totals 42/74 32/50 10/24 7/14 101.
SCORING SUMMARY
Holy Cross 21 4 8 12—45
Beechwood 7 10 9 5—31
Holy Cross (21-8): Henderson 2-8 1-2 0-0 5, Urlage 0-3 0-2 0-0 0, Arlinghaus 4-8 2-4 2-2 12, Rominger 8-12 0-3 1-1 17, Thornberry 0-0 0-0 1-2 1, Gabbard 3-10 0-3 4-6 10, Adams 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Hunt 0-0 0-0 0-0 0; Totals: 17-41 3-14 8-11 45.
Beechwood (21-9): Brockett 2-6 0-2 4-4 8, Knasel 0-3 0-2 0-0 0, McCormack 2-6 0-3 2-2 6, Stiles 1-4 0-1 0-0 2, Smith 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Topmiller 4-18 2-12 5-10 15; Totals: 9-37 2-20 11-16 31.