By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Covington Catholic’s Colonels lead the state of Kentucky in scoring, shooting percentage, scoring margin and now own the state’s best record at 22-1 after Friday night’s 88-67 win over a scrappy Ryle team. It happened in front of a packed house at the Colonels’ gym where CovCath-Ryle wasn’t even the feature game.
In a boys’-girls’ varsity doubleheader, that honor went to CovCath’s sister school, Notre Dame, hosting the Ryle girls in a matchup of two of the top four ranked girls’ teams in the Ninth Region.
But warm up the place the boys did, and not just to make things hospitable for the Colonel Crazies cheering section on Hawaiian Shirt Night when many of the Crazies showed up in shorts and a crazy shirt, no coats, no gloves. Forget the snow.
And forget the eight-day layoff with some of the CovCath seniors spending time on a religious retreat instead of practicing in recent days. “We knew we were going to be rusty,” CovCath Coach Jake Thelen said. “We needed that.”
Needed both the midseason rest – and the challenge from a Ryle team unafraid to go after the Colonels with something of a mirror image of their own game –physical and tough, challenge on defense, run the floor, play fast and shoot the three.
“We’re going to be who we are,” Ryle coach Nick Dorning said of his 14-7 team now No. 5 in the Ninth Region. And “for three of the four quarters” the Raiders gave the Colonels all they could handle when shots CovCath normally makes just wouldn’t go down against a scrappy Ryle team.
But you can’t get sidetracked from the end of the first quarter into halftime, allowing CovCath to turn a 14-14 tie into a 46-27 halftime lead. “They turned us over and we couldn’t shoot it,” Dorning said of that stretch. And that was pretty much it despite a 20-7 Ryle run that cut the CovCath lead to 11, 53-42, before the Colonels got back into business.
That’s the problem playing even a “rusty” CovCath team just playing its way back into shape. The Colonels still scored 88 points, more than five points better than their state-leading 82.3-point average. And their 57.6 percent shooting (34 of 59) was just a tad higher than their state-best 57.2 for the season. And thanks to 6-foot-4 junior guard Braeden Myrick’s five-for-nine three-point shooting on his way to a game-high 28 points, CovCath’s 40.9 percent almost equaled their 41.5 mark good for No. 5 in the state.
Rusty or not, these Colonels still have great spurt-ability the way they turning a back-and-forth 14-14 tie into a 28-16 lead in just over two minutes with steals, scores and quick threes. And the Crazies, as always, loved it.
But this was not an environment that the Raiders couldn’t handle. “We don’t go anywhere to lose,” Dorning said. “Our fans really turned out.” Which is something 10-game win streaks will do for a program. “Exactly,” Dorning said.
Just as leaders like senior baseball guy Anthony Coppola, a physical point guard who did not back down from the CovCath pressure on his way to 14 points, matter.
“Fearless,” Dorning calls him, “he’s the leader of our team.” And Ryle had junior Holden Smith firing in 22 points with four threes and senior AJ Davis adding 13.
But when it comes to leaders, it’s hard to get the numbers on CovCath. Athens McGillis is the obvious place to start. The slick senior rebounded the ball with five, dished it out (four assists) and scored as he always does with 22 on clever drives, behind-the-back dribbles and step-back jumpers including a 35-foot buzzer-beating three to end the third quarter.
Cash Harney (nine points) and Dylan Gaiser (seven) did what the tough footballers’ always do. Big baskets when they’re needed and tough physical defense like always.
But one place CovCath is getting better is the offense of 6-7 Donovan Bradshaw, another football guy, whose nine rebounds and four blocked shots were accompanied by 16 points in a game that for him has now moved out from mid-range jumpers to the occasional three-pointer.
“Practice,” Bradshaw says simply. “I need to do what makes us a better team. If I can add that to my game, it helps our team.” It’s a theme that played out in this game, Bradshaw said, “when our seniors – Athens, Cash and Dylan – called a timeout out there to get us going.”
Which is what the Colonels did, even if their winning margin here was a mere 21 points, less than their best-in-the-state 33.7. But they also gave up 67 points, way above the best-in-the-state 49.1 points the previous 22 opponents averaged.
“That’s against the fifth-toughest schedule in the state,” Thelen said, a bit peeved at the thought that his team is running it up on outmanned opponents. “Ryle’s a good team, they’re physical and they get up and down. And their coach does a really good job.”
As for his own team? “We just take it one game at a time, We’re thinking about the game at Holy Cross Tuesday,” Thelen says. But there is this, even for a team with a bit of rust.
“The way we practice, we’re in really good shape,” Thelen says.
Which may be why the biggest lead in the game, 82-57, came with just over two minutes left as CovCath sprinted to the finish line.
As for the second game in the doubleheader, Ryle’s girls hung tough, knocking off Notre Dame, 57-51, to improve to 15-7. Notre Dame is 14-6.
SCORING SUMMARY
Ryle 18 9 20 20– 67
CovCath 28 18 18 24–88
Ryle (14-7): Colemire 0/1 0/0 0/1 0/2 0, Broz 5/9 5/8 0/1 0/4 10, Coppola 4/9 3/7 1/2 5/6 14, Davis 5/12 5/8 0/4 3/4 13, Smith 9/17 5/9 4/8 0/0 22, Verax 0/1 0/1 0/0 0/0 0, Haley 0/2 0/2 0/0 0/0 0, Nsuti 3/5 3/5 0/0 2/2 8; TOTALS: 26/56 21/40 5/16 10/18 67.
CovCath (22-1): McGillis 9/21 7/13 2/8 2/2 22, Harney 3/6 2/3 1/3 2/2 9, Gaiser 3/3 3/3 0/0 1/1 7, Bradshaw 7/11 6/9 1/2 1/2 16, Myrick 9/15 4/6 5/9 5/5 28, Courtney 1/1 1/1 0/0 0/0 2, Myers G 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0, Stava G 2/2 2/2 0/0 0/0 4, TOTALS: 34/59 25/37 9/22 11/12 88.
Largest Lead CCH 82 Ryl 57 (25 pts) Lead Changes 4 Number of Ties 3
Longest Run CCH 16-2 Ryle 11-0