ANSONIA – Saturday night was a memorable game against Ansonia as the Covington Buccaneers captured a 68-66 win on a bucket with 2.5 seconds left and in the process senior Britton Miller broke the career assists record for Covington.
The previous career record of 300 assists was held by Buccaneer legend Gene Studebaker, who is a member of the Covington Athletic Hall of Fame as a stellar three-sport athlete in football, baseball and basketball. Miller, who is in his fourth year as a starter on the basketball court for the Buccs, now has 302 career assists.
“Congrats to Britton Miller for breaking the career assists record,” praised Covington coach Logan Carey. “He puts the work in and he’s been surrounded by talented teammates to help him achieve it. It’s a big accomplishment and we can’t wait to celebrate on Tuesday before the game against Milton-Union.”
Miller is Covington’s leading scorer as he averages 15.5 points-per-game, but the fact that he was able to break the career assists record shows his unselfishness and team-first mentality.
Overall, the game was back-and-forth as both teams went through stretches of hot shooting. Ansonia was deadly behind the three-point line as the Tigers dropped in 12 treys throughout the game.
Covington’s offense was stellar as well as the Buccaneers were able to have success inside the paint.
“Offensively we played extremely well, but defensively we still have work to do,” Carey said. “We tip the cap to Ansonia. We wanted them to shoot the outside shot, and they hit twelve of them.”
Ansonia led 19-17 after one, but the Buccaneers were able to outscore the Tigers 20-14 in the second period to take a 37-33 lead at the break.
The third period was much the same as both teams continued hitting big shots. Unfortunately for the Buccs, Ansonia was able to hit two huge treys to tie the score at 52-52 at the end of the third.
The trend continued in the final frame as the score flip-flopped throughout the period. The game was tied 66-66 after Ansonia hit a bucket with around 40 seconds left on the clock.
Covington passed the ball around and took two timeouts in the final possession. With 8.2 seconds left the Buccaneers inbounded the basketball to Britton Miller at the top of the key and Miller made a great pass to Bryson Hite on the left side of the lane, which Hite took advantage of the opportunity to score on a layup with 2.5 seconds left on the clock.
Ansonia attempted to make a desperate inbound pass down the floor, but Covington was able to catch the ball and the Tigers were called for a foul with .5 seconds left.
Covington then inbounded the basketball as the clock ticked away.
“Congrats to our team on the resilient win,” said Carey. “Winning at the buzzer and executing means we were prepared, which is one of our four core values. We are finally putting some pieces together.”
Britton Miller led Covington with a game-high 24 points, while Brogen Angle had 18 points and Bryson Hite finished with 14 points.
The Buccs improve to 6-10 on the season and will host Milton-Union on Tuesday.
SCORE BY QUARTERS:
Covington – 17 – 37 – 52 – 68
Ansonia – 19 – 33 – 52 – 66
COVINGTON SCORING:
Britton Miller – 24
Brogen Angle – 18
Bryson Hite – 14
Tanner Palsgrove – 9
Gunner Kimmel – 2
Connor Humphrey – 1
ANSONIA SCORING:
Trevor Hemmerich – 21
Ethan Reichart – 19
Landyn Bowman – 11
Matt Barga – 10
Jacob Schmitmeyer – 3
Zane Henderson – 2
THREE-POINT SCORING:
Covington: Brogen Angle (3), Tanner Palsgrove (1), Britton Miller (1)
Ansonia: Ethan Reichart (4), Landyn Bowman (3), Matt Marga (2), Trevor Hemmerich (2), Jacob Schmitmeyer (1)
