PLEASANT HILL – The Covington Buccaneers won their second straight game for the first time this season by defeating neighboring rival Newton, 40-37.
“That was a good one to get,” said Covington coach Logan Carey after a hard-fought win. “We only had a day to really prep for them. The guys came out wanting to set the tone in the defensive end, so that’s what we did.”
Covington started off stronger by building a 7-0 lead and held a 12-5 lead at the end of the first period.
Newton was able to battle back over the next two periods and eventually took a 29-28 lead with eight minutes left. The biggest impact for Newton was the powerful play by center Max Newhouse.
“Newhouse for them is such a fleet of foot big guy we knew we were going to have trouble with,” Carey said. “The plan was really to be like a bunch of velociraptors attacking a T-Rex whenever he touched it. We made him uncomfortable in the first half I thought. They adjusted well in the second half.”
Covington never relented and two huge treys by Brant Angle and Brogen Angle reclaimed a 36-35 lead for the Buccs with just over one minute left. Covington then spread the ball around in an attempt to kill the clock and Newton started fouling to halt the timing.
The Buccaneers made four out of six free throws down the stretch to push the lead to 40-35 in the final seconds. Newton was able to score a bucket in the final second, but the outcome was already secured for Covington.
“It felt good to finally pull one of those out,” said Carey regarding a close game. “We’ve been in so many of those situations and came up just short. We changed the way we prepare a little bit, plus we’ve learned from some of our battle scars. We want to play our best ball heading into the tourney, and this was a step in that direction.”
Brogen Angle led the Buccaneers with a game-high 15 points and Tanner Palsgrove had a solid game with 11 points before fouling out in the fourth quarter.
The Buccaneers improve their record to 6-14 with two more games left to build momentum heading into the tournament. Next up is the home finale on Friday against Riverside.
| 1ST | 2ND | 3RD | 4TH | FINAL | |
| COVINGTON | 12 | 8 | 8 | 12 | 40 |
| NEWTON | 5 | 10 | 14 | 8 | 37 |
COVINGTO0N SCORING:
Brogen Angle – 15
Tanner Palsgrove – 11
Brant Angle – 8
Reagan Tipps – 4
Parker Hoying – 2
NEWTON SCORING:
Max Newhouse – 14
Trenton Robinson – 8
Luke Cornett – 8
Brady Wackler – 4
Rhett Koffer – 3
THREE-POINT SCORING:
Covington – Tanner Palsgrove (2), Brant Angle (1), Brogen Angle (1)
Newton – Trenton Robinson (2), Rhett Koffer (1)
