TROY – The Covington Buccaneers opened up the post-season tournament against a very talented team and suffered an unfortunate 56-27 loss to Fort Recovery.

The Buccaneers finished the 2025-26 season with a 3-20 record, which was the first year in the history of the program to suffer 20 losses.

Things started off for the Buccaneers well in the first quarter due to three 3-pointers that held the deficit to just 13-9. Unfortunately, Covington failed to score throughout the rest of the first half and Fort Recovery took advantage to build a 31-9 lead at the break.

It took until 4:37 left on the clock in the third period for Covington to score, which happened on a basket by Landin Cassel to end 20 straight points scored by Fort Recovery.

The Buccs managed to hold in contention throughout the remainder of the game as they were only outscored 12-8 in the third and 13-10 in the fourth.

The overall sequence that hurt the Buccaneers the most was the timeframe from the second quarter through midway into the third quarter.

Brant Angle led the Buccaneers with 13 points, while Landin Cassel scored 6 points, Nicholas Carnes 5 points and Brairen Denson had 3 points.

The Buccaneers did put in effort throughout a rough season and with everyone but three players returning next year should lead to future success. The three seniors for Covington who ended their careers tonight were Jayden Wackler, Caleb Smith and Ace Grear.

	1ST	2ND	3RD	4TH	FINAL
COVINGTON	9	0	8	10	27
FORT RECOVERY	15	16	12	13	56

COVINGTON SCORING:
Brant Angle – 13
Landin Cassel – 6
Nicholas Carnes – 5
Brairen Denson – 3

THREE-POINTERS:
Brant Angle (2), Brairen Denson (1), Nicholas Carnes (1)