By Drew Terhall

DailyAdvocate.com

COVINGTON — It was a game that started in a back and forth manner, but the Arcanum boys basketball team couldn’t keep up with a red-hot Covington team in the Buccaneer Holiday Tournament. The Trojans lost, 82-67, to the tournament hosts.

Head coach Kevin Brackman said the defense is the glaring weakness so far this season. He also said they have the scorers and good players, they just need more out of their defense.

“That’s our primary focus, it’s got to be going forward. We’ve got athletes, we’ve got basketball players. But we got to find ways to keep the score down. We give up a lot of points, our defensive rotations have got to be better, we got to be sharper,” Brackman said.

In the first quarter, Covington was up 9-2 with 4:33 left in the first. Arcanum ended the first quarter on a 16-6 run to take an 18-15 lead.

The Buccaneers led 37-32 at halftime after they started to get hot from the three-point line. They made four threes in the second quarter.

The Trojans were doing enough on offense to stay close. Brackman said they did a lot of good things offensively.

Sophomore Regan Christ was knocking down shots to keep his team in the game. Senior Brady Lock had 11 points in the third quarter to keep it close, including two on a dunk.

Arcanum started the third quarter on a 6-0 run to take the lead. Brackman said the team has shown they can score the ball and have many players who can score in different ways.

“Brady was able to take the ball down the lane and two-hand dunk over a top a kid. That’s a player we have not seen yet. He’s had open floor dunks,” Brackman said. “We did so many good things offensively. Landon Flatter was able to get to the basket in the first quarter. Luke Henniger was a really good post presence for us. Regan was able to hit really good shots coming off screens.”

Later in the third quarter, Covington went on a run of their own to lead by six points after the third quarter. From there, the Buccaneers continued to grow their lead from beyond the arc.

Covington ended the game with 12 made threes. Covington junior Brogen Angle had 37 points, a tournament record, and made seven three-point shots.

Brackman said they tried to switch things up to slow Angle down, but it was one of those nights were everything seemed to go in.

“You give Covington all the credit. We came in with very similar records. Those kids protected their home floor. For Brogen Angle to put on the performance that he did, for a high school kid to do that, you tip your cap to them. We tried to throw everything at him. We had three different guys guard him. Everything that left his hand went in,” Brackman said.

The team kept fighting. Christ had 13 points in the final quarter to try and get the team going. But, Covington outscored Arcanum 25-16 to grab the win.

Brackman said the team needs to get better on defense so they can string together two or three stops and let their offense stretch out games. The main focus for the Trojans will be to get better defensively.

Christ led the team with 23 points and five made three-point shots. Lock had 16 points.

Arcanum will take on Houston on Dec. 30 at 4:30 p.m. in the consolation game.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]