Somerset — After watching his club’s impressive play last week on its way to winning a 47th District Tournament championship, Pulaski County head coach Al Gover pointed out that he really liked the way his young troops were playing, heading into this week’s 12th Regional Tournament, being held on the Maroons home turf.

Well, the PC coach has to really like what he witnessed from his Maroons last night at The PC Gym.

Facing a dangerous and very athletic Danville team in the first round of the Boy’s 12th Regional Tournament on Thursday night, the young Maroons simply gutted out a hard-fought victory.

Tyler Jenkins led everybody with a game-high 28 points, while Kody Johnson, one of three talented PC freshmen in the starting lineup, chipped in with 24 points, as PC fought off a pesky Admiral team by a final count of 67-58.

“Danville — man they played lights out tonight and they’re a tough ballclub,” pointed out coach Gover, after his club moved to 13-17 with the win.

“They’ve got two great guards, and you have to worry about their penetration,” added the PC coach, in referring to Danville’s backcourt of Duran Elmore and Jacody Taylor. “And then, you have to deal with their inside people, because they just eat the backboards up.”

This one was a nip and tuck affair from the outset, although the Maroons never trailed in the contest until midway through the second quarter.

In a see-saw battle, there were eight ties and six lead changes in the opening half of play, with PC clinging to a 31-29 lead over the Ads at the intermission.

Headed into this game, Gover’s number one point on the Danville scouting report was to slow down Danville’s dynamic backcourt duo of Elmore and Taylor.

And, it was mission accomplished for Pulaski County.

Elmore was held to only five points for the game, while Taylor managed to hit a meaningless trey in the fourth quarter, for his only three points of the night.

However, it was the Danville bench that kept Matthew Yates’ club in this one.

Tevin Raines came off the Admiral bench to score a team-high 24 points on the night, while another Danville reserve, Tryston Ford, chipped in with nine points.

On a night when the Ads got 33 points from that pair of reserves, Danville’s starters were held to a combined 25 points.

Jenkins meanwhile, outscored the Danville starters all by himself, with his game-high 28 points, on a night when the Admirals just couldn’t stop PC’s big man in the middle.

And, the Maroons didn’t get a free pass onto the second round, but for the second straight contest, Pulaski County once again did its damage on free tosses from the charity stripe.

After converting 31 of 38 free throw attempts in the 47th District title game last week at Casey County, the Maroons were at it again last night, hitting on 33 of 42 charity tosses for 78.5 percent.

“We hit some big free throws, and if you’re going to win tournament games, you’ve got to hit free throws — that’s just the bottom line,” stated Gover.

“We hit enough tonight to win,” added the PC coach. “We hit 78 percent from the line tonight, and as a team, we’ll take that. To be a championship team, you’ve got to take care of the ball, and I thought we did a good job of that as well, especially in the first half.”

Despite the fact that Jenkins was virtually unstoppable down on the low blocks, despite the fact PC was killing Danville from the free throw line, and despite the fact the Maroons went on a 13-4 run to begin the second half, the Admirals would not go away.

After Yates called a timeout with his club trailing the Maroons 44-33 with 2:22 left in the third period, Danville roared back from the dead, as the Ads found themselves tied up with PC early in the fourth quarter at 47-47.

And, it was Raines leading the charge back for Yates and company with a three-point basket and a putback on Danville’s next trip downcourt.

A Raines trey to begin the final stanza brought the Admirals back to within a point of PC at 46-45, while two Ford free throws with 6:38 left in the game knotted the score up for the final time at 47-47.

On Danville’s next trip down the floor, with the score knotted up at 47-47, Ford attempted to give his club its first lead of the second half, but Jake Bales came up with arguably, the biggest play of the night for the Maroons.

Bales blocked Ford’s shot on his drive to the bucket and ripped the ball out of the air for a big-time rebound.

That defensive play of the game by Bales ignited a modest, 7-0 run by PC, as it gave Gover and crew the breathing room they needed, leading Danville 54-47 with less that four minutes left in the contest.

“Jake’s played well all year, and defensively, he’s been pretty good,” pointed out the Maroon coach.

“He’s blocked a lot of shots this year for us, and when it was 47-47, Jake put a stop to the kid that was driving to the basket,” Gover said. “It was a big play. It kind of ignited us and it got our crowd pumped up.”

That block by Bales set PC off and running with that 7-0 spurt, as Jenkins and Johnson cashed in from the free throw line.

Johnson finished off the run with a nifty move on a layup, that eased the PC cushion out to 54-47, and Danville was in big-time trouble.

The Admirals never got any closer than three points to PC, on a night when its two guns offensively, Elmore and Taylor, for the most part wound up shooting blanks against a very spirited and pesky Maroon defense.

“We emphasized those two guys all week in practice, and we knew we had to stop them to have any chance of winning this game,” pointed out the PC coach.

“Raines, I didn’t see him on the film that we watched of Danville, and he came out tonight and just simply shot the lights out,” added Gover. “We did a super job defensively. Kody Johnson and Taylor Gover — they had the assignments of guarding those two Danville kids, and they just did a tremendous job.”

With the win, the Maroons advanced to Monday night’s semi final round, as PC, now 13-17 on the season, will take on Mercer County in the second game of the night at approximately 8 p.m.

The Titans became the only district runner-up in the tournament to survive in the first round, as Nelson Cundiff’s club pulled off the upset in last night’s second game by defeating regional favorite and 48th District champion McCreary Central.

In Monday night’s first semi final game at 6 p.m., defending 12th Regional champion West Jessamine will square off against Boyle County.

The championship game of the tournament will take place at The PC Gym on Tuesday evening at 7 p.m.



DHS 13 16 13 16 — 58

PC 13 18 15 21 — 67



DANVILLE — Raines 24, Ford 9, Walton 6, Meckes 6, Elmore 5, Turner 5, Taylor 3

PULASKI CO. — Jenkins 28, Johnson 24, Gover 11, Goins 2, Bales 2