Pulaski struggling out of the gates after 75-48 loss to McCreary Central

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Pulaski County High School first-year coach Al Gover watched his Maroons drop their second game of the season in a 75-48 loss to McCreary Central on Tuesday night at Pulaski County High School. Steve Cornelius Photo

December 9, 2009

By STEVE CORNELIUS, CJ Sports Editor The Commonwealth Journal Wed Dec 09, 2009, 06:11 PM EST

Somerset — Pulaski County High School first-year coach Al Gover has not had a pleasant return back to the world of coaching high school basketball.

On Tuesday night the Maroons suffered their second double-digit loss of the season after they were downed by McCreary Central 75-48 at Pulaski County High School.

“It has been great coming back to coach and I have enjoyed it tremendously,” Gover said. “I am thankful to be given the opportunity to coach again. I know we have a whole lot of work ahead of us and we are going to continue to get better. We are going to take it game by game.”

From the start, Gover has had to work his way past three big obstacles — youth, football and injuries.

For most of the night, the Maroons had at least three freshman players on the floor.

Secondly, Gover just got back some of his key players — Alex Abner and Zach Eastham — from the football team. Abner showed flashes of strong play, but is far from being adjusted from football to basketball play. Eastham is still nursing an ankle injury he sustained in the state semifinal football game.

And lastly, Pulaski big man Tyler Jenkins is still out with an injury and will not return until the next calender year.

“I think when we get Abner back into the flow of the basketball game, and we get Eastham and Jenkins back from injuries, we will have a much better look and we will have much more depth,” Gover explained.

But the Maroons biggest obstacle on Tuesday night was the 12th Region top-ranked McCreary Raiders, who controlled the game from the outside and the inside.

The Raiders hit 7-of-11 from behind the arc in the opening half to jump out to an early 34-22 halftime lead. However, the maroons put together several offensive spurts in the first half to keep the game from getting out of hand.

“There is no doubt about it, McCreary is a tough team,” Gover commented. “Aaron Watts hit two or three three-pointers early in the game. Our plan was to have a hand in his face, not let him beat you to the basket and contest his shot. For the most part, we did okay against him. We lost him 3 or 4 times, but a player like that you can’t lose.”

After falling behind 17-4 in opening six minutes of play, Pulaski finished the quarter out strong to cut the Raiders’ lead to six points. Luke Elmore drained a trey from the right corner, and Tyler Goins scored off a putback and hit a jumper from the top of the key to close out the first quarter with McCreary leading 17-11.

In the opening minutes of the second quarter, Goins sank two free throws, Alex Abner scored on a layup after he stole the ball at midcourt and Abner drained a 12-footer to close the McCreary lead to 22-17. However, McCreary's Arron Watts and Zack Roark combined for 13 points in a stretch of only four minutes to stretch the Raiders’ lead to 32-17.

After Watts and Roark both drained three-pointers in the third quarter, McCreary coach Robert Jones instructed his players to go inside where they reeled off nine unanswered points and opened up a 52-31 lead.

Freshman Kody Johnson scored six of his 11 points in the final quarter, but the Raiders were too much for the young and inexperienced Maroons.

Out of the 48 Pulaski points, 33 points were scored by freshman players. Freshman players Goins led the Maroons with 14 points, Johnson had 11 points, Taylor Gover had 5 points and Matthew Smith had 3 points.

“McCreary hit a lot of shots. but we hung in there with them in the first half,” Gover said. “But I think the physicality of the game wore on us late in the game. At one time we had four freshman on the floor and McCreary just wore us down, because it is hard to ask a freshman to play a whole ball game.”

Juniors Luke Elmore scored 8 points and Alex Abner had 4 points.

For the game, McCreary outrebounded Pulaski 28 to 13. Also, the Raiders were 63 percent from the field and 10-of-16 from three-point land. while Pulaski was only 38 percent from the field and 5-of-15 from the three-point arc.

Pulaski (0-2) will be back in action on Friday, Dec. 11, when they take on Casey County in a district match-up in Liberty, Ky.

MC 17 17 18 23 — 75

PC 11 11 11 15 — 48

MCCREARY — Watts 25, Roark 18, Williams 9, Wright 8, Privett 7.

PULASKI — Goins 14, Johnson 11, Elmore 8, Gover 5, Abner 4, Matthew Smith 3, Bales 2, Mounce 1.

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