By DOUG EADS, CJ Correspondent
Liberty — Just two weeks into the 2009—’10 high school basketball season, the Pulaski County Maroons were a team at the proverbial crossroads.
The Maroons were winless at 0-5, had a new coach that was coming back for his second stint as PC’s head man, and had their senior go-to guy in the middle, Tyler Jenkins, out of the lineup due to having preseason back surgery way back in early-October.
On top of all of that, the Maroons were starting three freshmen players that were unproven at the varsity level.
Yes, for Al Gover and crew, things certainly looked bleak way back in mid-December.
In fact, a lot of so-called experts had already written PC off this season.
A lot of these so-called experts referred to Pulaski County as “rebuilding”.
Today, you can simply call the Maroons district champions, yet again.
A healthy Tyler Jenkins was simply a man among boys last night in the 47th District championship game at home-standing Casey County, scoring a game-high 33 points, which was a career high for the Maroons 6-foot-seven inch senior.
Three other PC players joined Jenkins in double figures, and for the fourth time in the past five seasons, it was Pulaski County being crowned champions in the 47th District, with an impressive, 82-64 victory over the Rebels.
“I’ve been going back this week and looking at some film, from all the way back to the beginning of the season up to now, and I’ve seen a whole lot of things that we’ve improved upon and are doing better now,” pointed out a very happy coach Gover, after watching his club win the 47th District with the 18-point win over Casey County.
“We’ve gotten so much better, and it’s to our guys credit,” continued Gover. “They’ve worked extremely hard. When they were 0-5 or 2-10, or whatever we were, they didn’t pout, they never once complained, and they never whined. They came out and practiced hard every day and did what we asked them to do.”
Last night at Casey County, Gover was asking his troops to bring the Maroons a 47th District championship for the fourth time in the past five years.
And, boy did his troops ever deliver.
PC raced out to a quick, 8-0 lead over Casey County, and that would be about that.
Tyler Goins scored the first bucket of the game on a lay-up, thanks to a strong drive to the basket, and that hoop was followed up by back to back three-point buckets from Jenkins and Kody Johnson.
At that juncture, Casey County’s Todd Carman called a timeout to attempt to stop the bleeding, but the home-standing Rebels were already in too deep of a hole they wouldn’t be able to climb back from.
PC never trailed in this game, and by halftime, despite the fact the Rebels were shooting 50 percent from three-point land, going five for 10 in the half, PC still had its biggest lead of the night at the intermission by 18 points, leading the Rebels 43-25.
And, it was Jenkins and Johnson leading the way.
Johnson, one of those three talented freshmen, scored all 14 of his points in the opening frame, while Jenkins tallied 13 of his game-high 33 in the first half.
Brad Jeffries tried to keep Casey within striking distance by scoring 13 points in the first half, but his brother and the Rebels leading scorer on the year, Kyle Jeffries, was held in check by a stingy PC defense with just three points in the opening half of play.
Not bad indeed for a club that barely didn’t win it’s first game until just before Christmas.
“There were a lot of moments this year when we didn’t like each other very much,” stated Gover, very matter of factly.
“They didn’t like me at times, and there were some moments where I probably didn’t like them too much, but that’s what families do — they fight sometimes,” Gover remarked. “They get after each other from time to time, and our guys responded so well. They were a pretty good team tonight though, and I couldn’t be more prouder of them.”
With that 18-point cushion to work with, PC was never really threatened in the second half by Casey County, leading by double digits for the rest of the way.
Jenkins meanwhile, was the catalyst for the Maroons with his career night.
The PC big man simply owned the paint against the Rebels, as Casey’s inside duo of Cole Burke and Spencer Wright just didn’t have the answer defensively for the Maroons big-time post presence on this particular night.
“We worked hard at the beginning of the year, and we didn’t let the 0-5 start to the season get us down,” Jenkins noted.
“Coach Gover kept his confidence in us, and we kept our confidence up among ourselves,” Jenkins added.
Last night’s game became a very physical affair, with PC continually feeding the ball into Jenkins for easy baskets.
The two squads were whistled for a combined, 54 fouls in this one, and PC cashed in at the charity stripe.
The Maroons connected on 31 of 38 free throw attempts for the contest, for a red-hot 81.5 percent.
Jenkins was responsible for a lot of that success from the charity stripe, as he scored 14 of his 33 points from the free throw line, connecting on 14 of 16 attempts by himself.
Not a bad night to pick up a career-high with 33 points, huh coach?
“Tonight was a pretty good night to do that, and he was pretty efficient with his shots, because it didn’t seem like he missed a whole lot,” Gover stated with a big grin across his face.
“Our game with them at Pulaski was a physical game, but we knew that Casey County is a scrappy team and they like to get after it,” stated the PC head coach. “They like to ball-hawk, and when we would get a rebound, we knew they’d be coming after it, so we knew we would have to be strong with the ball. Hitting 31 of 38 free throws — that’s just great. We’ve steadily been getting better shooting free throws. In tournament play, and to win games like this one tonight, you have to shoot free throws well. Tonight, we did exactly that.”
Taylor Gover meanwhile, played his second consecutive game of the tournament where he was simply lights out.
The PC point guard joined Jenkins and Johnson in double figures with 13 points, while fellow frosh Tyler Goins, had another big night for the Maroons with 12 points.
Despite the fact PC, with the win, still sits below the .500 mark at 12-17 on the year, Gover says his young team is one that is extremely confident going into next week’s 12th Regional Tournament.
And, it’s for good reason.
Pulaski is playing its best basketball of the season, the tournament is on the Maroons home court, and PC is a team that remains very, very hungry, according to its head coach.
“Our guys are not really satisfied with just this win and a district title,” said Gover. “They know next week we’ve got some more games to play.”
“I like my team — I really do,” stated the Maroon coach. “All the team’s that will be in this tournament next week are all good teams, or they wouldn’t be there. We’ve played most of them pretty well. We beat Wayne County at Wayne, McCreary beat us by two down there, Boyle beat us by two at our homecourt early in the year, and our kids have confidence. They know we have a shot, and they also know the teams we’re going to be playing are really good too. To have success next week, we know that we’re going to have to bring our best game to the court each time out.”
The 12th Regional Tournament draw will be held at Pulaski County High School this afternoon, and will kick off from The PC Gym next Wednesday night, March 3rd, with a first round doubleheader on Wednesday, and a pair of games on Thursday.
Look for the complete bracket in tomorrow’s edition.
The 47th District’s All-Tournament Team was comprised of Somerset’s Clayton Stringer, Derrick Thacker from Rockcastle County, Casey County’s Kyle and Brad Jeffries, along with Tyler Jenkins, Taylor Gover, and Kody Johnson from Pulaski County.
PC 23 20 15 24 — 82
CC 14 11 19 20 — 64
PULASKI CO. — Jenkins 33, Johnson 14, Gover 13, Goins 12, N. Laign 3, Eastham 3, Bales 2, Mounce 2
CASEY CO. — B. Jeffries 26, K. Jeffries 18, Johnson 11, Spagnoletti 6, Ellison 2, Hoffman 1
