Tigers chomp Gators, 68-52
By JEREMY SELLEW
jsellew@yourmvi.com
Kevin Kovach made no bones about it Friday night. He has a bunch of dogs on his McKeesport basketball team and he unleashed them against Gateway.
The Tigers pressure defense did its job and they limited the Gators offensively on their way to a 68-52 victory to win their first Section 3-5A game of the season.
“This is McKeesport Tigers basketball,” Kovach said proudly. “I felt we had it going early and we kept the pedal on the floor the entire night. Yes, we fouled a lot, but we go 11-12 guys deep that we’re comfortable with and we’re not going to stop coming at you.
“By far, it was our best game of the season.”
The Tigers were hot from the field early on, and their jump-shooting was on point as they hit three straight 3-pointers in the first quarter to open up an 11-2 lead.
Travarese Rowe, who finished with 17 points, hit the first and Rob Robinson hit the next two as the Tigers dominated the opening half of the first quarter.
Robinson ended the game with a game-high 18 points, despite nursing a bit of a hip injury.
“I really thought the difference was on the boards,” Kovach said. “We did a great job of attacking the glass and Colton (Kovach) did a great job shutting down (Will) Kromka. He was definitely up to the challenge.”
After leading 18-11 after one, the Tigers put up another 18 in the second quarter as the Gators (2-3, 2-3) didn’t score in the opening three minutes or the closing three minutes of the frame.
The Tigers (4-2, 1-2) used a Robinson three-point play to close the quarter on a 9-0 run to make it 36-18 at the half.
“It was good to see our 32-minutes-of-hell philosophy pay off,” Kovach said of the defensive pressure. “Yes, we fouled a lot, but it was spread out. And we started to play the way we practice. Our practices are controlled chaos. That’s the way we played, especially early tonight.”
The good news for the Gators was they outscored McKeesport in the third quarter as Kromka hit the only 3-pointer of the game for Gateway and scored six of his team-high 10 points in the quarter.
The Gators won the quarter, 15-10, but the bad news was the Tigers’ lead was insurmountable as it was never cut to single digits.
Rowe and Brison Kisan combined for all 10 points for the Tigers, which got important baskets when they needed to hold the Gators off.
“Our jump-shooting was fantastic, that’s something we really worked on. I told Brison about his shot at practice,” Kovach said. “Everyone was hitting them today and they were all big shots.”
Kisan finished with 15 points for the Tigers and “Baby Barkley” Khareke Andrews added 14.
Andrews scored seven of those points in the fourth quarter, which saw the Tigers slam the door in the face of any Gators’ comeback chance.
“He brings us so much energy. Every time he hits a 3-pointer or grabs a big reason, the bench gets so hyped,” Kovach said. “He’s our energy guy. You expect those things from Brison and (Rowe), but ‘Reke does it with flair and energy.”
Andrews was the biggest contributor on the glass, too, netting a double-double with 11 rebounds.
“Now you know why we call him Baby Barkley,” Kovach said with a laugh.
The task for the Tigers now will be to keep the momentum going into their game with Kiski Area Tuesday.
“I’m sure we can do it,” Kovach said. “We want to leave no doubt until I sub those last guys in and we want to keep pushing the intensity and tempo. Tonight we did it. We were better from the line, but not good enough, so that’s something we want to improve on. But we were the McKeesport Tigers I know tonight.”
