Tylan Rivers works his way around a defender during action vs. Millington Tuesday night in Covington. Photo by Jeff Ireland
Covington did not practice or play for 14 straight days earlier this month because of a COVID quarantine and their head coach missed Tuesday’s home game vs. Millington for unrelated personal reasons, so it made perfect sense the Chargers looked out of sorts early against the Trojans.
Millington jumped out to an 11-2 lead and led 14-4 after one quarter.
The Chargers (7-4 overall, 4-1 district) went on a 15-0 run midway through the second quarter, though, and went on to a comfortable 70-56 win.
“It was a little rough at first just trying to get our chemistry back,” said assistant coach Cam Hall. “We’re just trying to stick with Coach (Charles) Mitchell’s system as much as we can.”
Some big games and hot outside shooting from Covington’s Tylan Rivers, Devin Dean and Holden Warmath proved to be the difference.
Two 3-pointers from Rivers (16 points) and four straight points by Warmath (13 points) sparked the 15-0 run in the second quarter. Warmath hit another three with less than a minute left in the second quarter and Dean (14 points) hit a shot from 30 feet at the buzzer to give Covington a 32-27 halftime lead.
Rivers’ fourth 3-pointer of the game put Covington ahead 46-38 midway through the third and Millington did not get closer than eight points the rest of the way.
Tyric Winfrey had a solid game for Covington with 10 points and Eumorrion Flowers banked in a long 3-pointer late in the game, which brought everybody on the bench to their feet.
“He’s one of the fan favorites right now,” Hall said about Flowers.
“He’s never played before so we were excited for him,” Dean said.
Covington lost seven seniors from last year’s team and was not expected to be in the district race, but they are.
“I feel like we just have to play as a team,” said Dean, the lone returning starter from last year. “If we can play as a team and block the outsiders out we’ll be fine. It’s been kind of hard because I played with those guys since I came to high school, but we’re figuring it out.”
