Challenger

This season, the Apollo boys’ basketball team has nearly performed a miracle. Actually, a couple of them to be honest. First of all, after being stomped by 12 points by Owensboro Catholic at home on December 11th, the guys came back looking like a completely different team and beat Catholic 52-40 at the Sportscenter on January 4th. After that game, and even before, everyone held a different opinion on just how successful Apollo just might be this season. After losing four seniors from last year’s team, expectations were considerably low at the beginning of the season.

The biggest shock so far this season came on January 14th at Apollo, when the Eagles were held in a “rematch” against visiting Warren Central. Last year, the boys played Warren Central for the first game at the State Tournament “Sweet Sixteen” after winning their first 3rd Region title at home. The Eagles came out and played hard, but trailed the entire game and lost a disheartening score of 83-59.

This time, however, the team came out completely different from last year at the state tounrament, with a more intimidating look about them during warm-ups and as the entire game went on.

Junior Doug Denton led the team in scoring, executing to the basket throught the center lane and putting up several key jump shots over the tall, Warren Central defense. Denton also had several signififcant rebounds for the Eagles. Sophomores Ben Duvall and Justin Little proved to both be major disturbances under the basket against the extremely height-worthy boys from Warren Central.
The game was intense for the majority, with the score bouncing back and forth continuously. During the fourth quarter, the Eagles decided to show who’s “house” they were playing in, and took final control of the game to put away Warren Central 57-49 to end the night.

“We knew we could win if we did everything the way we do it during practice,” said Sophomore Ben Duvall.