Clovers fall to Covenant Christian

Saturday, January 8, 2011

CLOVERDALE -- Both Cloverdale and Covenant Christian were looking to extend two game winning streaks heading into Friday's varsity clash at Cloverdale High School.

Three competitive quarters of play were overshadowed by a second quarter, 27 point burst from the Warriors that allowed them to take a 63-41 victory over the Clovers.

The visitors jumped out to an early 9-2 lead in a fast moving first quarter before Cloverdale slowly chipped away at the seven point advantage and tied the contest at 9-all late in the first quarter.

Covenant Christian retook the lead at 11-9 and finished the first quarter with a three point lead at 15-12 and the game looked to have potential to be a solid contest between two sectional squads.

The Warriors iced the game away in the second quarter. Behind three Max Mollaun three pointers and three Jordan Clevenger two pointers, the visitors racked up 27 points to Cloverdale's eight and put the game out of reach.

That didn't stop Cloverdale from playing the Warriors tough in the second half. Both squads recorded identical third and fourth quarter point totals as the Clovers refused to ride out the second half.

In what will go in the record column as a loss, Cloverdale head coach Pat Rady was full of praise for both squads.

"You know, that's a fine team. They shoot the ball extremely well. No. 31 (Mollaun) and No. 24 (Will Ray) are fine players and they put in a lot of time, you can tell that. They can really stroke it," Rady said.

"Outside of the second quarter I thought we played really well. I thought in the first quarter and second half we did things well but, boy, you can't have a quarter like we did in the second quarter."

Rady also noted he liked his team's fight.

"I'll say this of our players, they didn't quit after the second quarter. We challenged them at halftime to come out and play smart basketball and I thought they did. I thought we had a good second half," Rady added.

"We cut down on the turnovers and I thought we were more conscious of where (Mollaun) and (Ray) were and I don't think we lost them as much as in the second quarter. Hopefully, we can take the play in the second half and continue on next week."

The Clovers get a week off to prepare for a weekend doubleheader, starting with a rematch against Cascade, whom they previously played at South Putnam in December. Rady expects Cascade to be ready for the second go-around.

"Well, we have to play good basketball for 32 minutes. I thought that game, against Cascade, was probably the best game we played this year. We'd have to duplicate that because Cascade is a fine ball club as well," Rady said.

At Cloverdale

C.C. 15 27 8 13 -- 63

Cloverdale 12 8 8 13 -- 41

Individual Stats

Covenant Christian -- Mollaun 19, Ray 11, Byers 10, Clevenger 8, Gegg 6, Johnson 4, Thompson 3, Asher 2

Cloverdale -- Williams 12, Hayden 11, Strunk 8, Scisney 4, Fidler 2, Burdette 2, Skiles 2