Covington Catholic was bounced in the opening round of the Kentucky boys’ state tournament at Rupp Arena on Thursday afternoon by Apollo 57-53.

In a tight game that featured five ties and seven lead changes, the Colonels and Eagles were tied at 51-51 with 3:15 left in the game before Apollo ended the game on a 6-2 run to close out the scoring.  Doug Denton made two free throws with 56 seconds left in the game for a 53-51 Apollo lead.  Jake Wells and Tyler Brown added two more from the line and Denton sealed the deal with two more free throws with three seconds left.

Apollo won despite turning the ball over 23 times compared to only nine for CovCath.  The Eagles made up for it by winning the rebound battle (35-26) and shooting 56.4 percent from the field compared to just 36.7 percent for the Colonels.

Brown led all scorers with 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds.  Justin Little scored 12 points and Wells added 11.  Junior Todd Jacobs was CovCath’s only double figure scorer with 13.  Danny Noll added nine points and nine rebounds for the Colonels.