Reed Sheppard, North Laurel's comeback falls short against Covington Catholic
In a showdown between two of the top 10 best teams from across the entire state, the home fans were able to leave BB&T Arena with a smile on their face.
T-No. 7 Covington Catholic (20-4) played host to T-No. 7 North Laurel (21-5) up at Northern Kentucky University on Friday evening. The main attraction, of course, was top-ranked Kentucky commit Reed Sheppard, who drew a crowd of a few thousand from across the area. The 6-foot-3 class of 2023 combo guard dropped in 18 points, three rebounds, three assists, and five turnovers, but saw his team fall in an early hole that proved too difficult to overcome despite a furious late comeback effort.
Covington Catholic hit enough free throws down the stretch to earn a thrilling 58-50 victory, its second over North Laurel this season. The Jaguars trailed CovCath by just two points heading into halftime only to get smacked in the mouth out of the locker room. That being said, Sheppard and his North Laurel squad never gave up and made it close in the end.
“It was a tough game. I thought we battled well,” Sheppard said after the loss. “At the start of the fourth we were down 16 or something so it was good for us to come back and get into it. That game could have went bad really really fast, so it was good for us to keep fighting and battle the whole game.”
The matchup was similar to what went down when these two sides first met during the King of the Bluegrass tournament back in December. Covington Catholic won that game as well, 79-67, as the Colonels once again were able to fend over North Laurel in the closing minutes. Sheppard finished with a 25-point, 10-rebound, 10-assist triple-double in that outing, but was bested in the win column by opposing point guard Evan Ipsaro.
Speaking of Ipsaro, he’s another talented class of 2023 guard, although not exactly a Power 5 prospect as of yet (he currently holds offers from the likes of Stetson, Radford, Bellarmine, Youngstown State, and Cleveland State). However, he’s done an incredible job defending Sheppard in those two meetings (admittedly, with plenty of help from constant double-teams) and has come out on top in both. Ipsaro dropped 34 points when the two met in December and poured in 23 more against Sheppard on Friday night. He was later named the game’s Most Valuable Player.
“He’s a great player,” Sheppard said of Ipsaro. “Those are the type of people you wanna go against. We’ve been going against each other our whole lives so we know each other pretty well, know each other’s games. So it’s really fun to play against him.”
In the end, Covington Catholic’s deep bench and overwhelming talent were too much for North Laurel. The Colonels have been considered one of the top teams in the state from the preseason and continue to look the part as the regular-season winds down. There is a high chance this team winds up playing in Rupp Arena for the Sweet 16.
“They’re really really deep,” Sheppard said of Covington Catholic. “Their size hurts us of course with rebounding and finishing, and then their guard play is really good as well and they just got an all-around really good team.”
North Laurel can get to Rupp Arena too though, make no mistake about it. Before losing on Friday, the Jaguars had won 11 straight games, including victories over ranked squads in No. 15 Madison Central and No. 3 Pulaski County. Sheppard’s cousin, Ryan Davidson, is a highly underrated forward in the state and a great complementary piece to him. The lack of size obviously hurts, but North Laurel has the outside shooting to help mask that issue.
But before the Jaguars can even dream about a trip to Rupp Arena, it has to make it out of its region first, something North Laurel has yet to do with Sheppard on the roster.
“We just gotta keep fighting and keep getting better day by day. Don’t look ahead,” Sheppard added. “We still got district and region. We haven’t made it out of region yet so we gotta win our region and get through that. We got a really hard region.”
North Laurel should be in terrific shape to finally make it out of both its district and region in order to earn a Sweet 16 trip. It would be fitting for the Jags to make it to Rupp too, considering it’ll be Sheppard’s future gym once he graduates high school next year. But even at the BB&T Arena at NKU, you would have thought he was playing in Lexington. After the game was over, Sheppard took pictures and signed autographs for dozens of fans spanning all ages.
Even in defeat, Sheppard accepts it with grace. His mind is focused on the season, but he can’t help but put a smile on the faces of the Big Blue Nation.
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