The Tigers came close – within one point in the second quarter. They kept up with the Cowboys and were almost there, but never quite made it. 

Coppell boys basketball defeated Irving, 61-54, Saturday in the CHS Arena for its second District 6-6A win. The Cowboys are now 2-1 in district and 17-4 overall.

The game started with the Cowboys coming out fast, earning a 14-3 lead less than four minutes in. However, after the Tigers took an early timeout, they were able to come back. Although they never surpassed Coppell, they topped off the comeback with back-to-back three-pointers at the end of the first, making the score 17-15.

The main opposing force to the Cowboys was senior point guard Savion Davis. Versatile with outside shooting, ball-handling and driving the lane, Davis proved to be a strong contender to the Cowboys’ zone defense. Despite his efforts, however, there were a few things on Coppell’s side that made the difference.

One of those was the pace of the game. Throughout, the Cowboys tried to speed up the pace with the intent of forcing turnovers.

“The thing about Irving is we felt like they weren’t the greatest ball handlers,” Coppell coach Clint Schnell said. “So if we sped them up and kind of got them out of rhythm, that they would turn the ball over and take bad shots. The problem was we couldn’t do it as much as we wanted to.”

Another factor giving Coppell an advantage was the two technical fouls called against Irving. The first one came from Davis in the second quarter for conduct, giving the Cowboys two points on their free throws. The second came in a more complicated fashion. After Coppell junior guard Ben Klement fouled junior forward Xavian Beene, a technical was called against Beene for conduct. This gave Irving a one-and-one free throw attempt, and Coppell the full two free throws.

After the fouls, the Cowboys were able to pull away and win the game. They play their next game on Tuesday away at Flower Mound.

“Overall, today we didn’t do what were coached to do,” Coppell sophomore guard Devank Rane said. “We need to improve a lot going into Flower Mound.”