It was a long wait.

20 days to be exact, was the amount of time that the Kennedy boys didn’t play a game. There was a little rust but Kennedy fought through it and improved to 6-1 on the year, defeating Jefferson 55-52 Friday night.

“It was good for us to get this game out of the way. It was good to get a win,” Junior Cole Murdock said. Murdock lead the Cougars in scoring with 13 points.

This was a Kennedy team that not a lot of people expected to have much success before the season started, but after a win up against Reedsburg in Wisconsin the Cougars now sit at 7-1.

“The kids buy into coaching. They don’t listen to a lot of outside things they just take care of the things they can do well,” Jon McKowen, first year head coach said.  “We got some talented players on this team and we just got to continue to get them in a position to be successful.”

It was a back and forth battle most of the way, but late in the third quarter and into the fourth quarter Kennedy missed 14 straight shots. But Murdock broke the cold spell and the Cougars held on to win from there.

“A.J would come off the ball screen and they would dig down and he would kick out to me for the three,” Murdock said.

With the second half of the season fast approaching the Cougars are now entering the tougher part of their schedule.

“We’re going to have to continue to get better every day. We have to use our depth to our advantage in practices and that’s going to allow us to get better,” McKowen said.