Ryle was in search of their first win as they headed to Newport on Tuesday with some reinforcements, getting their football players back after missing the first week of the season due to their run to the state championship game.
After an 0-3 start last week, the Raiders battled and showed a ton of grit in a 49-43 victory over the two-time defending 9th Region champs.
Ryle held Newport to one field goal in the fourth quarter and outscored the Wildcats 14-3 in the final 5:14 to prevail.
“We talk to our kids all the time about you’re never going to walk into a gym and beat teams just because you’re better,” Raiders coach Nick Dorning said. “You have to walk in the gym and beat teams because you’re tougher and you’re willing to do things that they are not. We emphasized that with our kids a lot tonight and that was making tough plays.”
Here’s what we learned in Tuesday night’s rematch from last year’s 9th Region tournament quarterfinal contest:
Tight battle throughout
There were five ties and six lead changes in this one. Ryle held the biggest lead at nine, up 21-12 in the opening stages of the second quarter before Newport locked in and ended the half on a 12-1 run over the final six minutes of the half for a 24-22 edge.
The Wildcats came out of the half and led 28-24 behind consecutive jumpers from DaShawn Anderson, but the Raiders responded with a 5-0 spurt after an AJ Davis 3-pointer followed by a Landon Lorms layup.
Newport would take a 36-33 lead into the fourth after Griffin Starks closed the quarter on a mini 5-0 run.
Amontae Lowe’s 3-point play to open up the fourth gave the Wildcats their biggest lead of the night at 39-33, but the Wildcats didn’t make a shot from the field the rest of the night and went 4-of-13 from the free throw line in the fourth.
Clutch plays down the stretch from the Raiders decided it, John DeGroff converting on layups on dishes from Lorms and Anthony Coppola, Davis then hitting a 3-pointer for a 46-41 lead with a minute and change to play.
Ryle went 3-of-4 from the line in the final minute to seal it.
Reinforcements are here
Ryle welcomed back Lorms, Nathan Verax, Ryan Handorf and Gavin Lyons from the football field. The Raiders were just roughly 72 hours removed from their Class 6A state championship game with Trinity on Saturday on the gridiron. Lorms started, played nearly 22 minutes and scored a team-high 17 points to go with five rebounds, five assists, two blocked shots and two steals.
“He brings strength and toughness,” Dorning said. “He’s tough mentally too. He’s a kid you can coach really hard and he’ll respond to it and never wants to let his teammates down.”
Lorms finished 6-of-14 from the field and 5-of-8 from the free throw line.
“Feels great to be back, legs are dead and a little tired, but you know how it is…football and basketball is two different conditioned games,” Lorms said. “It’s going to take a minute to get my jump shot back. Shooting fatigue and stuff, I just need to start running a little bit more. Just play through adversity early on and go out and give it my all.”
Needless to say, the Raiders are happy to have Lorms and company back after losing the first three games of the season by a combined 15 points in losses to South Oldham, Holy Cross and Lloyd Memorial.
Battle of the boards
Trailing 18-12 in the rebounding battle at halftime, Dorning challenged his team in the locker room to clean that up.
“We challenged them to go out and rebound. Everyone has to rebound, guards got to dig, bigs have to attack the ball in the air with two hands and I feel like the second half we did a lot better job of that,” Dorning said.
Message received.
Ryle ended up tying a much bigger Newport frontline in rebounds at 33-33. Davis had nine, DeGroff with seven.
“I came in at halftime with two rebounds and the coaches talked about it and I came out and just crashed the boards,” Davis said.
Davis had 13 points, DeGroff with 10.
Newport trying to find their way
We won’t see the Wildcats finished product for quite some time. They’re still waiting on Yamil Rondon’s return from offseason shoulder surgery, expecting the guard who transferred from Cooper to be ready by late December, early January.
Not only with Tay Kinney’s departure to prep school, a top 30 prospect in the 2026 class, but the graduation of Jabari Covington and DJ Jackson is also felt early on.
They’re currently relying on sophomore Amontae Lowe to handle the point guard duties, who certainly has the potential to do so as he’s made just a handful of varsity starts.
“AJ Lowe came back, he’s new. Amontae Lowe sophomore point guard. Griff (Starks) are getting new roles. Anderson, a senior getting new roles,” Wildcats coach Rod Snapp said. “Trying to get our bench going, trying to get a rotation going of some sort. It’s a new team, people see some of these guys are back, but it is a new team losing three guards.”
Free Throws
The Wildcats finished 8-of-22 from the free throw line. No matter how much talent is on the roster, it’s hard to win games that way. They also went 3-of-16 from the 3-point line.
“Credit to Ryle for playing hard and putting us in tough positions,” Snapp said. “They bumped us off where we wanted to go inside and kind of ran out of juice.”
Not to make any excuses, but Newport was coming off a busy first week with four games, including two at the Marshall County Hoopfest in far western Kentucky on Friday and Saturday.
Newport goes anywhere near 70% from the line, this story looks a lot different
Droughts
This one had the feel of a typical 9th Region knockdown, drag out, beat each other up tournament game at NKU.
Ryle finished 40% from the field, 25% from three and 64% from the free throw line with 11 turnovers. Newport went 34% from the field, 18% from three and 36% from the free throw line with 11 turnovers.
“They wanted it more for 32 minutes, consistently, they wanted it more for 32 minutes,” Snapp said. “We wanted it in spurts. We just thought, just being Newport, looking at being one of those top teams, we just thought it was gonna fall in their lap. Ryle wanted it more for sure.”
Starks, Turner show range
Newport hit three 3-pointers, two of them came from Griffin Starks, the other James Turner as they combined to go 3-of-9 from beyond the arc. Problem was the rest of the team went 0-for-7.
If Starks and Turner can make that a consistent part of their arsenal, it makes them an even tougher cover.
Starks finished with a team-high 15 points, adding four rebounds and three blocked shots. Turner posted a double-double of 10 points and 12 rebounds, swatting three shots and collecting two steals.
The two shot 9-of-21 combined, the rest of the Wildcats were 7-of-26.
Coach vs Understudy
This was Dorning’s first victory over Snapp, Dorning an assistant under Snapp for three years at Newport. He had lost the three previous matchups between the two. Ryle is now 4-7 vs Newport since 1998. Tuesday was their first victory over the Wildcats since Dec. 23, 2014.
Next up
Ryle (1-3) gets North Oldham at Henry County in the Bodyarmor Showcase on Saturday at 3 p.m. The Raiders have yet to play a home game, their first five games on the road until they host Newport Central Catholic on Dec. 17. Newport (3-2) hosts Campbell County on Saturday in the nightcap of the John Turner Classic at Newport. It’s a rematch of last year’s first round state tournament game where the Camels pulled the upset.