Ryle and Conner met in Union on Friday night in a 33rd District showdown with important seeding for the district tournament in February on the line.
Here’s how it went down:
GIRLS
Ryle 55, Conner 47
The faces may have changed, but the results stayed the same.
Despite fresh rosters and youthful lineups, Ryle continued to assert their dominance over their district foe, claiming their fifth straight win in the series with a 55-47 victory over Conner.
In a rivalry that has featured plenty of D-1 talent over the past several seasons, including Ryle’s Quinn Eubank (Belmont), Sarah Baker (Youngstown State), and Conner’s Anna Hamilton (NKU), it was time for new players to step up and take care of business.
“Most teams this year, we’ve been able to say we’re younger than, but not tonight,” Conner coach Michelle Gambrel said. “They had eight graders, freshman out there playing too. We do miss Anna, we miss our seniors last year, but this year I think we have a better chance than we have in year’s past because with graduation, the district looks totally different.”
The teams combined for just three seniors, with the Lady Cougars being led in scoring by junior Izelee Kerns, who tallied 17 points. Alexis Craddock, one of the two seniors, contributed 15 points.
For Ryle, junior Jaelyn Jones led the way with 20 points in the main role.
Her teammate, 8th grader Jayden McClain, added 15. Together, the underclassmen contributed a combined 25 points to the team’s effort.
“With our age and everything, I think we’re doing really well,” Jones said. “We’re getting better each game and I’m really proud of my team.”
The talent and chemistry between Jones and McClain proved to be exactly what the Lady Raiders needed.
“We get a lot of reps in with what we do on offense,” Jones said. “We work on it a lot in practice so I think that helps us connect and we’re great friends off the court so that helps as well.”
With seven first-quarter points from McClain, Ryle led 12-10 after the opening eight minutes, but Conner never let it slip out of reach, keeping it a two-point game at 24-22 heading into the locker room.
Leading 36-33 at the end of the third quarter, the Lady Raiders finally broke loose, going on an 8-2 run in the early minutes of the fourth, and won the scoring battle 19-14.
The matchup did impact seeding, but not by much.
With Cooper securing the one-seed and Boone County holding the four-seed, the stage is set for a rematch in the district semifinals.
“I think we got better tonight and the thing that really mattered is what jersey we were going to wear for the district tournament,” Gambrel said. “We’re gonna wear the black jersey come district tournament and between now and then, we’re gonna work on how we’re going to beat them.”
LADY RAIDERS 55, LADY COUGARS 47
RYLE — 12-12-12-19 — 55
CONNER — 10-12-11-14 — 47
Scoring
RYLE (55) — Jones 20, McClain 15, Hay 6, Dowell 4, Aschermann 4, Fong 3, Warner 3
CONNER (47) — Kerns 17, Craddock 12, Everett 8, Burcham 3, Covelle 2, Fay 2, Smith 2
Game Stats
3-Pointers: Ryle 3, Conner 4,
Free Throws: Ryle 12/15, Conner 5/7
Fouls: Ryle 9, Conner 16
Records: Ryle 6-11, Conner 5-12
BOYS
Conner 75, Ryle 70 (OT)
Coaches say it for a reason: play until the buzzer sounds.
That mantra couldn’t have been more true in a showdown between two 33rd District rivals.
Trailing 12-0 at the start and not capturing the lead until late in the fourth quarter, Conner staged quite the comeback to defeat Ryle 75-70 in overtime on Ryle’s home court.
“We knew coming over here, it was going to be a dogfight,” Conner head coach Nathan Browning said. “We knew they were going to be physical, they rebound, they’re tough, they defend. In the first quarter they gave us some fits with their physicality. We were able to figure out, get more physical, get a little more dog in us. Any district game, you have to bring your ‘A’ game.”
Behind three players in double digits and nine points from Chase Huff in the second half, including overtime, things certainly got a bit easier.
While the Cougars had the scoring, with three players in double digits and nine second-half points from Chase Huff, it wasn’t defense that let the Raiders down.
“We had four turnovers at halftime and finished the game with 15,” Ryle head coach Nicholas Dorning said. “That’s very uncharacteristic of us because our guards do a phenomenal job of handling the basketball. On the season we average well below 10 turnovers a game.”
Not to say that 14 points from Brady Bushman, 16 from Landon Warner, and 31 from Finn Louden didn’t make a difference.
“It’s tough for other teams to gameplan,” Browning said. “If you’ve got four, five or six guys that can score, it’s a lot easier. If you have that many guys that can score the basketball, it makes it tough, but it makes my job easier as a coach.”
Down 18-8 after the first quarter, Louden stepped up with nine points in the second. Trailing 32-20 at halftime, Louden responded with seven in the third quarter. And when they were down 46-36 at the finish of the third quarter, what did Louden do? He scored 11 in the fourth to send the game into overtime.
“Tonight was just my night,” Louden said. “We know everyone on the team can score though. Tomorrow, Chase could drop 30, Landon could drop 30, Brady could drop 30, it was just my night.”
Ryle still had several chances down the stretch, earning multiple trips to the free-throw line, but they went just 2-of-5 in overtime and 10-of-18 overall.
“For the vast majority of the year we’ve seen our free throw percentage go up and our guys work extremely hard on them,” Dorning said. “But going 10-of-18 from the free throw line hurt. There’s a lot of different little things, but overall, in a game like that, every single possession is going to matter and it showed tonight.”
Landon Lorms led the team with 22 points. Jon DeGroff contributed 15, AJ Davis had 14 and Anthony Coppola added on 12.
Ryle moves to 6-8 on the season and 1-2 in district play, with their lone victory being a 73-44 win over Boone County, placing them as the third seed in the district tournament.
The Cougars improve to 13-4 and 2-0 in district competition, and will battle for the top seed on Feb. 4 in Hebron against Cooper, who also stands at 2-0 after picking up a win over Boone County.
COUGARS 75, RAIDERS 70
CONNER — 8-12-16-25-14 — 75
RYLE — 18-14-14-15-9 — 70
Scoring
CONNER (75) — Louden 31, L. Warner 16, Bushman 14, Huff 9, Abousaleh 4, T. Warner 1
RYLE (70) — Lorms 22, DeGroff 15, Davis 14, Coppola 12, Zmurk 4, Smith 3
Game Stats
3-Pointers: Conner 7, Ryle 8
Free Throws: Conner 14/20, Ryle 10/18
Fouls: Conner 17, Ryle 17
Records: Conner 13-4, Ryle 6-8