After the Cooper girls’ basketball team wrapped up their final practice in preparations for their first round state tournament game on Thursday against Mercy, they were getting sent out in their travels to Lexington by police escort.
“They do it right, we’ll be escorted all the way out of the county,” Jaguars coach Justin Holthaus said.
While the fanfare and all that comes with going to state is nice, this year is different for the Jaguars. They’re not the darlings of the tournament anymore, last year’s trip the first in program history as they entered uncharted territory.
This year, their vision is set directly on Saturday night and the championship. They enter as the second highest ranked team in the 16-team field, the lone team above them Sacred Heart on the other side of the bracket. Cooper sports a 29-3 record, trying to advance even further than their state semifinal appearance last season.
“We need to take that next step and get to the championship game,” Holthaus said.
Outside of Sacred Heart, the only other team to beat Cooper in the state this season didn’t make it to Lexington, DuPont Manual losing to the Valkyries in the Seventh Region semifinals. First up in the tourney is a tough matchup out of the Sixth Region in Mercy. Mercy features sophomore sensation Leah Macy, who holds multiple Division I offers and presents a problem on the interior.
“They have a lot of size and play a lot of zone, we’ll have to be able to attack the zone and make jumpshots. Leah Macy in the center of that with Emma Barnett. We’ve got to be able to make shots, guard at a high level. Macy will get hers and we can’t let others go off,” Holthaus said.
In question however is the status of sophomore guard Alyssa Murphy, the team’ second leading scorer. Murphy was nursing an injury headed into the postseason and re-aggravated things in the region championship against Bullitt East.
Cooper feels they’re battle tested by not only making it out of a very competitive 33rd District and Ninth Region unscathed at 14-0, but a challenging schedule that had them playing teams from all over the state. They’re 4-1 against the field of Sweet 16 teams, defeating Bowling Green, Frederick Douglass, Simon Kenton and Mercy, 67-64 back on Jan. 27.
After Cooper’s Saturday region title victory over Ryle, the Jaguars made immediate preparations for Thursday’s contest, the team practicing at the University of Cincinnati on Monday to get some run on a college floor like they will at Rupp Arena. Thursday’s walkthrough will be down at Transylvania University with a nice dinner at Joe Bolognas in-between when they arrived in Lexington Wednesday night.
The Jaguars are back to this point thanks to their team over self attitude. Despite their star power with forwards Whitney Lind and Liz Freihofer, with any given possession starters Kay Freihofer, Logan Palmer and Maleah Alexander have shown the ability to produce not only in the scoring department, but the intangibles and little things needed to thrive.
“We’ve got a lot of talent and we’re very fortunate these girls don’t complain about their roles. These girls just want to win and that just helps our growth of the program continue. This success over the years and kids buying into their roles is because they’ve been able to figure it out on the fly,” Holthaus said. Â
Defense is where the Jaguars hang their hat, one of the top 10 scoring defenses in the state. They’ve really turned things up another level on the defensive side, allowing a shade over 30 points per game in their last six. Haylee Noel and Bella Deere help provide the lift off the bench, the team down a key rotational player since December when Damysia Knox was lost for the season due to injury. With the amount of lopsided victories over the course of the season, Holthaus is confident to go even deeper in his bench if the opportunity presents itself. Zene Thompson, Yamilet Rondon, Addison Brissey and Audrey Schilling playing in at least 21 games each this year.
Despite their average margin of victory of 24.5 points per game this season, the region final against Ryle was a solid test before heading to the biggest stage in the state. The Raiders had the Jaguars within two with two minutes remaining, but Cooper found the right plays to win down the stretch. It was the first time they had been tested with a game still in doubt in the fourth quarter since Feb. 10 in a win at Frederick Douglass. After that, Cooper had won by an average of 29.8 points over their next six games leading into the championship contest with the Raiders.
“They had a good gameplan and did a good job against us. We knew it would be a war, but even when it got down to two, there was never a doubt with our girls. They’re never too high or never too low. We have full trust in our kids and they’re all bought in. The little things were taken care of and we did enough to win that game,” Holthaus said.
After being brand new to things last season at Rupp Arena, the experience should help too for Cooper facing a Mercy team who’s last trip here was 2019 with none of the current players on the roster.
Thursday’s tip is set for 6 p.m.