It may be unusual for a team not in a region to play host to a region basketball tournament.
The directors of athletics from each of the four districts rotate every four years voting for the site to play host to the 10th Region Boys and Girls Basketball Tournaments. It marked the 37th District’s turn to make that decision this year for the boys tournament. The four district ADs in Scott’s Casey Fisk, Bishop Brossart’s Ron Verst, Campbell County’s Steve Hensley and Calvary Christian’s Payden Hinkle voted to let Covington Holmes do the honors for a huge reason.
Capacity limits.
The Campbell County Middle School gym seats 2200 as the largest in the district compared to Campbell County High’s 1500. But Fisk said it was not an option based on the highest-attended sessions in the last five years of the 10th Region boys basketball tournament. He said one session saw 2,400 in paid attendance.
The largest session on the Kentucky High School Athletic Association was 1,885 people in 2017. But one session, which equates to two games, saw 2,808 in paid attendance back in 2014.
Therefore, Holmes came as the recommendation as part of the recommendation site plan listed on the Kentucky High School Athletic Association web site. David Evans Gymnasium at Holmes has a capacity of 3000. Mason County has played host to the tournament a number of times over the years. Mason County’s capacity is 5,400.
The KHSAA handbook lists several criteria to be considered for region tournament host sites. The first one is satisfactory capacity with the gym to safety accommodate the past five years and expected attendance numbers. The others include adequate parking for projected attendance and a minimum of four dressing rooms if double headers are played. Other criteria could also be used in the process.
“I’m just trying to do what’s good for the 37th District,” Fisk said. “Steve Hensley, myself, Peyton and Ron Verst sort of decided this was a good opportunity for our kids to come up and be able to play in front of a larger crowd of Northern Kentucky people.”
Fisk is aware some people are not happy about long travel, parking concerns among other things. But it’s nothing new to the 10th Region or other regions in Kentucky. Scott is the furthest school to the northwest in the 10th Region and Montgomery County is the furthest southeast. The distance between the two is 111 miles or one hour, 39 minutes. The distance from Scott to George Rogers Clark is 99 miles or one hour, 30 minutes.
The drive to Holmes is not much further up the road. The distance from Scott to Holmes is 11 minutes or 5.1 miles. The drive from Campbell County Middle School to Holmes is 20 minutes or 12.2 miles per Mapquest.
Teams had to travel to Mason County last year for the 10th Region boys tournament and George Rogers Clark in 2020. Every team in the region has had to travel more than an hour at some point over the years for postseason play.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Fisk said. “You just get in the bus and drive.”
Fisk wanted to be clear no one is trying to hide anything in the process. He noted it does not affect Scott because the Eagles lost 40-38 to Bishop Brossart in the 37th District semifinals Tuesday.
Bishop Brossart and Campbell County play for the district championship on Thursday at 7 p.m. Both will advance to the region tournament.
The region quarterfinal games take place on Wednesday, March 2 and Thursday, March 3. The semifinal games take place Monday, March 7 and the championship game is Tuesday, March 8.
Fisk pointed out the average Northern Kentucky high school basketball game might come to the quarterfinals and semifinals because the 9th Region Boys quarterfinals and semifinals fall on Saturday, March 5 and the semifinals take place Sunday, March 6. The 9th Region title game also takes place March 8 at the BB&T Center on the campus of Northern Kentucky University.
