Despite how difficult the girls 33rd basketball District can be on any given night, one thing remains a constant, Cooper and Ryle meeting for a district title.
For the fourth straight year, the Jaguars and Raiders will vie for a 33rd District title on Thursday night. On Tuesday, Cooper dispatched Boone County in the opener of the two semifinal games at Conner while Ryle pulled away from the hosts in a pivotal third quarter to set up the title tilt.
Here’s how it happened.
Ryle 47, Conner 35
The Raiders can point to the start of the game and the third quarter for helping get them to a seventh straight district championship game.
Ryle opened the game on a 12-2 run and outscored the Cougars 16-4 in the third quarter to win the road game.
“At their home place and being able to hold our composure and being able to communicate with each other is why we schedule the way we do,” Raiders coach Katie Haitz said. “We put ourselves in hard situations where we have to be ready for this type of game.”
Quinn Eubank showed her all-around game early on in helping Ryle out to a 5-0 lead. Eubank wanted to make sure they got off to a strong start, something that’s plagued them as they finished 2-3 down the stretch of the regular season.
“We’ve been struggling with energy coming out of the gate,” Eubank said. “We really made sure this past week we’ve been focusing on energy. When we bring that energy, we’re pretty hard to defend.”
Jaelyn Jones followed with five points of her team-high 16 on the night as the Raiders were quickly up 10-2 that stretched to 15-4.
Conner regrouped and got within 15-8 after one and scored the first six of the second to make it 15-14 as Anna Hamilton got going with eight points.
Ryle’s 22-17 halftime lead quickly stretched to double-digits with a 8-2 run out of the half, the Raiders continuing the momentum with their solid ball movement and taking a 38-21 lead into the fourth. The Raiders got to the free throw line nine times in the frame.
“Sarah’s (Baker) presence working the ball in and them having to pay attention to her allowed us to have some nice outside shots and drives and that opened things up for sure,” Haitz said.
Hamilton and the Cougars could get no closer than 12 the rest of the way. Hamilton would finish with a game-high 20 points, one of the most prolific players in Conner hoops history closed out her high school career on her home floor. Hamilton finishes as one of the top five scorers in program history and was recently named the NKCA Division 1 Player of the Year for the 2023-24 season.
“I’m never going to coach another Anna Hamilton,” Cougars coach Michelle Gambrel said. “Off the court, on the court and the other four seniors we have just bought into everything we did. No drama, all the girls got along and it’s going to be hard to have another team like this.”
Hamilton departs with a five-member senior class who entered the season with a primary goal of making the region tournament, but with Cooper and Ryle in the way has made it a tough task.
“I couldn’t have accomplished anything personally without my teammates,” Hamilton said. “I thank them everyday, my coaches, the whole staff, everybody was just always there for me. It sucks we didn’t get this tonight, but I’ll still cherish every moment.”
Ryle’s chance to snap a six-game losing streak to Cooper comes Thursday. Their ball movement was vital in the contest while limiting the rest of the Cougars, Izelee Kerns Conner’s second leading scorer with six points.
“We just struggled to score. It’s been all year long. We needed to get three in double figures to win this game and it just didn’t happen,” Gambrel said. “The girls play hard, but it’s just been a struggle to score.”
Defensive battles have been the norm for Ryle this season, Tuesday marking the 12th game they’ve held an opponent under 40 points. They’re 11-1 in said games, the lone loss to Cooper on Jan. 12 in a 38-32 defeat.
“They’re going to be good, always are. Biggest rival, so very excited to have another shot at them,” Eubank said.
RAIDERS 47, COUGARS 35
RYLE — 15-7-16-9 — 47
CONNER — 8-9-4-14 — 35
Scoring
Ryle (47) — Jones 16, Eubank 14, Peters 6, Baker 5, Miller 4, Carrigan 2
Conner (35) — Hamilton 20, Kerns 6, Fisher 3, Burcham 2, Craddock 2, Depenbrock 2
Game Stats
3-Pointers Made: Ryle 4, Conner 1
Free Throws: Ryle 12/19, Conner 3/5
Records: Ryle 19-10, Conner 13-16
Cooper 62, Boone County 21
The Jaguars used their stingy defense to hold Boone County without a made field goal for nearly 25 minutes of game action as they ran away from the Rebels.
Cooper sat their starters the entire second half after building a 39-10 halftime lead, the reserves handling things the rest of the way.
Early on, Boone County’s 3-2 zone defense was limiting Cooper, the Jaguars holding a 13-7 end of first quarter lead.
But some energy plays off the bench from Zene Thompson, Alivia Scott and Addison Brissey gave the Jaguars some life, outscoring Boone County 26-3 in the second quarter. Thompson finished with a team-high 11 points.
“When you got kids that can come off the bench and understand what you’re trying to do as a program and fill those shoes or even maybe do more, it’s pretty special,” Jaguars coach Justin Holthaus said.
It was Thompson’s 17th birthday, saying her best gift of the day was the Jaguars victory. She plays a big role off the Cooper bench and her energy on Tuesday helped Cooper separate.
“I just go into the mindset that we’re playing the best out there and we still have to play as hard as we can,” Thompson said. “Just try to get the bench going because when they’re hyped, we get hyped. We have a great group here and are proud for each other and just want to win.”
Boone County put up a more competitive product in Todd Humphrey’s third season with the team. Despite their 7-20 end of season record, nine losses came by seven points or less.
“It’s really good to be in a lot of games with a lot of teams that are some of the top teams in the state,” Humphrey said. “We competed a lot and hopefully the continuity stays and everybody continues to grow as a player.”
With just one graduating, the Rebels will hope to use those experiences and turn them into victories next season.
“We need to work on getting a lot tougher. What this game revealed to us tonight is that we need to be a little bit more ball confident and handle the pressure,” Humphrey said. “We’ll spend a lot of time on that and becoming more offensively strong and better shooters.”
Lyric Hooper led Boone with eight points, Mya Bennett with five and Joslyn LaBordeaux Humphrey with four.
Cooper is gunning for a third straight 33rd District title. Thursday’s game with Ryle is at 7 p.m., back at Conner.
“We’ve tried to prepare ourselves all year with our schedule and just the consistency with what we’ve done in practice and things like that,” Holthaus said. “Our goals at the beginning of the year was to try win districts, try to win region, try to win state and we’ve taken that one day at a time and the kids believe in it. We’re super excited to be in the postseason.”
JAGUARS 62, REBELS 21
BOONE COUNTY — 7-3-3-8 — 21
COOPER — 13-26-12-11 — 62
Scoring
Boone (21) — Hooper 8, Bennett 5, Humphrey 4, Hacker 3, Land 1
Cooper (62) — Thompson 11, Smith 9, Palmer 8, Freihofer 8, Noel 8, Rankin 7, Scott 5, Brissey 4, Deere 2
Game Stats
3-Pointers Made: Boone County 1, Cooper 8
Free Throws: Boone County 12/19, Cooper 8/15
Records: Boone County 7-20, Cooper 25-4