Hollywood called.
They want the script.
It starts like this: Coach of 17 years builds a program up from its infancy into a two-time region champion and nearly 300 wins. Gets non-renewed after 17 seasons and heads to a different program. The program he’s with now faces old program that let him go on a chilly February night, ending in a storybook tale.
Thursday night in Erlanger it was written at St. Henry High School. Tim Sullivan, former Cooper coach and current St. Henry coach, faced off against his old team for the first time since being let go in May 2025.
“I’m still in love with that program,” Sullivan said. “I’ll always love that program. I love Justin (Holthaus). I love those kids in that program, but God works his ways and he’s got me right where I’m at, where I’m supposed to be. I have a locker room full of a bunch of great young men and they have accepted not only me, but the rest of the guys that came in, like my son and Parker (Lutz). It’s just been a heck of a ride.”
The game was intense. A close contest throughout, bloody lips and elbows, bench warnings to both, overtime and of course…a buzzer-beater.
It was Caden Kunstek playing the hero, his bank 3-pointer falling in as the horn sounded in overtime, giving the Crusaders a 46-43 victory over the Jaguars.
“I’m kind of speechless,” Sullivan said. “After the shot there, I had a lot of emotion come out.”
Poetic justice for Sullivan and his staff that came over from Cooper? Maybe so. But this night wasn’t easy for the coach respected by many not only in Northern Kentucky, but across the state and into Ohio.
“I’ll put it this way, at 7:45 this morning, I’m sitting in my classroom and all of a sudden my phone started buzzing and just overwhelming amount of people just shooting me texts and saying things like ‘good luck’ and we’ll be there and all that,” Sullivan said. “And I was good until that happened and then it just kept going all day and I gave my class as a writing assignment. I struggled to teach.”
It also wasn’t easy for the visitors as former players that played under Sullivan and their new head coach Justin Holthaus, was under Sullivan’s wings for years before taking over the Cooper girls program and leading them to four straight region championships. The postgame handshake was all you needed to know for the respect for one another. It was about a 30-second hug.
“He’s my guy,” Jaguars coach Justin Holthaus said. “He’s a mentor to me for 11 years, supporting me. When I flipped over to the girls side and I’ve always continued to support him. So wherever he is, you know he’s my guy.”
As for the game itself, the runs were plenty. What was a contest of 11-13 (St. Henry) and 3-19 (Cooper) teams, the intensity was sharp.
First it was Cooper punching first, jumping out to a 18-9 lead after a Julienne Knuckles dunk off a Jaguars steal. Two Ryker Campbell 3’s and five Elijah Philpot points helped in the furious beginning.
“I know that Justin and them are struggling, but his schedule is really tough,” Sullivan said. “I knew coming in that they were going to be ready and their kids were going to be excited to play.”
St. Henry settled in from there. The Crusaders countered with a 16-3 run fueled by Tyler Detzel’s nine points and a Ryne Ravenscraft bank 3 to end the first. It led to a 25-21 St. Henry advantage at halftime.
Things steadied a bit in the third, St. Henry able to hold the edge for the majority of the frame and taking a 34-32 lead into the fourth.
Knuckles opened the fourth on a personal 7-0 run to give the Jags the lead back at 39-34 a little less than three minutes in, but they’d fail to score the rest of the quarter. St. Henry had offensive struggles of their own in the final stanza, registering just one point through the first four minutes of the quarter.
Kunstek got their first field goal of the fourth on a driving layup, Cooper McIntire tying the game up on a layup with under two minutes to play and knotting the game at 39.
Neither team was able to break through in regulation from there despite Cooper getting a solid final look in the closing seconds, but an Elijah Philpot jumper at the buzzer was no good.
“We made some plays, just not enough tonight,” Holthaus said. “We got the looks we wanted. The shots don’t go and the rest is kind of history.”
To overtime they went, trading baskets, the last a Xavier Barbour layup to tie it up at 43 with 1:30 to play. Again, both had their chances, Cooper’s Cole Stanton missed shot on a drive rebounded by the Crusaders and a timeout with 1.6 seconds remaining.
After the timeout, St. Henry’s Tyler Detzel inbounded the passand threw it three quarters of the court to a leaping Kunstek who gathered, turned and fired off the backboard to bounce in and win it.
“The play was for me to catch it up high and look for the two guards rolling off,” Kunstek said. ” But when I went up to catch it, I thought the guy who was guarding me, I thought he went a little early. So I was like okay, ‘I’m gonna be wide open.’ So I kind of just went up, caught it, turned and just threw it up. I did not call bank though.”
A storybook ending for a game in mid-February that may not mean much in the standings or come postseason time, but for a night it meant a lot to the red and blue.
“It feels great,” Kunstek said. “Just seeing Coach Sully’s face and all the staff, all the things they went through, whole new atmosphere, whole new school and just to see them with a smile on their face come in the locker room, I mean, you can’t get that feeling again.”
Now the two move forward as they gear up for the postseason. St. Henry improved to 12-13, winners in three of their last four. They head to South Oldham on Friday before closing out the regular season with Campbell County and Holy Cross next week. Postseason play happens from there as they’ll face Dixie Heights in the 34th District tournament. The Colonels lost in overtime to Lloyd Memorial on Thursday night to set up the 2-3 matchup.
“It’s not about who we’re playing. It’s about us getting healthy,” Sullivan said. “It’s about us getting right and figuring out how we can maximize what we’re doing to give ourselves a chance against Dixie in the district tournament.”
Cooper dropped to 3-19 as they continue to try and navigate through one of the toughest schedules played in the state. They get Beechwood at home on Senior night Saturday followed by bouts with Dixie Heights and Holmes next week before they face Conner in the 33rd District tournament semifinals. The previous matchup with Conner this season ended similar to the one on Thursday night, a Cougars buzzer-beater.
“We’ve been battle tested all season long,” Holthaus said. “There’s been some games that we’ve gotten blown out in and there’s been some games that we’ve played really close, kind of like tonight and the ball is just not going our way right now. What I’ve told the guys is this is life. It’s gonna throw you a lot of curve balls. It’s gonna be very difficult at times, but at the end of the day, you got to continue to stand up and continue to fight for that next day. So I think moving forward, we just continue to work with consistency and execution. That way we’re ready for postseason play.”
MORE PHOTOS: Slideshow provided by Charles Bolton
CRUSADERS 46, JAGUARS 43
COOPER — 18-3-11-7-4 — 43
ST. HENRY — 14-11-9-5-7 — 46
Scoring
Cooper (43) — Knuckles 16, Philpot 7, Campbell 6, Stanton 5, Graham 5, Cameron 2, Barbour 2
St. Henry (46) — Detzel 15, Kunstek 15, McIntire 7, Stevens 5, Ravenscraft 3, Krenner 1
Game Stats
3-Pointers Made: Cooper 6, St. Henry 4
Free Throws: Cooper 1/9, St. Henry 4/9
Fouls: Cooper 13, St. Henry 10
Records: Cooper 3-19, St. Henry 12-13