Citing low numbers and injuries, the Newport girls basketball team will not be playing in the 36th District Tournament next week at Bellevue.
The team played in just six games this season with a 3-3 record. They played just three games from Dec. 12 to Feb. 17, their last game of the season coming on Tuesday in a 59-15 loss to Bellevue. In their Jan. 22 loss to Dayton, they had just seven players enter the game and had to finish with four.
This is the first time this century they’ve opted out of the district tournament with their last region tournament appearance coming in 2016.
Newport has 12 girls listed on the KHSAA roster, two of them seniors. They have two juniors, four sophomores, three freshman and a seventh grader. The most updated stats report has just six players playing in all five games, with stats not reported from the Bellevue game.
Newport forfeiting means the 36th District Tournament will go straight to the semifinals without a quarterfinal game. Highlands is the top seed and will take on Dayton on Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 6 p.m. Newport Central Catholic is the No. 2 seed and faces Bellevue on Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 7:45 p.m. The championship is Thursday, Feb. 26 at 7 p.m.
Winners of the semifinal contests get a berth into the 9th Region tournament at NKU’s Truist Arena, slated to begin March 1.