By Brendan Connelly
NKyTribune sports reporter
Conner finished the regular season with the best record and longest winning streak in 9th Region girls basketball, but the high-flying Cougars had their wings clipped in the semifinals of the 33rd District playoffs on Tuesday at Ryle High School.
Cooper took a 19-point lead in the first first quarter and went on to defeat Conner, 51-18, in the third game between the district rivals after going 1-1 during the regular season.
Cooper (19-9) will play Ryle (19-8) in the district final at 7 p.m. Thursday. Conner bows out with a 22-4 record after finishing the regular season with 17 consecutive wins.
Cooper beat Conner, 52-26, in December, but the Cougars won the rematch, 68-54, in January. In the third game on Tuesday, Cooper relied on a stifling defense to hold Conner to its lowest point total in more than 10 years.
Last season, Notre Dame defeated Conner, 54-19, but that was one point more than the Cougars scored on Tuesday.
Cooper rattled off the first 10 points of the game before Anna Hamilton got Conner’s first point on a free throw. In the blink of an eye, Cooper raced out to a 19-point lead capped off by Bella Deere’s 3-pointer at the first quarter buzzer.
“When you lock down on the defensive end, the offensive end kind of takes care of itself,” Cooper coach Justin Holthaus said.
In the first half, Cooper’s defense limited Conner to eight points on 2 of 16 shooting. The Cougars’ first field goal didn’t fall until Juliet Strange connected on a 3-pointer with four minutes left until halftime.
Conner only had three players score in the game. Hamilton and Strange finished with eight points each and Aubrey Depenbrock scored the final basket of the game.
“We knew coming in that they had some really key pieces that we kind of had to take away,” Holthaus said.
The halftime score of 23-8 was as close as the game would get. Before the contest was over, Cooper would expand its lead to as many as 35 points, using four different runs of eight points or more.
The play of the night came halfway through the third quarter as Cooper guard Kay Freihofer found a cutting Whitney Lind with a no-look pass for a layup.
Logan Palmers scored nine of her game-high 16 points in the second half for the Jaguars. Lind joined her in double figures with 15.
Ryle buried Boone County, 63-17, in the other 33rd District semifinal game on Tuesday. The Raiders defeated Cooper twice during the regular season by margins of seven and four points.
Both district finalists will advance to next week’s 9th Region tournament, but the Jaguars want to end Ryle’s four-year reign as district champion.
“Our mindset from the beginning of the year is we want to win the district championship,” said coach Holthaus.
The field is set for the 9th Region girls tournament. The qualifiers form the other three districts are Dixie Heights, Ludlow, Notre Dame, Holy Cross, Newport Central Catholic and Highlands. It’s the same field as last year when Dixie Heights won the region championship game against Notre Dame, 45-43 , in overtime.