By Dan Weber
NKyTribune reporter
No better place for Day 3 of the All “A” Classic than here at Bellevue’s Ben Flora Gym. The pregame buzz is, well, buzzing.
Fans meet and greet after the Bellevue-New Cath game Wednesday. (Photo by Dan Weber/NKyTribune)
Northern Kentucky’s quintessential sporting event, this area’s gift to the rest of the state’s small schools while not taking anything away from the all-comers Sweet 16 that brings everybody together, is at the heart of our small school culture here. And has been for more than four decades.
No place in the state has more small schools. Almost no one comes close. Here at Bellevue, we’re within easy walking distance of two other Class A schools. And in a special nod to Northern Kentucky, within walking distance of the nation’s largest liquor store.
But this is about the schools. How they may have figured out ways in Eastern Kentucky to consolidate despite the hills and hollers. And in Western Kentucky, many of the more sprawling counties have come together despite the distance and thanks to school buses.
Northern Kentucky is different. You have the fiercely independent older river towns – with Bellevue, Dayton and Newport joined by Ludlow in Kenton County. Then there are the Catholic schools, also independent and proud as Latonia’s Holy Cross, Erlanger’s St. Henry, Villa Hills’ Villa Madonna and Newport Central Catholic.
NewCath Coach Jake Luhn makes a point to his Breds team. (Photo by Dan Weber/NKyTribune)
“Who else gets to go play in two state championships?” Newport Central Catholic Coach Jake Luhn asks, although that’s not a question. “I hope they never change it.”
Which is the best thing about the All “A” Classic: How Northern Kentucky reached out to the rest of the state and after starting out in 1980 with nine local teams – two no longer in the region, Bishop Brossart and Walton-Verona – and just one lost to consolidation – Silver Grove – they started inviting teams from out in the state to come here for an invitational. Now it’s a 16-region, 125-team strong statewide tourney second only to the Sweet 16.
Just one of the many things that the late Stan Steidel, then Dayton AD, and folks like then-Bellevue Coach Mike Swauger got right. How you can bring people together by giving them their own special party while staying firmly a part of the state tournament structure. Almost no other states have managed to combine those two this way.
Bellevue Coach Jim Hicks with his team. (Photo by Dan Weber/NKyTribune)
Indiana, for example, simply split up the one state tournament that compared to Kentucky’s all-comers Sweet 16 model by enrollment, and it’s never been the same.
So great job here. It hasn’t always been easy for Northern Kentucky to do our thing – and do it as a full partner with the rest of the state. This is one of those times when it could not have worked better.
In that first invitational decade, the out-in-the-state teams that won it read like a Who’s Who of Kentucky high school basketball history: Carlisle County, Oneida Baptist, Muhlenberg Central, Harlan, Bardstown and Central City. Holy Cross with Bill Frey and Pat Ryan won it twice that decade with Bob Eades’ Walton-Verona and Bellevue’s Mike Swauger each winning once.
Northern Kentucky’s all-time winningest high school coach Dave Faust has had a terrific run, with seven regional titles – and three state championships — since 1993 all the way to 2021.
“The All “A” Classic has been very good to me,” said Faust, who got there as an assistant with Newport Central Catholic’s Ron Dawn in the early years, as well.
NewCath has won four state titles while Holy Cross has won another and came close last year, losing in the finals.
“We’re proud of this tournament,” said Bellevue Coach Jim Hicks, looking at all the fans from both Bellevue and NewCath chatting on the floor 15 minutes after the final buzzer Wednesday. “And of Coach Swauger and the people who started this tournament.”
Luke Arlinghaus of Holy Cross, the state’s leading free throw shooter on display Tuesday at the All ‘A’ Classic at Bellevue. (Photo by Bob Jackson)
NEWCATH FLIPS THE SCRIPT ON BELLEVUE
How close are these teams, and towns, and fans, and players? Before tipoff, the two teams lined up across the court for a moment of silence and reflection for one of Bellevue’s own, Rick Eaglin, who had passed on after keeping score and doing all sorts of volunteer work for Bellevue athletics for more than a quarter century and where his wife had worked for more than three decades with the school system and where his son, Paul, had a stellar athletic career.
Then the game tipped off and Caleb Eaglin, Rick’s grandson and Paul’s son, scored seven of the first nine points in the game’s opening two minutes . . . for NewCath.
“That was our plan,” Caleb said. To go to him from the get-go. He was announced at 6-foot-3 but that was last year. He’s grown 2 ½ inches since then and Bellevue had no one to contend with Eaglin’s 6-5 1/2 size at the beginning.
Forget the records, Eaglin said of NewCath’s 4-10 compared to Bellevue’s 10-4.
“They weren’t going to beat us, we’ve played the toughest schedule in the state,” said Caleb, who will be taking his athletic talents to NKU next year . . . in golf. But basketball it is for now, and that’s a big upgrade from this time a year ago when Caleb was healing from a pair of broken arms – that’s right, both of them with fractures at the same time. One still has the scar from where the plate went in above the wrist.
But Caleb wasn’t alone especially in a frantic first quarter that had the Thoroughbreds jump out to a 24-10 lead on the way to an 81-64 win. But that’s not what NewCath Coach Jake Luhn wanted to talk about. Not right away.
St. Henry Coach Dave Faust, Northern Kentucky’s winningest coach, in a tough game Tuesday against Holy Cross. (Photo by Bob Jackson)
“First I want to give respect to Jase Iles,” he said of the 6-2 senior who kept Bellevue in the game with his 27 points, 19 in the first half when the Tigers closed it down from that 14-point first-quarter margin to 37-33 at intermission. And with 2:30 left in the third, they’d tied it at 47.
And then came a second-half burst led by the hustle and heady play of NewCath junior guard Louie Collopy, who fired in 22 with five threes, not unlike the way he took over at quarterback in midseason after an injury to starter Kolton Smith.
Which is where NewCath’s depth and tougher big-school schedule kicked in as the ‘Breds finished the quarter on a 9-0 run, extended that to 24-7 midway through the final quarter, leading 71-54 with aggressive defense and transition offense.
“That’s a factor,” said Bellevue Coach Jim Hicks of his Tigers’ typical Class A schedule while NewCath probably overscheduled with eight bigger schools than anyone Bellevue had played. “We’ve stepped up our schedule,” he said of the two three-game tourneys over Christmas at Bell County and Lewis County. “We don’t usually do that.”
As for this game, “I thought there were two pretty evenly matched teams,” Hicks said, “except for that third-quarter run.” But the Tigers, with 10 of their 14 players coming over from football, are still working some things out.
“We get them in a week in a district-seeding game,” Hicks said of next Wednesday’s rematch with NewCath, “we’re moving in the right direction.”
So is his NewCath team, Luhn says, after coming in with a record that was “the opposite” of Bellevue’s at 4-10. And still is at 5-10 to Bellevue’s 10-5.
But the goal for NewCath, he says, is “about getting out of the district. I want to play at NKU (in the regional). And even the tough losses against big-time opponents can help, as they did on this night, is that right?
“I hope so,” Luhn said.
SCORING SUMMARY
BELLEVUE 10 23 14 7—64
NEWCATH 24 13 19 24–80
BELLEVUE (10-5): Frommeyer 3 1 5 12, Iles 10 4 3 27, Mertens 8 2 3 21, Pendleton 0 0 2 2, Woodyard 1 0 0 2: TOTALS: 22-7-13-64.
NEWCATH: Bivens 0 0 3 3, Collopy 8 5 1 22, Eaglin 8 1 5 21, Kraft 1 0 0 2, Lyons 1 0 0 2, Mann 4 1 6 15, Petroze 1 0 0 2, Sandfoss 3 0 1 7, Jo. Luhn 3 0 0 6: TOTALS 29-7-16-81.
BOYS 9TH REGION ALL “A” CLASSIC SCHEDULE
at BELLEVUE
Friday
Semifinal Games
Holy Cross vs. Beechwood, 6 p.m.
Newport vs. NewCath, 7:45 p.m.
Saturday
Championship game, 7 p.m.
