By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
You can’t close the book on the 50th anniversary season of girls high school basketball’s reinstatement as a fully sanctioned sport without a rundown of remarkable accomplishments by local players and teams over the past four months.
Topping the list is Cooper becoming the first girls team to win four consecutive 9th Region championships with a starting lineup that consisted of one senior, one junior, and three sophomores.
Cooper coach Justin Holthaus built this year’s team around lone returning starter Haylee Noel, a sophomore who finished with team-high averages of 16.4 points and 7.5 rebounds. She was named to the state all-tournament team after getting 58 points and 16 rebounds in two games.
In a quarterfinal loss to eventual state champion Louisville Sacred Heart, Noel netted 34 points, the fourth highest total by a 9th Region player in the girls state tournament.
Noel was named 9th Region Player of the Year by local coaches. The other first-team nominees were seniors Caroline Eaglin of Newport Central Catholic, Marissa Green of Highlands, Aumani Nelson of Holy Cross and Catherine Buddenberg of Dixie Heights.
All five of them were the leading scorer on teams that made it to the 9th Region tournament. Holy Cross also won the 9th Region All “A” Classic for the fourth consecutive year with Nelson in the lineup.
Eaglin led Northern Kentucky in scoring for the third straight season with a 22.4 average. She ended her career as NewCath’s all-time scoring leader with 2,546 points in 142 games over five seasons. That gives her a career average of 17.9.
Brossart and Walton-Verona also won All “A” Classic region titles, giving Northern Kentucky three teams in the girls small-school state tournament for the first time since 2021. Brossart was also runner-up in the 10th Region postseason tournament.
Simon Kenton won the 8th Region girls championship and posted a 26-5 record in Jeff Stowers’ first season back as head coach. The Pioneers also made headlines with a 75-70 overtime win against Louisville Sacred Heart, snapping that team’s 92-game win streak against in-state opponents.
Simon Kenton will have all five starters back next season, including sophomore point guard Brynli Pernell, the team’s leading scorer with a 14.8 average.
In fact, 15 of the 22 girls teams in Northern Kentucky will have their top scorer returning next season. The underclassmen with the highest averages were Ryle junior Jaelyn Jones (18.2), Ludlow junior Addy Garrett (18.2), Noel (16.7), Walton-Verona sophomore Elin Logue (15.1), Brossart freshman Kylie Smith (14.6) and Campbell County junior Izzy Jayasuriya (14.5).
Lloyd looking for first win in boys 9th Region final
Lloyd has an 0-4 record in 9th Region boys basketball championship games and this year’s team wants to end that trend Tuesday when it takes on Cooper in the title game at 7 p.m. at Northern Kentucky University’s Truist Arena.
The Juggernauts’ previous losses in 9th Region finals came in 1950, 1978, 1983 and 1996. The margins in the last three games were four, six and five points. One of Lloyd’s top players in 1983 was Greg Kunkel. His son, Adam, played on Cooper’s 2017 region championship team that was state runner-up.
This will be the first time Lloyd (26-6) and Cooper (22-5) have faced each other in the 9th Region tournament. In a regular season game on Jan. 14, Cooper defeated Lloyd, 63-59, behind a 30-point scoring binge by senior guard Andy Johnson.
Cooper lost to Newport in the region final the last two years. Lloyd made it to Tuesday’s title game by defeating Newport, 41-40, on a last-second shot in a semifinal game last week.
That was the 15th consecutive win for the Juggernauts, who have senior forward EJ Walker averaging 18.9 points and 11.2 rebounds per game. His father, Michael, is the team’s head coach.
The 9th Region champion will play the 2nd Region champion in the first round of the state tournament at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, March 27. Henderson County and Madisonville-North Hopkins will meet in the 2nd Region final on Tuesday.
The boys state tournament was scheduled for the last week of March because Rupp Arena is one of the sites for NCAA tournament games this week.
Cooper graduate helps team earn NCAA berth
Cooper graduate Whitney Lind helped the Lehigh University women’s basketball team win the Patriot League championship game on Sunday and earn a berth in the NCAA Division I tournament bracket.
Lehigh defeated Army, 74-62, in the league title game and will take a 27-6 record into the national tournament. In the third quarter, Lind scored six straight points, including a layup that put the Mountain Hawks ahead, 42-41, with 2:22 remaining. They maintained a lead the rest of the way.
Lehigh received a No. 15 seed for the NCAA tournament and will play No. 2 seed Duke (26-7) in a first-round game on Friday in Durham, N.C.
Lind finished Sunday’s game with six points and four rebounds. The 6-foot-2 sophomore had the same totals in a 65-44 semifinal win over Holy Cross on Thursday. On the season, she’s averaging 5.9 points and 2.2 rebounds, shooting 44.3 percent (66 of 149) from the field and 90.4 percent (47 of 52) at the line.