By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
The two girls basketball teams that played in the 9th Region tournament final last March have a rematch scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Wednesday when defending champion Cooper visits Notre Dame.
Both teams have a new head coach. Cooper is off to a 2-1 start under Christian Pohaska and Notre Dame won its first three games with George Stoll in charge.
Cooper’s team leader once again is junior guard Haylee Noel, who was named most valuable player in last year’s region tournament. Notre Dame has a first-year starter, Sarah Young, entering the game with team-high averages of 13 points and 11.3 rebounds.
“Right away, I knew that she was going to be a good contributor for sure,” coach Stoll said of Young, a 6-foot-1 center who impressed the Pandas’ new coach during preseason practice.
“She does well on both ends (of the court). She’s a very good communicator on defense, too, and that doesn’t show up in the stat column.”
In a win over Holy Cross last week, Young had 17 points, 14 rebounds and four blocked shots. She was 8 of 9 from the field in that game and comes into the showdown with Cooper shooting 58.6 percent (17 of 29) with four 3-point goals.
“It’s 100 percent my teammates,” Young said of her success on offense. “They’re so good at driving and finding me it makes my job really easy. All I’ve got to do it get in the paint, they funnel the offense to me and I just have to hit the shots.”
Young said she didn’t start playing basketball until her freshman year. In her first two seasons, she saw action in 30 varsity games off the bench and had career averages of 2.6 points and 1.9 rebounds. Her debut as a varsity starter has gone much better so far.
“It’s fun, but all the credit goes to my team,” she said. “They’re the ones that have helped and really gotten me to where I am now.”
Cooper has four starters returning from last season’s 26-6 team that made it to the quarterfinals of the state tournament. The veterans include senior Addyson Brissey and juniors Alivia Scott, Brinkli Rankin and Noel, who has team-high averages of 18.7 points and 7.7 rebounds.
Cooper senior finishes races among nation’s top runners
Paul Van Laningham proved that he’s one of the premier high school cross country runners in the United States by placing sixth and ninth in two national championship meets during the month of December.
The Cooper senior finished sixth in the Brooks XC Championships on Saturday in San Diego. He completed that 5K course in 15:27, which was 17 seconds behind first-place finisher Jackson Spencer of Utah. The field included 50 runners from region qualifying meets across the country.
One week earlier, Laningham came in ninth among 100 region qualifiers at the Nike NXN Championships in Portland, Ore. His finish time there was 15:17 and the winning runner was Spencer in 15:01.
In Kentucky high school cross country meets this fall, Van Laningham recorded the state’s fastest time of the season (14:39.50). He later won the Class 3A boys state meet in 15:01.12, eclipsing the course record (15:19.87) that he set the previous year.
The University of Wisconsin recruit is the first Northern Kentucky cross country runner to win the Class 3A boys state title twice.
Villa Madonna retires record-holder’s basketball jersey
The Villa Madonna boys basketball team retired the No. 32 jersey worn by 2024 graduate Henry Thole during Monday’s game against Bellevue.
Thole is the team’s all-time leader in rebounds (1,041) and ranks second in points scored (1,571). He also set the Vikings’ single-game scoring record with 50 points.
In his senior season, the 6-foot-7 center averaged 17.8 points, 15.4 rebounds and shot 52.2 percent from the field. He was named Division III Player of the Year by local coaches.
Thole is now in his second season with the Xavier University men’s basketball team as a walk-on.