By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
The problem for this Lloyd Memorial boys’ basketball team – and there is one — is how teams respond to a lineup featuring two Division I players.
Like the way Campbell County did Thursday in Alexandria in presenting Coach Aric Russell, his school record 272nd win.
“You go harder,” said Aydan Hamilton, the Camels’ tallest player at 6-foot-5 who will move on to the University of Kentucky on a baseball scholarship after the rangy shortstop and No. 3 hitter led the Camels to a regional championship last spring.
But on this night, he crashed the boards – one of 10 Camels who contributed to their 26 rebounds – while leading all scorers with 21 points as Campbell County pulled away in the second half for a 68-49 win, improving the winners to 10-7.
“When you have guys like they do (Lloyd 6-3 senior guard Jeremiah Israel, who has signed with NKU, and 6-7 sophomore EJ Walker, who has a handful of Division I programs who have already offered him) who can jump like they can, you have to box out.”
But mostly you have to play hard.
“We didn’t do that against Mason County (a 77-73 Tuesday loss to one of the top two – with George Rogers Clark – teams in the 10th Region),” Hamilton said. “This is the best we’ve moved the ball all year.”
For a Lloyd team that looked a bit disinterested at times and fell to 7-5, Walker had 17 points, mostly from the outside on jumpers, and Israel, who lined up as a wing, 16.
Now we know that last year’s Lloyd seniors may have been a bit unheralded from a 22-8 Juggernaut team, but they are really missed.
Seldom does a Northern Kentucky team have a single Division I basketball player, much less two. But as the Juggs are proving, there are no guarantees.
“I’m happy we were able to do it,” Russell said, talking more about how well “they executed our game plan,” than his getting the record, which eclipsed that of L.E. Woolum from the early days of the Alexandria school’s program.
After 13 years at Newport and now in his 25th year coaching with a dozen at his alma mater where he played for Bob Jones, Russell has somewhere in the neighborhood of 430 wins in all, he figures, although he’s not sure. That’s not quite the 460 that Kenney Shields finished with for the record that St. Henry’s Dave Faust is approaching, but it is more than 17 wins a year.
And his team is building toward the tournament, Russell says of the challenge in the 10th Region.
Games like this help, says Hamilton. “When you play tough competition – and the Ninth Region is loaded – when it comes tournament time, you’ll be ready.”
Hamilton had plenty of help in this one as fellow senior Jake Gross knocked down four threes, thanks to the ability of sophomore guard Garyn Jackson to penetrate and dish it to Hamilton or Gross.
Also in the mix was sophomore Jaidan Combs, who beat the Juggs down the floor for 13 points.
“Garyn’s good at hitting the open man,” Hamilton said. As for Gross, “if I’m getting face-guarded, we can get it to him.”
Not that it took extraordinary efforts in this one. After a 10-10 first quarter, the Camels got it going in a 21-point second quarter with Hamilton scoring the first seven in 2:05.
But it was a 17-7 edge in the third when not only the offense was firing but the defense took Lloyd out of any kind of offense.
The result was a 21-5 run over the last two minutes of the first half and first six minutes of the second half that had Campbell County up 45-33.
For the game, the red-hot Camels hit on 59.1 percent of their field goal attempts (26 of 44) including nine of 17 from three-point range (52.9 percent).
BOX SCORE
LLOYD MEMORIAL 10 /18 7 14 – 49
CAMPBELL COUNTY 10 21 17 20 – 68
LLOYD MEMORIAL (7-5): Collins 5, Cooley 2, Israel 16, King 5, Sebastian 4, Walker 17: TOTAL 49.
CAMPBELL COUNTY (10-7): Combs 13, Gross 16, Hamilton 21, Jackson 2, Smith 5, Sorgenfrei 3, Weinel 8: TOTAL 68.
Photos by Dale Dawn
