Mental mistakes come back to haunt Simon Kenton girls’ basketball team in season-ending loss

Simon Kenton girls’ basketball coach Jeff Stowers said his team did not play hard enough or smart enough in a season-ending 51-49 loss to Franklin County during the quarterfinal round of the St. Elizabeth Healthcare/KHSAA state tournament on Friday at BB&T Arena.

Mental mistakes were particularly frustrating to the veteran coach. He said the players didn’t do the “little things” that they’ve been working on in practice all season.

“And all of those little things add up when you get to a game of this magnitude,” Stowers said. “If you don’t block out (on rebounds) and you’re not where you’re supposed to be on defense — like we preached all year long and preached three or four times before the game — if you don’t do the little things, this is what happens.”

Simon Kenton had a chance to win the game despite those mistakes. With 12 seconds left on the clock, the Pioneers tied the score, 49-49, on a basket by senior center Madi Meier. But Franklin County junior guard Kindall Talley raced up the court and drew a foul driving to the basket with four seconds left.

After Talley made both free throws to put her team on top, Simon Kenton junior guard Ally Niece took the inbound pass and dribbled past defenders to get off a 3-point shot, but the ball hit off the rim as the final horn sounded.

Fate has been smiling on Franklin County this week. The Flyers won a first-round game against Russell County, 72-67, in triple overtime on Thursday before beating Simon Kenton on Talley’s two free throws in the final seconds.

“She’s a gamer,” Franklin County coach Joey Thacker said of Talley. “She went through a little slump in our regional tournament, but I kept telling her, ‘You’re going to make a big one for us,’ and she did.”

Franklin County advances to the semifinals and plays Holmes at 8 p.m. Saturday. The winner of that game will be in the championship final at 2 p.m. Sunday.

Simon Kenton shot 47.6 percent (20 of 42) from the field compared to Franklin County’s 34.9 percent (15 of 43). But the Flyers had a 18-9 scoring advantage from behind the 3-point line and got 11 second-chance points following offensive rebounds. The second statistic seemed to bother coach Stowers the most.

“We had opportunities to rebound the basketball and we didn’t rebound the basketball,” he said. “I can think of three or four possessions and late in the game we miss a block out and their girl just comes in and gets it. It’s little things, and they add up in a game like this. You can preach it, but they need to do it. And if they don’t do it, you go home.”

Niece scored a game-high 22 points for Simon Kenton and was named to the state all-tournament team. She picked up her fourth foul with 3:06 left in the third quarter, but she stayed on the court and got eight points in the final eight minutes.

“It was definitely difficult, and it was really my bad for getting into foul trouble early,” Niece said. “But you can’t change the calls and you just have to play through it.”

The other double-figure scorer for Simon Kenton was junior guard Bailee Harney with 11 points. She made a driving layup at the end of the third quarter to give the Pioneers a 36-34 lead. In the fourth quarter, she nailed a 3-pointer that put her team on top, 45-44, with 3:33 left on the clock.

The lead changed hands three more times in the final minutes. After Niece made a pair of free throws to put the Pioneers ahead, 47-46, with 1:22 remaining, Franklin County let the clock run down to 48 seconds before calling a timeout. When play resumed, Talley got open for a 3-point shot and swished it. That gave her team a 49-47 lead and set the stage for another dramatic ending.

“Our kids just know how to win,” coach Thacker said. “I’m real proud of all of them.”

SIMON KENTON  12  13  12  13  — 49
FRANKLIN CO.     11   12  11  17  — 51