Well, the regular season is over and the district tournaments are ready to kickoff. Pulaski County, Lincoln County, and Boyle County all look poised for deep runs but they don’t necessarily have cake walks into the regional tournament. We look at the week in review, some of the amazing individual performances for the year, and ahead to the district tournaments. 

Team Rankings 

1. Pulaski County – The Maroons end the regular season 26 – 2 and fell for the first time to a regional opponent in their regular season finale against Boyle County. Their week also included a win over Mercer County. Gavin Stevens, Zach Travis, and Cayden Lancaster all finish at 14.9 points per game or above.  

2. Lincoln County – The Patriots fell to Lexington Catholic by 1 on the road and soundly defeated Casey County at home. Colton Ralston, Jaxon Smith Tramane Alcorn, and Evan Smith all averaged 11.7 points per game or above. 

3. Boyle County – The Rebels finish the year third in this poll and but the difference between them and Lincoln County is razor thin and it is exceptionally close between all of the top three teams. They finish the regular season in hot fashion with wins over Wayne County, Danville Christian, and the mighty Maroons of Pulaski. Luke Imfeld finishes the year with 21.2 points per game. 

4. Rockcastle County – The Rockets won twice last week as they defeated Wayne County and Russell County, both at home. Daniel Mullins ends the regular season with 18.5 points per game and Jonathan Hopkins and Jake Sanders finish at just a little shy of 12 points per game. 

5. West Jessamine – The Colts fell to Dunbar but bounced back with a convincing win over Garrard County. Gavin Salva’s absence has certainly taken its toll on West. Daniel Waters, Drew Marshall and Brett Bush have picked up the slack though, all ending the regular season with double figure averages. 

6.  McCreary Central – The Raiders finished with wins over Casey County and Danville Christian. Kyle Stephens finishes the regular season with 19.5 points per game.  

7.  Danville Christian – Danville Christian lost their last two games in close fashion to Boyle County and McCreary County, the difference in both being in the single digits. Xavier Oduor finishes with 16.4 points per game and Titus Boyd had 13. 

8.  Wayne County – The Cardinals fell to Boyle County, Rockcastle County, and Lexington Catholic before defeating Garrard County. Kendall Phillips and Mason Burchett both finish with scoring averages above 16.9 per game. 

9. Danville – The Ads defeated Russell County, Somerset, and East Jessamine.  Dante Hayden, Jalen Dunn and Jarius Bryant all finished the regular season with double digit scoring averages. 

10.  Garrard County – The Golden Lions got a one point win over Somerset before falling to West Jessamine and Wayne County. Ethan Cooper and Motavin Quiesenberry both finished with over 18 points per game.  

11.  Mercer County  - The Titans fell to mighty Pulaski County but defeated Somerset Christian and Southwestern. Seth Caton finishes the year with 11.8 points per game. 

12. Somerset – The Briar Jumpers finish the regular season on a three game skid as they fell to Garrard County, Adair County, and Danville. Indred Whitaker finishes the regular season with 14.4 points per game. 

13.  Casey County – The Rebels fell to McCreary Central and Lincoln County before ending the regular season with a win over Pineville. Ethan Willoughby finishes the year with a scoring average nearing 23 points per game.  

14. Southwestern – The Warriors fell to Corbin and Mercer County. Eli Meece and Andrew Jones finish the year both at 13.9 points per game scoring.  

15. Somerset Christian – The Cougars snapped their losing streak with a win in their season finale (they do not compete in the KHSAA playoffs) over Foundation Christian Academy. Luke Atwood, Noah Brummett and Braydon Moore all finished the year with double digit scoring averages.  

16.  East Jessamine – The Jaguars had a rough regular season and finished it with losses to Montgomery County and Danville. Turner Shouse led them in scoring this year with 9.5 points per game.  

17.  Burgin – The Bulldogs ended their year with losses to Thomas Nelson, Powell County and Green County. John Boursaw and Jacob Qualls both finished the regular season with double digit scoring averages. 

45^th District Tournament – This is the wild one. Lincoln County and Boyle County are the obvious favorites but Lincoln must survive the one-two punch of Garrard County’s Quisenberry and Cooper and Danville and Danville Christian get to play to have a chance at upsetting Boyle County. Danville versus DCA may be the best 4 versus 5 game in the state. 

46^th District Tournament – West Jessamine should have its way with Burgin to make the district finals and the regional tournament. The other semifinal should be closer but Mercer still clearly has the edge over East Jessamine. 

47^th District Tournament – Pulaski County should defeat Casey County to make the district finals and Rockcastle County has the advantage over Somerset. That being said, Somerset did perform much better against the Rockets the second time around so a Briar Jumper win is not out of the question. 

48^th District Tournament – One of the few three team districts around the state, Wayne County already has a ticket to the regional tournament. McCreary Central should dispatch Southwestern to earn theirs. 

Regional Champ should be one of the top three but that’s what is so exciting about tournament time. Who is going to get waxed from the tourney first. Seems there is always someone who gets upset. Hoping the Ads good luck as they kick the drive off tonight against DCA. Feel like Danville can give Boyle a game  at home if we can slip past Warriors.

1 hour ago, RimRacker said:

Regional Champ should be one of the top three but that’s what is so exciting about tournament time. Who is going to get waxed from the tourney first. Seems there is always someone who gets upset. Hoping the Ads good luck as they kick the drive off tonight against DCA. Feel like Danville can give Boyle a game  at home if we can slip past Warriors.

That’s a great 4/5 game tonight in the 45th.  

When might the districts in this region realign?  Seems nuts that the 45th has five teams but the 48th has three.  Any discussions of this on the horizon?

14 minutes ago, DanvilleFan said:

When might the districts in this region realign?  Seems nuts that the 45th has five teams but the 48th has three.  Any discussions of this on the horizon?

Somerset Christian becomes official in the 48th next season, I believe. As with all of the new religious-based schools, the question is can they maintain a program and regularly play or will they drop out of the KHSAA? If they stay, and unless there is a statewide realignment, I don’t foresee any 12th Region changes.

1 hour ago, gchs_uk9 said:

Somerset Christian becomes official in the 48th next season, I believe. As with all of the new religious-based schools, the question is can they maintain a program and regularly play or will they drop out of the KHSAA? If they stay, and unless there is a statewide realignment, I don’t foresee any 12th Region changes.

I think Somerset Christian and Danville Christian have very stable programs. Like, and no offense to Burgin they are just super tiny, but Burgin is more likely to not have a team before the Christian academies. 
 

I think the fact that the city of Somerset will have 4 teams in the region next year and they aren’t in the same district is bonkers though. I would love to see that fixed. 
 

Also, is there another region where the extremes in terms of distance between school are 1 hour and 45 minutes? That is roughly the drive time from either Jessamine school to either Wayne County or McCreary Central. 

23 minutes ago, se7ens said:

I think Somerset Christian and Danville Christian have very stable programs.

I think so, too. But with the addition of numerous private schools over the last couple of seasons, I'm guessing the KHSAA will take a wait-and-see approach to the stability of all new programs (not necessarily DCA or Somerset Christian) before making any wholesale realignment moves.

25 minutes ago, se7ens said:

Also, is there another region where the extremes in terms of distance between school are 1 hour and 45 minutes? That is roughly the drive time from either Jessamine school to either Wayne County or McCreary Central. 

Not many, but there are two that come to mind:

• 4th Region - 2 hours, 30 minutes from Todd County Central to Clinton County
• 10th Region - 1 hour, 40 minutes from Campbell County to Montgomery County