Highlands 39 Notre Dame 37 (9th Region Round 1)

[Runcible Owl]

H 🐼 Final at NKU's Truist Arena via @859Radio livestream and the update thread. 

bluegrasspreps.com/highlands-vs-notre-dame-updates-9th-region-round-1

🔵 Congratulations Bluebirds, well played! 

Thank you for the assist on updates @FrankNicodemus. Looks like Massey's "trending" prediction for the game was a good one. 

The PaNDA's end their season with a 20-10 record (8-5 in Region 9).

The Bluebirds are now 22-8 (11-4 R9). Highlands advances to the 6:30 Friday semifinal vs. Dixie Heights/Ryle.

📝 Final stats from Evan Dennison ~

[theguru]

Great game to get the 9th Region started with. 

[RedHawk]

Wow! What a game. 2 great groups of athletes! 

[FrankNicodemus]

Boy what a great game to start out the tournament.  I didn't realize it had been since Jan 2021 (why? might be another thread LOL) since these 2 teams squared off against each other.  

The Birds came out cold to start the game, I don't think they finally hit a basket until Macke nailed a 3 with maybe 1 or 2 minutes left in the 1st quarter.  NDA played the early 80's Tony Yates ball, slowing the game down eating a ton of clock then methodically getting a shot off after a minute or so.

Luckily the 2nd quarter the Birds finally saw the ball go thru the net and got some momentum going, which got them to go to the locker room at Halftime up 15-12 feeling pretty good, especially after coming out flat to start the game.

To start the 3rd quarter you saw #1 from NDA I think nail 3 straight 3's to allow the Pandas to take the lead.  Birds also luckily was matching the 3 effort by the likes of Barber, Mills and Orme to keep pace with the Pandas hot hand....Birds held on by 1 after 3, 26-25.

4th quarter was just another slugfest of a quarter, I noticed that Sophia Gibson going into the 4th had I think 3 fouls, thought they might go to Green down low and see if they can get Gibson out of the game.  It worked with around 2 min left Gibson got her 5th foul to exit the game.  I think it was her 5th that put Green on the line to knock down both of her FTs to take a 1 point lead with maybe 90 seconds left.  NDA goes down and gets a foul to go to the line making 1 of 2 to tie it up 37 - 37.  Then the Birds pulled the 4 corner stall game for the last shot or we thought, with around 8 seconds left we got in some trouble getting trapped at the top of the key Richey quickly calls a timeout to bail out the situation the Birds were in.  Coming out of the timeout it seemed like it was Green's game to win or go into OT, she gets the ball dribbles to the free throw line turns and drains the jumper!!!  Crowd goes NUTS!  NDA quickly calls timeout to set up the hail mary play, which got to the mid court and the desperation shot falls short.  Birds win, Birds win, Birds win!!!!

My stat of the game was Marissa Green going 7 of 10 from the line.  If my memory serves me correctly (which I might be wrong) but I think she missed her first 2 free throws of the game, which means after that she hit 7 of 8 the rest of the way.  Why this is huge?  Marissa for the season is just a 53.7% FT shooter, she doesn't go 7 of 10, Birds don't win in my opinion......Big time player coming up BIG TIME!!!!

#GO BIRDS!!!!

[FrankNicodemus]

Game winning shot by Marissa

photo credit: Bob Jackson

[1992Rebel]

Great game to watch. Congrats to Highlands.  Pandas end a good season but I’m sure they are disappointed with the way it all ended. 
 

congrats to Senior Kendra Collins on a fantastic career. She will be missed. 

[The Double Deuce]

No one better than Bob Jackson!!

[Emmitt22]

1 hour ago, 1992Rebel said:

Great game to watch. Congrats to Highlands.  Pandas end a good season but I’m sure they are disappointed with the way it all ended. 
 

congrats to Senior Kendra Collins on a fantastic career. She will be missed. 

Kendra deserves a ton of credit!   Great kid with a bright future.  

[Brennan_Bucher]

What a game to start the 9th Region Tournament. Great way to begin a great week of basketball. 

 

To Relive this great game, plus the first Post Game Interview given by Coach Jaimie Richey, check out this link, and scroll down to find, "GBBvsNDA(9thRegionQuarterFinals)" to listen in!  

 

https://www.bluebirdsradio.com/highlands-sports-radio.html

 

Fantastic Game. Highlands will take on Ryle next Friday at 6:30. As always, the game will be live streamed on bluebirdsradio.com

[UKato91]

Another first round regional exit by Notre Dame.  What's going on there?  There is plenty of talent there year after year, yet it seems that they hardly ever have any seniors on the team.   Why do so many quit the team.   Maybe a topic for another thread.   

[Legacy26]

1 hour ago, UKato91 said:

Another first round regional exit by Notre Dame.  What's going on there?  There is plenty of talent there year after year, yet it seems that they hardly ever have any seniors on the team.   Why do so many quit the team.   Maybe a topic for another thread.   

While I understand the sentiment of your comment, I think it would be better expressed as, “another year for NDA without a regional championship .” Coach Murphy has been at NDA for 6 seasons, he has 2 finals appearances, 2 semifinals and 2 first round exits. This is during a period against generational talent at Ryle and Cooper, although clearly NDAs 2022 team should have done better. There are definitely a lot of reasons why there weren't more seniors the last two season. One is probably that the 2022 team had 7 seniors so that can clog up the pipeline. While every school has their circumstances, it likely does matter that the volleyball and soccer teams have done so well the last 4+ years. I know volleyball took a lot of talent from last years team, and soccer took a very good player this year (Tranter.) To be clear it’s not Coach Murphy or the other coaches that create a single sport dynamic, it’s club volleyball and club soccer. Coach Murphy is very clear that he will work with other NDA sports, but it’s nearly impossible to work around the 9-10 month a year club schedules. Definitely a disappointing season, but I don’t know that it’s a pattern for Coach Murphy over his tenure.

 

 

 

 

 

[UKato91]

26 minutes ago, Legacy26 said:

While I understand the sentiment of your comment, I think it would be better expressed as, “another year for NDA without a regional championship .” Coach Murphy has been at NDA for 6 seasons, he has 2 finals appearances, 2 semifinals and 2 first round exits. This is during a period against generational talent at Ryle and Cooper, although clearly NDAs 2022 team should have done better. There are definitely a lot of reasons why there weren't more seniors the last two season. One is probably that the 2022 team had 7 seniors so that can clog up the pipeline. While every school has their circumstances, it likely does matter that the volleyball and soccer teams have done so well the last 4+ years. I know volleyball took a lot of talent from last years team, and soccer took a very good player this year (Tranter.) To be clear it’s not Coach Murphy or the other coaches that create a single sport dynamic, it’s club volleyball and club soccer. Coach Murphy is very clear that he will work with other NDA sports, but it’s nearly impossible to work around the 9-10 month a year club schedules. Definitely a disappointing season, but I don’t know that it’s a pattern for Coach Murphy over his tenure.

 

I said nothing about Coach Murphy, you did.  I was wondering why there are hardly any seniors on the team. But since you automatically assumed I was I'll say this.   I am quite familiar with that 2022 team.   They were loaded with talent and is the anomaly in the last 6 years.   How many seniors were on the team his first year and the year after that and the year after that? There was one senior in 2023 and one senior this year.  Where are they going and why, when year after year, they have really good freshman teams? 

[Legacy26]

2 hours ago, UKato91 said:

I said nothing about Coach Murphy, you did.  I was wondering why there are hardly any seniors on the team. But since you automatically assumed I was I'll say this.   I am quite familiar with that 2022 team.   They were loaded with talent and is the anomaly in the last 6 years.   How many seniors were on the team his first year and the year after that and the year after that? There was one senior in 2023 and one senior this year.  Where are they going and why, when year after year, they have really good freshman teams? 

Yes, when you look at NDA basketball the last 10 years, you have “pre-coach Murphy” where they lost in the first round of the districts 4 years in a row and had an average record of 12-14, then you have the Coach Murphy tenure where they have won 5 of 6 district titles and performed in the regional tournament in line with what I referenced earlier. As far as the senior numbers go, last year they had 1, that class was a very heavy soccer and volleyball class. This year they had one, there are a few reasons why, but it is player by player. They have 6 juniors on this team, all should be back. They have been successful with freshman teams, but that can be deceiving, none of the really good players from Ryle and Cooper played a minute of freshman basketball. Over half of the kids playing freshman basketball are middle schoolers. Senior numbers the past two years were definitely impacted by club soccer and volleyball. 

[vbtalk]

3 hours ago, Legacy26 said:

To be clear it’s not Coach Murphy or the other coaches that create a single sport dynamic, it’s club volleyball and club soccer. Coach Murphy is very clear that he will work with other NDA sports, but it’s nearly impossible to work around the 9-10 month a year club schedules. 

 

 

 

 

 

To be clear, this is not correct. Nearly every NDA volleyball player plays club for an organization run by Julia Hunt’s Mom. Do you think Julia Hunt’s Mom makes it a point to ostracize multi-sport athletes when her daughter is arguably the best multi sport athlete in the state? My understanding is that NDA basketball players are not allowed to play club volleyball past their freshman year. And let’s not pretend like high school basketball had a succinct schedule confined to a few months, as does high school volleyball. NDA’s volleyball coaches and the clubs where their athletes play in the offseason, all promote and encourage multi-sport athletes. 
I can’t speak for club soccer, but I’ve heard they are a nightmare for kids who want to have a life off the soccer field. Club soccer very well may be an issue, but club volleyball is not. It’s fair to say club volleyball has a demanding schedule and kids don’t want to do both, but it happens every year at other schools. It’s up to the high school coaches to be flexible, understanding, and allow these kids to pursue a college scholarship in a sport other than basketball, while being on the high school team. 

[Legacy26]

40 minutes ago, vbtalk said:

To be clear, this is not correct. Nearly every NDA volleyball player plays club for an organization run by Julia Hunt’s Mom. Do you think Julia Hunt’s Mom makes it a point to ostracize multi-sport athletes when her daughter is arguably the best multi sport athlete in the state? My understanding is that NDA basketball players are not allowed to play club volleyball past their freshman year. And let’s not pretend like high school basketball had a succinct schedule confined to a few months, as does high school volleyball. NDA’s volleyball coaches and the clubs where their athletes play in the offseason, all promote and encourage multi-sport athletes. 
I can’t speak for club soccer, but I’ve heard they are a nightmare for kids who want to have a life off the soccer field. Club soccer very well may be an issue, but club volleyball is not. It’s fair to say club volleyball has a demanding schedule and kids don’t want to do both, but it happens every year at other schools. It’s up to the high school coaches to be flexible, understanding, and allow these kids to pursue a college scholarship in a sport other than basketball, while being on the high school team. 

Yes, I was definitely clunky in my language regarding club volleyball and soccer. I was not intending to imply or state that it was the fault of the clubs in either sport. I was definitely not intending to say that. Just saying that choosing to play highly competitive club sports does create a schedule that can be tough to manage with basketball. That being said, there are absolutely many athletes and high schools that are successful making all of those commitments work.