Team of the week: Dunbar – The Bulldogs game out of the gates strong with 3 impressive wins to start the year. By beating Woodford County, Bryan Station and Madison Academy out of Alabama handily, the PLD Bulldogs have already started to distance themselves from the rest of the 11th. With road games at Lafayette and Lex Cath on the schedule this week, Dunbar should have 2 great tests ahead of them.
Player of the week: Taveion Hollingsworth, Dunbar – The main reason that PLD is off to their strong start, Tay scored 29.7 PPG on 59.6% shooting along with 7.3 RPG. His huge week was capped off by receiving his first scholarship offer, this one coming from EKU. If he continues to put up these types of numbers, he’ll have more offers coming in the very near future.
Team Rankings (Last week’s ranking in parentheses)
1. Dunbar (2) – For all the reasons listed above, they ascend to the title of #1 team in the 11th region.
2. Henry Clay (4) – They jump Lafayette to #2 based on the quality of their win over Holmes. Games this week against Bryan Station, Louisville Eastern and Owen County should all be good tests to see just how good this group of Blue Devils can be.
3. Lafayette (3) – After starting 2-0, the Generals will face #1 Dunbar, Grant County and 12th region power Wayne County over the next 6 days. If they come out of that week at 5-0, they may be our new #1 team.
4. Lexington Christian (6) – The only other 3-0 team in the region, LCA capped their best start in recent memory by coming back to beat Madison Central at North Laurel. With Tates Creek and Scott County on the schedule this week, the Eagles could easily be 5-0 when next week’s rankings come out.
5. Bryan Station (1) – The final score of their game with Dunbar is surprising but they had to do battle without our preseason #1 player in the region, DeAndre Dishman. They bounced back and beat perennial powerhouse Ballard by 5 on Saturday. Don’t look for the Defenders to stay this low in the rankings for long.
6. Lexington Catholic (5) – Double figure wins over Fleming County and Model are great but they failed their first true test of the young season when they dropped a close game to Newport Central Catholic on Saturday. If they can beat Dunbar and Scott County this week, they’ll start to climb back up the rankings.
7. Scott County (9) – The young Cardinals won 3 of their 4 games this week, only dropping a close one to Montgomery County. Starting 3 freshmen and often playing 4-5 9th graders at a time, this group will only get better as the year moves along. 4 more games this week will give these kids ample opportunity to improve and notch some quality wins.
8. Frankfort (10) – Won their only game of the opening week by 16 over Garrard County. It remains to be seen how good these Panthers can be, but the rest of the 11th is a dumpster fire at this point so Frankfort moves up by default.
9. Madison Central (8) – The Indians opened the season 1-2 but should have beaten LCA on Saturday. They blew a double digit lead in less time than you’ve taken to read this far down the list. They have 3 more opportunities this week as they face GRC, Male and Montgomery County.
10. Madison Southern (7) – The bottom of the region is awful right now. Model, Western Hills, Sayre, Tates Creek, Woodford, Franklin Co and Madison Southern are a combined 1-16 right now. Having said that, Southern lost 2 close ones last week and are probably the least bad of the bad teams. Plus, you can’t have a top 10 with only 9 teams.
Standout Individual performers:
Tre King, LCA – 3 big statistical games and 3 wins for his team to start this young season. Finally showing the 20/12 kid he can be, if Tre keeps this up, he can help carry his young LCA team to a much better year than many projected.
Isaiah Tisdale, Henry Clay – Had a big game in the win over Holmes. Continues to ride the wave of momentum that started about this time last year.
Cooper Robb, Scott County – On a freshman laden team, this sophomore went for 30 points early in the week and helped lead the Cardinals to a 3-1 start to the year.
J
ordan Lewis, Dunbar – Averaging nearly 15 points and 6 rebounds from the PG spot, the man they call J-Lew helped spur on the Bulldogs to their hot start. He also had a nice alley oop dunk. The little guy can get up.
Ross Jenkins, Lafayette – The biggest General of them all, Ross went for 21 and 14 in the win over Lincoln County and helped Lafayette to a 2-0 start.