LadyHoundsFan

Congratulations to St. Patrick for the win. Paris is a very young team, starting a seventh grader and two freshmen along with a junior and the lone senior on the team. The freshmen have been playing together for several years and won an AAU state championship a few years back with the current coach of the Ladyhounds.

Paris High School has announced that Andwele French will be the new coach leading the Ladyhounds. He has been coaching the Paris Middle School team and won an AAU state championship with girls now playing as 8th and 9th graders at Paris. Terrence Brooks announced his departure from Paris earlier this summer when he took the head coaching position at Berea College.

This tournament is being played at Bracken County Play In Game Monday January 11th - Paris vs. St. Patrick Wednesday Jan. 13th Deming vs Bishop Brossart Nicholas vs Play In Game Winner Thursday Jan 14th Augusta vs Silver Grove Bracken Co. vs Calvary Christian Friday January 15th Deming/BB Winner vs Nicholas/Play in Game Winner Augusat/SG Winner vs Bracken Co/Calvary winner Saturday January 16th Championship Game

Cumberland County has a very good ballclub and entered this game with a 20-2 record. The Lady Hounds defense held the Lady Panthers to their lowest scoring all season just as it did Middlesboro yesterday.

The Paris Lady Hounds defeated the Middlesboro Lady Jackets 33-28 today at the All-A Classic in Richmond. The Lady Hounds advance to play Cumberland County tomorrow in the semi-finals of the tournament. Middlesboro entered the game with a 20-1 record but the Lady Hounds defense held the Lady Jackets to their lowest score all season.

Oops. Make that Paris is the sixth-winningest team in KY girls basketball history. A little gremlin must have typed "fifth" when I intended it to be "sixth."

Bishop Brosart won five All-A 10th region titles in a row from 1997-2001 and also won in 2003 so the the Lady Mustangs have won the region six times. I do not think they ever won in any other region before joining the 10th Region in the 1990's. Paris interrupted the Bishop Brosart string in 2002 by winning the region and has won it consecutively since 2004 giving the Lady Hounds the All-A 10th region championship five years in a row and six of the past seven years. That means the two schools have an equal number of titles and consecutive championships. The Lady Hounds represented the 10th region in the KHSAA Sweet Sixteen four times from 1977-1980 and again in 2004. The Paris team was KSHAA state finalist in the 1977 championship, losing the crown by two points to Laurel County. Beth Wilkerson from Paris was Miss Kentucky Basketball in 1979. Through the 2006-2007 season, Paris High School is the fifth-winningest school in Kentucky girls basketball history with 534 wiins since the 1974 season (the modern era of girls basketball in Kentucky). Bishop Brosart has won one All-A State Championship and also produced one Miss Kentucky Basketball. Both schools have tremendous history in girls basketball to be sure!

The LadyHounds defeated the Lady Cards 41-38 tonight at Clark County.

In the past eleven seasons Bishop Brossart and Paris have combined to win all of the All A regional championships, with Paris winning in five of the past six years. Last season both schools scheduled Mason County as a regular season opponent and Paris has the Lady Royals on its schedule every year. Paris is a tiny school (around 200 students or less in grades 9-12 in most every year) yet without any seniors on its roster and returning very little experience had on its 2006-2007 regular season schedule Lexington Catholic, Lexington Christian, Henry Clay, Harrison County and other much larger schools in Central Kentucky. The Lady Hounds did this while having to compete in district play against Montgomery County, Clark County and Bourbon County, making the 40th District perhaps the toughtest in the entire state last season. I suspect Bishop Brossart plays a schedule of top Northern Kentucky competition every year as well. So perhaps there is a a good reason after all to keep a traditionally strong team like Mason County on the schedule even for an All A school.

Paris looks very solid for next season after winning its fourth consecutive All-A regional championshiop and fifth in the past six years. The Lady Hounds advanced to the semi-finals of the All-A state tournament in Richmond this year and should be a favorite to return to EKU next season with the entire team coming back. Strong senior and junior classes will lead Paris next year, including arguably the best upcoming junior in the region, Emily Hinkson. Other than Mason County and Harrison County, Paris has tended recently not to play during the regular season against 10th Region teams except those in the 40th District, playing instead teams from larger schools in the Lexington area and statewide competition in holiday tournaments. In its matchups against other 10th Region All-A teams this past season, Paris won handily over Deming, Augusta and St. Patrick but had a close game with Bishop Brosart in the finals for the All-A regional championship. Perhaps I will get to see the younger players from Nicholas County and Bracken County next season but I do know that Paris should have a very strong seventh grade team next year, most of the players having played AAU together for the past three seasons, including a state championship in 2006.

Paris will return all of its players next season and hopefully will see the return of one of its post/forward players who sat out the whole season with an injury. This past season was a rebuilding year for a team which basically lost all of its starters from the season before. The Lady Hounds look to win their fifth consecutive All-A Classic 10th Region championship and sixth in seven years next season and should be a heavy favorite for that regional championship with Bishop Brossart losing many players to graduation. The Lady Hounds advanced to the All-A Classic semi-finals in Richmond this past season. Keep an eye on the middle school class that is developing at Paris now. The sixth grade group this past season was a big contributor to a seventh grade squad which had only a couple of true seventh graders. That team went undefeated except for one loss by two points to Lexington Catholic which the the young Lady Hounds avenged later in the season. That same sixth grade group has been the nucleus of an AAU team that was state champion last season (Division II-school teams) and state runner-up the season before in the state-wide division. That team has won every tournament is has played in Kentucky this season and, this past week, the Paris AAU team finally beat its rival team from Lexington after three years of never being able to topple that team composed of all-star talent from across Lexington and Central Kentucky. A real interesting rivalry has developed the past two seasons between the Paris and Mason County sixth grade squads with Paris having won every tournament in which it and Mason County have competed together. The Lady Hounds and Lady Royals fans have some good high school battles to look forward to in a few seasons with those teams! You can never really anticipate how many children will stick with basketball from sixth grade to high school and it is way to early to make predictions, when considerinig the development of young athlethes, but it sure makes for fun to dream!

I had a feeling of nostalgia recently when looking over a list of past winners and runners-up of boys and girls basketball in the 10th region and thought of all those public schools now lost to consolidation. The consolidated county schools have dominated basketball in the tenth region (and I suppose elsewhere in most of rural Kentucky) since the mid 1960's. But before then there were serveral boys championships won by Brooksville, Cynthiana, Paris and Maysville. Even after the consolidations of the 1950s and 1960s, Maysville and Paris frequently made it to the regional championships and both sent boys teams to the Sweet Sixteen in the 1970s and 1980s. Since girls basketball was revived in the mid 1970s Paris has won five regional titles and its last boys regional title was in 1970. Looking over the list of small schools in the region who compete for the All-A Classic championship, the only public schools which remain independent of a consolidated county system appear to be Paris and Augusta (traditional 10th region schools) and Silver Grove in Campbell County. As a fan of 10th region basketball for the past forty years, I would miss the participation of Paris and Augusta if they were lost in the way I miss Maysville but cannot help but wonder how consolidation, particularly of Paris and Bourbon County, would impact basketball in the region. I have children at Paris and a daughter who now plays middle school basketball and enjoy seeing her in a Lady Hounds uniform. It surprises me that tiny Paris is still there, but for sure the Lady Hounds remain competitive in the region. Here is to the memory of all the schools lost to consolidation.

Paris and Newport Central Catholic play tomorrow morning at 9:00.

I admit to knowing next to nothing about the fine team from Paintsville, but if Paris survives that first round contest, the Ladyhounds and Raceland could meet in the second round. Paris has also defeated Rose Hill, beating that team 70-61 in early December. Paris is a young team with no seniors and experienced graduation of many starters and reserves off their team from a year ago. Paris played Lexington Christian Academy competitively earlier this month, losing by 13. While the Ladyhounds have been inconsistent this season, they have had several impressive outings. Paris has seven losses but those include two defeats to 10th region power Montgomery County and losses to Henry Clay, Lexington Christian and Clark County. But the same team won its second contest with Clark County and has wins over Bourbon County, Harrison County and Bishop Brossart. It seems you never know what to expect from this young team, but it clearly can compete. Best of luck to all the teams at the All-A and go Ladyhounds!