The 13th District Basketball Tournament begins tonight with the top seed in both genders—which happens to be Franklin-Simpson in both divisions—taking on the number 4 seeds, the Russellville Lady Panthers and the Logan County Cougars.
The tournament is being held at Todd Central with the girls game tipping off at 6 p.m. All action throughout the week involving Russellville and Logan County teams will be carried live on WRUS.
Lady Panthers vs. Lady Kats
The Lady Panthers fieldan experienced team. Seniors A’miyah Collier, Jaylah Kees and Brinley Mason have been regulars for five years. Sophomore sensation LaReesha Cawthorn is in her third year of playing regularly, and she is averaging a high double-double on the season.
Two factors have made this season more challenging for RHS. First, Kees has been hobbled all year with ankle injuries. Second, the girls are once again having to adjust to a new coach. They have learned the systems of four new head coaches in four years and five in six years. They seem to be comfortable with their current coach, Orlando Hayden, who brought experience coaching girls basketball with him to Jim Young Gymnasium
Russellville’s number four seeding is also deceptive. RHS has the same 2-4 district record as Logan County and Todd Central and has split pairs of games with both of them. They also came within seconds of beating both Franklin and Todd Central before losing late in the season. But a schedule that was somewhat easier than the ones the Lady Cougars and Lady Rebels played causes the Lady Panthers to lose tiebreakers based on the Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s RPI ratings.
Coach Ashley Taylor’s Lady Kats are 17-9 overall and 14-4 in the region. RHS is 13-14 overall and 4-9 in the region. The RPI’s make Franklin a 10-point favorite tonight.
Lackluster free throw and three-point shooting have plagued the Lady Panthers all season, They have managed only 51.4 percent accuracy at the line and a frigid 19.2 percent from long range. Mason is the only three-point shooter over 25 percent, Cawthorn is hitting 63.7 percent of her free throws and Collier 55 percent, but the rest of the team is a cumulative below .500 at the foul line.
Cawthorn, a second-team all-area honoree, is averaging 17.6 points and 13 rebounds per game. Collier is scoring at a 13.9 clip and Mason 7.3.
Jordin Morris gives the team some rugged play at center, and freshman Ja’eda Poindexter brings a lot of energy to the action.
Franklin is a highly experienced team, but they lost the most veteran player of the group, five-year starter Hadley Turner, to a knee injury 15 games into the season. She was averaging 8.3 points and 6.3 rebounds plus being a calming influence.
Their best player is senior Lee Lee Partinger, who is averaging 10 points and 3.2 rebounds. She is second-team all-area, too. The other seniors are starter Ashanti Johnson and key reserve Jakaya Warfield.
Katelyn McAlister is second in scoring at 8.2 points a game, primarily because she has hit 26 three-pointers for almost 40 percent. Jasmine Savage is also a dangerous long-range shooter, as the Lady Panthers discovered at the end of the game at Franklin in a three-point Franklin victory.
The Lady Kats struggle at the line, too, at 51.6 percent. Turner was hitting three-fourths of her free throws, but the players still able to hit the court are unable to hit half their fouls shots as a group.
Cougars vs. Wildcats
Franklin-Simpson has defeated the Cougars by two lopsided scores this season, and the Kentucky High School Athletic Association makes Coach Dee Spencer’s Wildcats a 16-point favorite tonight.’
Franklin is 16-9 on the season and 13-6 in the Fourth Region. Logan is 9-21 overal1 and 1-14 in the region. The Cougars have lost 15 of their last 19 games, but during that streak Coach Josh Frick’s team forced Todd Central into an overtime and lost one game by a point and another by two. They have definitely improved during the season.
The Cougars have a balanced scoring attack. Kade Wall is averaging 9.7 points per game, Colby Collins and Jack Delaney 8.9 each, Zane Batten 7.4, Brady Hinton 6.9 and Evan Campbell 5.5.
Batten is the rebound leader at 5.3 boards per game with Campbell at 4.4 and Hinton 4.0. The team is shooting 64.5 percent from the free throw line and hitting 11.4 foul shots a game.
The Cougars are hitting 31.2 percent of their three-point attempts. Collins is a volume long-range shooter; he’s hit a third of his 228 shots beyond the circle. Delaney’s percentage is 34.7 on 17 of 43. Wall is at 32.4 percent and has hit 23 of them. Hinton has hit 15 for 31.9 percent. The Cougars average hitting 4.9 threes a game.
Jalen Brisco leads the Cats with averages of 17 points and 6.9 rebounds. DeMarco Hogan scores 15 and grabs 3.8 rebounds. Gabe Jones scores 10.4 points an outing.
F-S makes 72 percent of its free throw attempts and gets 12 of them to fall in a typical game. They are hitting 31.3 percent from long range and make 5.6 of those shots an outing. O.J. Gamble, Hogan, Jones, Gavin Dickinson and Sam Mylor are all hitting 30 percent or better from three-point range.