Girls' Sweet Sixteen: Male never trails in high-scoring bout with Henderson County

BOWLING GREEN — In the second-highest scoring game in tourney history, Male upended Henderson County 86-81 in Friday's quarterfinals of the Houchens Industries/KHSAA Girls' Sweet Sixteen.

The 167 combined points are second on the all-time list to the 170 in Iroquois' 98-72 win over Knott County Central in 2005.

Taylor Jackson led the Bulldogs (26-4) with 18 points. I'Liyah Green turned in a double-double of 16 points and 13 rebounds. Then came Emilia Sexton with 12 points and India Green with 10.

Male will take a seven-game winning streak into Saturday's semifinals in E.A. Diddle Arena, where it will face Covington Holy Cross.

Henderson dealt Male a 47-28 defeat on Jan. 30 in the LIT, but Friday's game had little resemblance to that day.

"We scored 28 points in that game. Tonight we came out and scored 28 in the first quarter," Male Coach Champ Ligon said. "If that's not a credit to these young ladies, I don't know what is.

"We went back and looked at the tape and we practiced for this moment, and the girls executed under pressure. What a tremendous job."

Male, which had 35 turnovers in a first-round win over Mercy, cut that to 18 against Henderson's pressure defense.

"The way they play defense kind of feeds into our style if we can handle the pressure," Ligon said. "The first time we played them we didn't handle the pressure. Tonight we got the ball in quick, we got it down the floor, we got it to our players in the middle and we were just able to take them out of (their defense)."

Henderson (28-3) had an eight-game winning streak snapped.

The Lady Colonels' Maci Brown, who scored 26 points, set a Sweet Sixteen record by dropping in eight three-pointers in 14 tries. DeAsia Outlaw totaled 25 points, eight rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks.

Male scored the first six points and never trailed.

The Bulldogs led by as many as 15 in the second quarter and were up 48-38 at halftime.

Henderson clawed back, with a Brown three-pointer cutting the deficit to 81-79 with 1:17 left.

Male scored the next five points, though, to put the game in hand.

"I'm proud of our kids for fighting back," Henderson Coach Jeff Haile said. "We kind of got behind early in the ball game. I can't say we weren't ready to play, but we sure didn't look like it to start the ball game. They did a great job, Louisville Male, give them credit. They handled our pressure really well at the beginning of the ball game. ... They were getting some layups and some good, clean looks on us."

Mason County 52, Johnson Central 34: The Royals fell into a 6-0 hole before righting things and finding their way into Saturday's semifinals.

"The first quarter we came out kind of sluggish, didn't pick up defensively and kind of got down," Coach Piper Lindsey said. "Four or five weeks ago, this probably wouldn't have happened — these girls have grown up so much. They turned it around very quickly.

"We were able to come away with a lead in the first quarter. ... I'm just super proud of the girls for sticking with it, believing in each other and never giving up."

The Royals (23-11), winning their ninth in a row, were led by Jordan Frodge with 17 points.

Briana McNutt notched 10 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two steals.

Mason County finished 15 of 18 from the foul line.

"We had a really difficult time with their defensive pressure," said Darrin Rice, coach of Johnson Central (22-12). "I thought that was the story of the game in a nutshell."

Johnson Central shot just 27.9 percent, going 12 of 43.

Ali May led the Eagles with 10 points.

Allen County-Scottsville 39, Graves County 36: Allen County-Scottsville rallied with the final four points of the game to edge Graves County.

University of Kentucky signee Morgan Rich led the winners with 13 points, despite struggling all night. Rich finished 3-for-13 from the field, missing all three of her three-point attempts, but dropped in seven of eight free throws and grabbed six rebounds. She also blocked four shots.

Holly Robinson added eight points and eight rebounds.

The Lady Patriots (29-4) will take a seven-game winning streak into Saturday’s 9 p.m. EDT semifinal against Mason County.

Graves (27-6) got 14 points from Bailey Hawkins. Alyssa Barnard had 10 points and nine rebounds.

The Lady Eagles took a 36-35 lead on Hawkins’ three-point play with 1:41 left.

ACS recaptured the lead when Savannah Gregory hit both ends of a one-and-one with 1:28 left.

Graves held the ball until the final seconds, when Hawkins tried to drive to the basket. Rich blocked the shot, grabbed the ball and was fouled with 9.7 seconds left.

Rich made both halves of the one-and-one.

Graves was unable to get off another shot, as an errant pass sailed out of bounds with two-tenths of a second left.

This story was originally published March 13, 2015 at 12:43 PM with the headline "Girls' Sweet Sixteen: Male never trails in high-scoring bout with Henderson County."