‘Winchester is a basketball town.’ Why Clark County’s boys and girls are both No. 1.
It’s been two years since George Rogers Clark High School unveiled its glittering new 4,750 seat basketball arena — Feb. 11, 2020, was the date to be precise.
Remember that movie quote? “If you build it ...”
On Feb. 15, 2022, Winchester’s Boonesboro Road court of dreams became home to two No. 1 basketball teams.
Tuesday afternoon, the girls’ team joined the school’s boys’ program on the mountaintop by overtaking Sacred Heart and holding off McCracken County in the in The Associated Press media poll just a few days from the beginning of postseason play.
“It’s always good when your program is getting some recognition,” Clark County girls’ head coach Robbie Graham said. “But, you know, it doesn’t mean anything on the court. It’s good for people to talk about. It’s good for media to talk about, for fans to talk about. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to perform on the court. And we’ve got to be ready to go.”
The boys’ team took over the No. 1 ranking in the AP poll two months ago after a blistering holiday tournament run through some of the top teams in the state.
Having both teams at No. 1 is great for the community, boys’ coach Josh Cook said, because the community has played so much of a part in it.
“Our programs get it,” Cook said. “They want to play at a high level and they work hard. There’s a good support system. There’s good coaches, good assistant coaches, trainers. We have awesome facilities, and we have great town support. ...
“Winchester is a basketball town.”
Versatility a key ingredient for Clark girls
Graham’s Cardinals (25-1) defeated Paul Laurence Dunbar 62-40 Tuesday night.
But the evening did not come without some coachable moments as the Cards let a comfortable first-half lead slip in the second half. That’s not something Graham wanted to see ahead of a big game at No. 6 Notre Dame coming Thursday and their 40th District Tournament next week.
“We just weren’t as sharp as we wanted to be. I think maybe looking ahead a little bit, you know,” Graham said, “It’s a big game for us on Thursday, and the girls know that. We had a war with (Notre Dame) last year and they got us here at home.”
Graham’s team missed last year’s Girls’ Sweet 16 for the first time in four years. That loss in the 10th Region Tournament motivates his team more than any ranking could, he said.
“I don’t really go by rankings,” said senior forward Tyra Flowers. “I don’t think it matters. It’s really about what we do.”
The Cardinals have won 23 straight since a now seemingly inexplicable loss to Tates Creek on Dec. 7. Flowers feels this year’s team is the best, most versatile team of her career.
“We have a lot of people that can do a lot of different things,” she said. “I think we have a lot of combo players. That’s the biggest difference.”
Flowers and the Byars sisters, Brianna and Ciara, all stand about 5-foot-11 or a little more. They can all handle the ball in transition although Kennedy Stamper ably handles most point guard duties.
And many also have shooting range. Against Dunbar, senior guard Asja-li Garrard hit three three-pointers, junior Trinity Gay made two and Ciara and Brianna each had one. Junior guard Brianna Byars led the team with 21 points while her freshman sister, Ciara, chipped in 16.
As a 10th Region power, Clark County is used to having a target on its back, Flowers said.
“It’s not really pressure. If we work hard, there’s no pressure,” she said. “... We’re just really excited and we want to show the state what we’ve got.”
Impressive résumés for both teams
The Lady Cardinals have racked up some impressive wins this season, on their way to a No. 2 ranking in the Dave Cantrall ratings just behind Sacred Heart. However those ratings came out before Sacred Heart’s double-overtime loss on Sunday to No. 18 Mercy.
Clark County beat Mercy in December and has also knocked off No. 7 Anderson County, No. 12 Central, No. 15 Dixie Heights, No. 21 Southwestern, No. 23 North Laurel and No. 24 Franklin County. In addition, it has swept Montgomery County, its next closest 10th Region rival in a pair of games, the most recent a 60-15 shellacking in Winchester.
The boys’ team (26-1), also unbeaten since early December, also has a list of impressive victories, including topping No. 2 Ballard, No. 4 North Laurel, No. 14 Ashland Blazer, No. 19 Knox Central, No. 21 Paul Laurence Dunbar and No. 22 Woodford County.
Cook’s team’s only loss might be forgivable considering it came against South Carolina Class 5A No. 1 Dormon (Roebuck, S.C.), a program that has made five straight state championship games and won the first four of them.
Boys’ team not fretting success
Cook’s Cardinals haven’t just been beating teams of late, they’ve been blowing them out. The Cardinals lead the state in scoring margin at 30.1 points per game and topped 10th Region rival Bracken County 94-62 on Monday as a case in point.
Being No. 1 for so long hasn’t been much of a concern.
“We’re just staying together, staying humble and taking it one game at a time,” said junior guard Jerone Morton, the team’s leading scorer. “I knew what we could do. We’ve just got to stay focused and keep rolling.”
Morton averages 19.1 points per game and three other starters hit double figures, as well — Trent Edward (13.1 ppg), Tanner Walton (13 ppg) and Sam Parrish (12.6) ppg. And their other starter, Reshaun Hampton (7.8 ppg) went off for 25 points against Knox Central.
“We have great players on our team right now, but they’ve done a really good job of understanding that, hey, there’s a bigger picture here,” Cook said. “In the end, if you sacrifice for the team, you will be rewarded.”
Cook shrugs off the rankings.
“We really haven’t talked about it, because I think we have bigger goals than that,” Cook said. “Once it happened, it was nice. Not everybody gets that opportunity to be respected that way, … but we have other goals we want to focus on.”
Those goals include a third straight 10th Region championship and advancing further in the Boys’ Sweet 16 than a year ago, where they got knocked out by Elizabethtown in the quarterfinals.
“We’re very excited about where we are. We really like our basketball team,” Cook said. “We know there’s things we can still get better at, but we believe in our guys and if they do it together, they can do something special.”
Past No. 1 success stories?
As far as their place in history, it’s hard to pin down if any other schools reached No. 1 simultaneously midseason, because, of course, it’s the end-of-season results that are recorded. A glance at the record books shows Laurel County could have been capable of it in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s. Lexington Catholic’s early-2000 teams should have been close. And perhaps Scott County’s teams in the years just before the Great Crossing split could have both topped the charts.
Ashland is the only school to have won both the boys’ and girls’ state championships in the same year — 1928 — in the pre-Title IX era.
Mike Rogers, who spent decades as Clark County’s stats and timekeeper for basketball and other sports and is the closest thing to a GRC historian that there is, remembers the boys’ team being ranked No. 1 for a time back in 1983 and the girls’ team maybe earning that distinction in the 1970s.
But, no, they’ve never both been ranked No. 1 at the same time, Rogers said — until now.
This story was originally published February 16, 2022 at 7:45 AM.
