‘Pumped from the start.’ Lafayette delivers girls’ district title and coach’s 400th win.
Offered a moment to reflect on her career, Allison Denton, Lafayette’s often fiery, always fierce girls’ basketball coach, paused to gather herself in the wake of her team’s win in the 43rd District Tournament championship game Friday night, the 400th victory of her career.
“It’s a lot of time. You know, you give your heart to it,” Denton said, fighting a brief glistening in her eyes. “It’s really special now because of this group of girls. And now, I’ve got my daughter here. I didn’t know when I was coaching that I was going to have a daughter that played basketball. I just knew that this is what I loved to do.”
The Generals, hosts of this year’s tournament, delivered a resounding performance worthy of a district crown and a milestone achievement with a 50-41 win over Lexington Catholic in a game Lafayette led by as many as 19 points in front of a packed house that included a raucous home student section.
Lafayette opened the scoring with back-to-back three-pointers by Catherine Jacobs and Gracyn Grantz and went up 10-0 after two baskets by Savannah Simpson.
“We were all pumped from the start,” said senior Olivia Cathers, who scored nine points with eight rebounds. “The whole day, the school, our student body, they were insane. We had a ‘Red Out’ at school. So they just, their energy just flowed into us. And we brought it out onto the court.”
Lafayette maintained and expanded the lead despite having to play long stretches without Anaya Brown, their leading scorer and 11th Region player of the year, due to foul trouble. Brown got her third foul a minute into the second quarter. She got her fourth foul in the third period. Brown said she wasn’t worried about her teammates being without her on the court.
“I had all the faith in the world in them. I knew that they were going to come in and step up and do what they needed to do,” said Brown, who still scored a team-high 12 points and got three blocks, helping earn tournament MVP honors..
Lexington Catholic (12-16) did cause some nervy moments, however and whittled the 19-point third quarter lead to 10 with just under two minutes to play. Katherine Truitt led the Knights with 16 points.
But Lafayette made enough free throws down the stretch, including two by Denton’s eighth-grade daughter, Anna Clay Denton, to seal the victory.
It was Lafayette’s first district title since 2017 and the seventh of Denton’s career. Both teams advance to next week’s 11th Region Tournament. Lafayette will host a first-round game as a district champion before the event moves on to Eastern Kentucky University’s McBrayer Arena.
“To win it after five years of not winning it. This was the biggest win,” Brown said. “Especially on Coach Denton’s 400th win. … I love playing for her.”
When the Generals (24-6) accepted their district trophy, they made sure senior Lauren Walton was the first to grab hold. The standout shooting guard suffered a season-ending ACL injury in Lafayette’s first game of the season. It took a while for the team to adapt to not having Walton on the court, but they’ve won eight straight now with designs on more.
“I’ve not had a team like this in 23 years of coaching — that love each other so much, and were willing to give everything they’ve got,” Denton said.
Denton’s overall record stands at 400-231. She’s had one Girls’ Sweet 16 trip among 17 winning seasons since taking over Lafayette’s program in 2001, just six years removed from being a star high school player at Paul Laurence Dunbar.
When Denton started, Lexington Catholic and Lexington Christian were powerhouse programs making repeated trips to the state tournament and winning Girls’ Sweet 16 titles.
But now, Denton has the most all-time wins of any Lexington girls’ basketball coach, passing up two legends this season. Former Lexington Catholic and Berea coach Greg Todd had 391 wins and former Henry Clay and Lexington Catholic coach Bob Tripure amassed 384 victories. Last year, her name made its first appearance on the Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s all-time wins list.
But it’s never been about numbers, Denton said.
“It’s my calling. And it’s my gift,” she said. “And those girls mean more to me — everybody that I’ve coached — they’ll never have any idea what they’ve done for me.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2022 at 10:02 AM.
