Sacred Heart opens second half with four minutes of fury in Sweet 16 win over Clark County
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2022 Girls’ Sweet 16 coverage
Click below to read all of the coverage from Kentucky.com and the Lexington Herald-Leader during the Girls’ Sweet 16 State Basketball Tournament in Rupp Arena.
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When the Kentucky High School Athletic Association conducted its Mingua Beef Jerky Girls’ Sweet 16 bracket blind draw a month ago, one potential quarterfinals matchup stuck out like no other.
Odds were that No. 1 Sacred Heart would meet No. 2 Clark County for the right to move on to the state semifinals even before they’d won their respective districts, regions and Sweet 16 first-round games.
Could this titanic too-early-in-the-tournament tilt possibly live up to the hype? The answer: Yes, for a half.
But the defending state champion Valkyries proved too much for the Cardinals over four quarters, as their offense exploded in the second half on their way to a 59-40 win in Friday’s last state quarterfinals matchup at Rupp Arena.
“The start of the second half — the first four minutes — that’s the way we’ve been playing all year,” Sacred Heart Coach Donna Moir said, not sounding at all ominous for their next opponent, Cooper, in Saturday’s semifinals.
Here’s how scary those four minutes turned out for Clark County:
Trailing 22-20 after two quarters, Sacred Heart unleashed an 8-0 blitz on the Cardinals out of the break, starting with a Reagan Bender offensive rebound and put-back.
Then Sacred Heart quickly converted two missed Clark jumpers into back-to-back three-pointers by standout freshman ZaKiyah Johnson.
Clark County Coach Robbie Graham called timeout as his team’s two-point halftime lead became a six-point deficit in 1:09 of action. But the timeout didn’t slow Sacred Heart’s momentum.
Over the next three minutes, Sacred Heart outscored Clark County 11-3, including two layups and an “and-one” conversion on drives by Bender, an offensive rebound and put-back by Triniti Ralston and four more points from Johnson. Johnson had only two points in the first half. She finished with 18.
“I told the kids that they made us (coaches) look really good to come out at halftime like we made all these halftime adjustments,” Moir joked. “They just kind of came out and played really hard. We hit some shots and got to the basket.”
A number of points during Sacred Heart’s run came on fast breaks as Clark struggled under the Valkyries’ increased pressure on the ball, committing three turnovers and missing three shots. By the time the smoke cleared, Clark trailed 41-27 with 3:49 left in the third period.
“They really get after it. They want to run when they get that ball, and they’re off to the races,” Graham said. “They get easy baskets and they really push that thing. They’re tough. Gosh, they’re tough.”
Clark narrowed the gap to eight points by the end of the third quarter on a Tyra Flowers jumper, but got no closer. Sacred Heart (34-3) pushed the lead to as many as 21 points over the final quarter.
The first half offered little indication of the blowout to come. Clark County started well and got two three-pointers from Kennedy Stamper and another by Trinity Gay as it took a 14-8 lead after one quarter.
Ralston kept Sacred Heart in the game early, scoring 14 of her game-high 22 points in the first half, many on drives to the basket.
“I wanted to bring the intensity to the team, because in the first half, we were kind of nervous,” Ralston said.
Brianna Byars led Clark County with 13 points. Kennedy Stamper, Ciara Byars and Tyra Flowers each added seven points for the Cardinals (31-3).
Graham noted Sacred Heart scored 27 points off Clark turnovers and outscored the Cardinals 36-16 in the paint.
“The things we thought were keys (to the game), we didn’t actually do a very good job on them,” Graham said. “Our kids fought hard. We’ve had a tremendous season, you know. I’m very proud of them.”
This story was originally published March 12, 2022 at 7:59 AM.
