Clark County aces first test in pursuit of ‘big vision’ at Rupp Arena
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2022 Boys’ Sweet 16 coverage
Click below to read all of the coverage from Kentucky.com and the Lexington Herald-Leader during the Boys’ Sweet 16 State Basketball Tournament in Rupp Arena.
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Clark County passed its first test at this year’s state tournament with flying colors.
The Cardinals, ranked No. 1 in the state for most of the year and undefeated against foes from the commonwealth, overwhelmed Perry County Central, 77-36, in the first round of the UK HealthCare Boys’ Sweet Sixteen on Wednesday. It was the program’s largest win in state-tournament history, bettering a 99-59 win over Somerset in a 1952 first-round game.
BOX SCORE: Clark County 77, Perry County Central 36
George Rogers Clark won its 28th straight since a loss to Dorman (S.C.) in the King of the Bluegrass Tournament back in December, and won by a double-digit margin for the 14th straight time. It led 13-12 after one quarter of play before piling on in the second and third quarters; a running clock went into effect with 7:30 to play after Sam Parrish hit three-pointers on consecutive possessions to start the final period.
Perry County Central head coach Shannon Hoskins summed it up succinctly.
“We played an awful good basketball team tonight,” Hoskins said. “ ... They sped us up and got into their game, and we were in trouble from there.”
Jerone Morton had 22 points to lead all scorers while Parrish nearly matched him with 20. Morton had seven assists — one to Trent Edwards for the first of three crowd-pleasing dunks he had on his way to 13 points — and five rebounds for the Cardinals.
Edwards blocked four shots, accounting for eight total by GRC. It held Perry County Central (29-5) to 35.6-percent shooting while making more than half of its own attempts (32 of 58, 55.2%).
“Our defense was much better in the second and third (quarters) and was kind of the difference in the game for us,” said GRC head coach Josh Cook. “That first quarter, they were able to get some easier buckets, we got lazy a couple of times.”
This is Clark County’s third straight season representing the 10th Region, and it hopes it’ll finish with the school’s second state title in hand. The Cardinals didn’t get to play at state in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and fell to state runner-up Elizabethtown in last year’s quarterfinal round. Most of GRC’s principals are underclassmen — Tanner Walton (12.5 ppg) and Aden Slone (6.8 ppg) are the only seniors among the Cardinals’ top six scorers this season — but there’s a clear sense that anything less than a trip to the final game would be disappointing.
Clark County’s players are hungry after not getting to show what they were capable of in 2020 and falling short last year. Cook, who coached another state-title favorite in 2016 (Mercer County), hasn’t shied away from embracing those expectations. He’s a more honest coach today than he was six years ago, he said, when those Titans narrowly fell in a No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown with eventual state champion Paul Laurence Dunbar, 58-55.
“Let’s just be honest about our goal,” Cook said. “If you want to play for a state championship, you better be talking about it. It’s not like you’re just going to luck into it. Sometimes coaches will talk like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got one game at a time.’ That’s great, and I get that. It is one game at a time. But there has to be a big vision of what you truly want. If the kids are not dreaming about it, you’re not going to get it.”
Clark County will meet the winner between North Laurel and Pikeville at 1:30 p.m. Friday in the quarterfinals.
This story was originally published March 16, 2022 at 9:05 PM.
