No. 1 Great Crossing toppled by No. 2 St. Xavier and faces more challenges ahead
A year ago, the Great Crossing boys basketball team had an audacious goal of going undefeated and winning the Sweet 16 state championship.
The Warhawks nearly pulled it off, losing only to Arlington, Virginia’s Bishop O’Connell in the Beach Ball Classic finals in December and then to eventual state champion Lyon County in the Boys’ Sweet 16 semifinals in March.
This year, Herald-Leader preseason No. 1 Great Crossing has the same end-goal — a state championship.
But being unbeaten is far less important than being ready for tournament time this postseason.
“It’s not the college football playoffs. If we get to March 0-30, they’re still going to let you play in the district tournament,” Great Crossing coach Steve Page said after his team fell to 72-58 at No. 2 St. Xavier in a filled-to-the-brim Brother John Wills Sports Activities Center in Louisville on Sunday. “We’ve got to not worry about the record. Obviously, we hope we come back from our jaunt over Christmas with a good record, because that means we’re successful.”
Great Crossing’s loss to St. X in front of 2,000-plus fans came in the Warhawks’ fourth game in five days and third contest in a row against a top-25 opponent. Great Crossing defeated No. 12 Frederick Douglass 78-70 on Friday night and topped No. 14 Covington Catholic 71-60 on Saturday afternoon to claim its third straight Billy Hicks Classic title.
Kentucky signee Malachi Moreno, Great Crossing’s 6-foot-11 center, then went to the UK-Louisville game Saturday evening where he threw some L’s down after he was introduced to the Rupp Arena crowd by ex-Cat Cameron Mills.
Moreno scored 24 points with 20 rebounds and four blocks against St. X on Sunday. Great Crossing trailed just 37-34 at halftime, but it couldn’t match St. X’s intensity in the third quarter as the Tigers built a 14-point lead.
Moreno took the loss in stride.
“I think we just take it as motivation,” he said. “It’s great that we got (the loss) out early in the season and not late in the season. We know we’ll see them again. … It was a crazy atmosphere. I mean, this is one of the better schools in the state. It was definitely a new environment for us, and it’s a learning point.”
The Warhawks (6-1) aren’t shying from difficult games. They opened the season with a 95-89 win against No. 9 Ashland Blazer.
Over the next two weeks, Great Crossing will test itself against MaxPreps national No. 1 Christopher Columbus (Miami) at the City of Palms tournament in Miami, followed by another run at the Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Their first game back in Kentucky will be at No. 11 Butler County on Jan. 3.
“We’re going to have to step up. We need some more guys to contribute,” said Page, who acknowledged St. X had a much deeper squad than his Warhawks. “It was just Vince (Dawson) and Malachi today who scored 40-some of our 58 points, so we need other guys to step up.”
Dawson scored 18 points against St. X. No other Warhawk cracked double figures.
The Tigers (5-0) routed their first four opponents, including a 100-38 drubbing of Louisville Holy Cross on Saturday. Josh Lindsay and Chance Dillingham scored 13 and 12 points, respectively, against Great Crossing.
“We’ve had three running clocks in the first half in our four games, so we needed this opponent to sharpen us,” St. X coach Kevin Klein said. “But this game doesn’t mean anything with the potential and where we want to go at the end of the year. It’s good for the fans. And the students will talk about it.”
St. X (5-0) will likely take over the state’s No. 1 ranking when new polls are released, but it will also be tested in the days ahead as the Tigers face a loaded King of the Bluegrass field this week at Fairdale. No. 3 Trinity, No. 4 Male, No. 6 Adair County, No. 9 Ashland Blazer and No. 10 Bryan Station, among others, await. The Tigers will have only a few days to relish knocking off Great Crossing.
“We’ve started to realize we’re pretty damn good,” said St. X’s 6-foot-7 senior forward Graham Krezmien, who hit five of the Tigers’ 10 3-pointers against the Warhawks on the way to a team-high 19 points. “So, we’re thinking about, ‘OK, what can we do to get even further to get to where we want to go?’ And that’s to win a state championship.”
Boys and girls holiday tournaments ahead
The holiday break features some top-flight boys and girls basketball matchups in Lexington and around the state.
Perhaps the most notable event in Lexington is the White, Greer & Maggard Holiday Classic boys tournament at Lexington Catholic on Dec. 27-30.
The host Knights (4-2), ranked No. 16 in the Herald-Leader preseason poll, recently knocked off No. 4 Male in Bardstown’s Tigers Classic.
LexCath opens the tourney on Dec. 27 against defending state champion Lyon County, who will still be a force in the 2nd Region despite the graduation of last season’s core players.
The field also includes No. 3 Louisville Trinity, No. 5 Newport, No. 7 Woodford County, No. 8 George Rogers Clark, No. 15 Manual, No. 10 Bryan Station, No. 11 Butler County, No. 12 Douglass, No. 17 Cooper and No. 21 Calloway County.
Lexington Catholic’s girls team will host its own WGM Holiday Classic beginning Thursday with Ryle and Christian Academy-Louisville among the competitors. Ryle features 6-foot-6 eighth grader Jayden McClain, already one of the top girls basketball recruits in the state.
The Jim Rose Classic girls tournament at Lexington Christian begins Friday and includes No. 14 Frederick Douglass as well as undefeated up-and-coming teams like Madison Central and West Jessamine.
Lexington Christian’s Jim Rose Classic boys tournament runs Dec. 27-29 and includes No. 24 Henry Clay and a Western Hills team that features Kentucky football signee Javeon Campbell, the No. 1 gridiron recruit in the state who also happens to be the Wolverines’ all-time leading scorer on the court.
Also this week, there’s the King of the Bluegrass boys tournament at Fairdale in Louisville, featuring No. 2 St. Xavier, No. 10 Bryan Station and several other top teams and the Queen of the Commonwealth girls tournament at Bullitt East High School in Mount Washington, featuring No. 4 Bethlehem and No. 6 Cooper, among others.
