‘Our guys just don’t quit.’ Bryan Station’s big rally stuns Douglass for district title
Lexington’s fiercest basketball rivalry this season had been a one-sided affair with No. 3 Frederick Douglass beating No. 5 Bryan Station all three times to date, claiming a December holiday tournament title and both of their regular season matchups.
But the Northside’s Defenders exorcised their orange and green demons in dramatic fashion Friday, rallying from 14 points down in the second half of the biggest game between the two yet and claiming the boys 42nd District Tournament championship with a 59-56 victory over the Broncos in front of a near-capacity crowd at Scott County High School’s Billy Hicks Gymnasium in Georgetown.
Bryan Station outscored Douglass 24-13 in the fourth quarter and got a pair of Rashaad Faulkner free throws with 13 seconds left to cap the rally and set the final score. When DeMarcus Surratt’s potential tying 3-pointer hit the front of the rim with the last seconds ticking away, the Defenders’ student section stormed the court in celebration.
“My kids have a no-quit attitude. We just keep fighting and fighting till something good happens,” said Bryan Station coach Champ Ligon, who is in the fourth season of his second stint with the Defenders, having coached them to two district titles during his first run from 2002 to 2010. “We could have easily folded. (Douglass is) a great team. They play at a high level every time out. … But our guys just don’t quit.”
The win marked Bryan Station’s first district title since 2008 and ended Douglass’ five-year domination of the postseason tournament.
“I know a lot of people was counting on us to win, so we just came out here and just gave it our all,” said junior point guard Amari Owens, who led the Defenders with 22 points to go with three assists and three steals.
Owens played a huge role in Bryan Station’s closing 20-9 run, with perhaps the biggest contribution being the two assists he delivered to Justin Richmond in the fourth quarter on a pair of 3-pointers that helped trim Douglass’ lead to 49-48 with 3:53 to play.
Taeshawn Adams’ block of Douglass guard Dakari Talbert’s layup attempt set the fast-break in motion for Richmond’s second long-range shot from the left corner.
“I had to start trusting (my teammates) and good things came out of that,” Owens said. “The threes he hit were very big.”
Moments later, Richmond hit a pair of free throws for a 52-51 Bryan Station lead with three minutes left. Richmond finished with 16 points and made all four of his 3-points attempts. The Defenders hadn’t led since the last minute of the first quarter.
“Justin works hard. And, you know, he’s got some good genes,” Ligon said. “His dad (Bryan Station’s 1995 city player of the year Jonathan Richmond) was a tremendous player. In fact, when I was an assistant coach and he was a player, we won the national championship at Sullivan Junior College back in ‘96.”
Douglass and Station exchanged the lead four more times over the next 76 seconds with an Adams layup with 1:44 left putting the Defenders up for good, 56-55. Adams finished with 10 points.
Douglass (23-4) led by as many as 14 points in both the second and third quarters, but struggled to make baskets and free throws down the stretch as Bryan Station heated up. The Broncos made just 33.3 percent of their shots in the second half and gave up more points in the fourth quarter than they had over the game’s first 21½ minutes. Jaunte “JJ” Jenkins and Dakari Talbert led the Broncos with 17 and 10 points, respectively.
“(Bryan Station) played harder and made more plays down the stretch than we did. We gave up 24 points in the fourth quarter. That’s not typical Douglass basketball,” Douglass coach Murray Garvin said. “They were able to capitalize on it, and I give them all the credit in the world. Congratulations to them. Now, we just got to go the hard road in region play, and I would pretty much guarantee that not too many people want to play us.”
With the win, Bryan Station (24-6) got to host its first-round game in the 11th Region Tournament against 44th District runner-up Berea on Tuesday. Then the tournament moves to Paul Laurence Dunbar High School for the semifinals and finals.
When Ligon returned to Bryan Station in 2021, he knew he had a lot of work ahead of him. The Defenders went 12-12 his first season back, 11-19 the next year and 23-8 last season as his efforts began to take hold. Bryan Station was a “gold mine waiting to be mined,” Ligon said when he was rehired.
District championship trophies, coincidentally, have golden-hued plates.
“It means a lot. I’m so proud of the guys. I’m so proud of our school and our community,” Ligon said. “They’ve been behind us ever since I came back, and they were with us when I was there before. The kids deserve it, man, they’ve worked hard. These are special memories they’re forming right now.”
New-look Knights capture fourth straight 43rd District title
All seven players who suited up for Lexington Catholic in the 43rd District championship game Friday night had something in common: they didn’t play in the Knights’ victory in the same game a year ago.
Most of them barely logged varsity minutes at all in 2023-24. But the former JV studs led LexCath to its fourth straight district title by upending Lexington Christian Academy, 59-48, at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School.
After losing its top six scorers to graduation — including Tyler Doyle, now at Bellarmine — LexCath was projected to take a step back. Its record reflects the growth period — the Knights’ nine losses are triple that of last year’s team, which narrowly fell in the 11th Region finals to Great Crossing — but they’ve jelled down the stretch. LexCath (22-9) has won 15 of its last 16 games and eight straight headed into the 11th Region Tournament.
“Everybody discounted us, said we weren’t gonna be any good, this is a growing year for Catholic,” Knights head coach Brandon Salsman said. “These guys were my starters on the JV team last year. They just needed time.”
Max Meagher, a 6-foot-6 wing with a healthy wingspan, ended with 13 points, 13 rebounds and two steals en route to tournament MVP honors. His size paired with Hank Woodall, a forward listed at 6-4 but who played much bigger than that on Friday, helped disrupt an LCA squad that entered making, on average, 35 percent of its 3-point attempts.
The Eagles (15-17) were 4-for-20 from beyond the arc in the district finals and were outrebounded 37-24.
“Rebounding I think was the key to the game,” Meagher said. “We just fought as hard as we could. That’s really all you can ask out of your teammates. I’m really proud of everyone.”
This story was originally published March 1, 2025 at 7:36 AM.
