The Boys’ Sweet 16 championship game is set: It’ll be Great Crossing vs. Bowling Green
The youngest program in the area is one win away from bringing glory back to the 11th Region.
A year after falling to eventual state champion Lyon County in the semifinals, Great Crossing rolled to a 70-49 win against Montgomery County in the same round to set up a showdown with Bowling Green in the finals. The two are scheduled to play for the UK HealthCare Boys’ Basketball Sweet 16 championship at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Rupp Arena.
The Indians (24-11) led 26-24 at halftime on a 3-pointer by Cayden Reed at the buzzer. Great Crossing delivered a 7-0 blow out of the break to go up 31-26. Montgomery County briefly got back within two, but the Warhawks sustained momentum and hurried away by the end of the third quarter.
Great Crossing (34-4) won the second half 46-23. Part of its slow start was attributable to the absence of starting point guard LJ Holman, who suffered a foot injury in the Warhawks’ quarterfinal victory and was in street clothes. His status for the championship game was to be determined.
“The last thing I think was said when we walked out of halftime, Vince (Dawson) over there, he says, ‘Guys, this is one of our worst first halves of the year, we’re fine, let’s go play,’” Great Crossing head coach Steve Page said. “That was kind of the settling moment I thought for the entire team.”
Malachi Moreno, the 2025 Mr. Basketball winner and a University of Kentucky signee, led Great Crossing with 26 points, 14 rebounds, four assists, two blocks and a steal. He had just four shot attempts in the first half against an Indians defense that worked hard to keep him off his spots, but he was undeniable in the second half.
“Those are just things you have to fight through,” Moreno said. “We came out of the locker room down two at halftime. We were kind of in the same position last year. We just had to keep playing through it and shots started falling.”
Paul Laurence Dunbar was the last 11th Region team to win the Boys’ Sweet 16. Taveion Hollingsworth led the Bulldogs to the 2016 title before winning Mr. Basketball the next year. Scott County was the last 11th Region team to play in the Boys’ Sweet 16 title game, falling to Trinity in the 2019 finals. The Cardinals also lost in the 2018 championship game to Covington Catholic.
The Cardinals were the only birds in town until Great Crossing opened in the 2019-2020 school year. The Warhawks struggled early but reached the 11th Region semifinals in 2022 and again in 2023 before winning it the last two seasons. Now they’re one win away from joining their Georgetown rival as a state champion.
For Moreno, it’s also an opportunity to one-up his older brother Michael, who led Scott County to three Sweet 16 appearances, including the 2018 and 2019 runs, but never got to cut down the nets.
“Malachi’s looking for family bragging rights tonight,” Page said with a grin.
Purples return
Bowling Green doesn’t take a lot of 3-pointers, but it’s really good at making them.
The Purples shot 46.7% from long distance throughout the season, tops in the state and eight percentage points better than anybody in this year’s Sweet 16 field. Next best? South Oldham, which attempted nearly 600 more triples than Bowling Green.
Both connected for eight treys Saturday afternoon, but Bowling Green made a much better living in the paint en route to a 73-51 win in the Sweet 16 semifinals.
It was Bowling Green’s first comfortable win this week. It needed overtime to defeat Adair County on Wednesday and again to get past Ashland Blazer on Friday.
The Purples reached their third state championship game and look to win their second. They fell to Owensboro in their first trip in 2015 but two years later defeated Cooper for the title.
Their championship game appearance is the 4th Region’s fifth over the last 10 tournaments (2020 was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Fellow 14th District stalwart Warren Central made the final game in 2022 and 2023, winning it the second time.
Bowling Green doubled its 3-point production — it made three in each of its first two games — while matching the Dragons, who’d connected on 29 in their tournament wins. South Oldham attempted more 3-pointers (106) than they had minutes played (96) in three games.
Purples head coach D.G. Sherrill has steered the ship for all three of their title-game runs. His team played in the earlier semifinal, so he didn’t know which opponent they’d face, but he was eager to scout and prepare for whomever it might be.
“We’ll play UK next, we don’t care,” Sherrill said. “We’re in the state championship game.”
