Best friends helping lead resurgent Dunbar’s quest for 43rd District girls title
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- Dunbar rallied vs LCA for its sixth straight win to improve to 15-4 on the season.
- Junior guards Layla Flynn and Kaleigh Potts bring soccer winning mentality to basketball.
- Eighth-grader Kyah Curtsinger helped spark the Bulldogs’ second-half rally.
Paul Laurence Dunbar girls head coach Erik Daniels and his team had been paying their dues over his first three seasons in southwest Lexington.
Too young and too injured at times to make a real threat in the 43rd District leading into this season, the Bulldogs now have experience to go with its youth. They also have two best friends who’ve already helped Dunbar win a district title on the soccer field this school year.
Junior guards Layla Flynn and Kaleigh Potts have carried over a winning mentality from the pitch to the court in helping lead Dunbar to a 15-4 record and a 5-1 mark, so far, in 43rd District play.
Friends for years and travel ball teammates, Flynn and Potts played for separate high school teams until Potts transferred from Tates Creek last summer.
“They play really well together,” Daniels said “They’ve been playing together since they were little kids. They’re best of friends. They know each other’s tendencies very well.”
Flynn scored 17 points and dished out five assists in Dunbar’s come-from-behind 51-47 win over Lexington Christian in a special at Memorial Coliseum girls-boys doubleheader Friday night. Potts added nine points with eight rebounds and three assists.
“It’s been great on and off the court,” Flynn said of having Potts with the basketball Bulldogs.
But Dunbar also has a dynamic eighth grader in Kyah Curtsinger, who literally flips into the starting lineup for their biggest games. Curtsinger scored 13 points and snatched four steals against LCA and helped spark a 12-0 second half run that quelled some nervous moments inside Kentucky women’s basketball’s sparkling, renovated arena.
“I love her. She’s like a big ADHD ball,” Flynn said. “If you can’t tell, she’s bouncing all over the place. That’s how she is off the court, too.”
Daniels called Curstinger “probably the best athlete in the city, right now.” High praise for someone still in middle school.
“If you saw the announcement of the starting lineup, she comes out doing flips. So she’s very gifted,” Daniels said. “We don’t want to bottle her up. We let her play free and be herself and have fun with the game.”
Dunbar trailed LCA for most of the first half and 27-24 at the break as it struggled to defend Eagles senior guard Piper Graham, who went off for 32 points.
The Bulldogs took control in the third quarter. Curtsinger started their 12-0 run with a putback and got the second of back-to-back steals and fast-break layups as Dunbar pushed for the lead. Flynn got the first steal and bucket to cut their deficit to 29-28 with 2:26 left in the third.
On the next LCA possession, Curtsinger stole the ball at half court and converted a three-point play on the layup and foul for a 31-29 lead less than 30 seconds later. Freshman Jenna Flynn capped the rally with a 3-pointer. Dunbar never trailed again.
The comeback helped Dunbar win its sixth straight game and showed a lesson learned from a disappointing 43-41 loss at district rival Lafayette on Jan. 13 in which it blew a double-digit fourth quarter lead.
“On offense, we just need to slow it down, use the clock and take good shots,” Potts said. “I feel like we started rushing it against them.”
On reflection, Daniels didn’t mind the setback.
“I think that probably was the best thing for us, losing that game,” Daniels said. “We’ve been playing with a lot more urgency since then. We’ve been playing a lot more locked-in and focused on the defensive end. When we’re locked in, we’re one of the scariest teams in the state. But we’ve got to work on consistency.”
Dunbar split its season series with Lafayette and has only Tates Creek at home next week left in district play. If both teams win out, the top district tournament seed will go to the team with the higher RPI ranking, where Dunbar currently holds a significant edge of more than half a percentage point.
Dunbar last won the 43rd in 2020 when they capped a three-peat under former coach Nick Runyon. Daniels believes this year’s team can get the Red and Black back.
“We just want to stay focused because we think we have a shot,” Daniels said. “This is the first time in a while Dunbar has had a chance to win the district title, and we’re not going to take that lightly.”
This story was originally published February 7, 2026 at 9:56 AM.
