Douglass smothers Henderson County in Girls’ Sweet 16 first-round rout
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Douglass dominated Henderson County 44-23, getting 19 points off turnovers.
- Jaelee Knowles led Douglass with 15 points and eight rebounds; Tamia Waide hit four 3s.
- Douglass advances to the 11 a.m. Friday game of the girls state tournament quarterfinals.
The Frederick Douglass team everyone on The Farm knew existed, the one capable of not just winning, but dominating its opponent, showed up just in time for its 11 a.m Wednesday tip in the Clark’s Pump-N-Shop Girls’ Basketball Sweet 16 at Rupp Arena.
Freshman guard Tamia Waide offered the first clue, nailing a wide-open 3-pointer at the top of the key 13 seconds into the Broncos’ 44-23 win over 2nd Region champion Henderson County in the first round.
Douglass’ defense offered the other evidence as the Broncos jumped out to a 12-2 lead and then held Henderson to a single field goal in the second quarter. Douglass led 24-8 at half.
“Defensively, I think we was prepared. Our energy was up,” Douglass coach Daryl Moberly said. “We did a great job, I felt like, with our game plan on their best player.”
Henderson (24-10) got 11 points from A’Tylia Green, its region player of the year and Miss Basketball finalist. She made four of her 15 field-goal attempts, including two 3-pointers. Henderson committed 17 turnovers leading to 19 Douglass points, 10 on the fast break. The Colonels made only six field goals on 15.4 percent shooting from the field for the game.
“I thought we had some good looks around the basket, especially early that we just did not put in the hole,” Henderson County coach Stephen Haile said. “Some of it I’ve got to credit to them. Their speed and physicality on defense really bothered us. And their length underneath the basket adjusted some of our shots early and probably sped us up a little bit.”
Douglass’ Jaelee Knowles, a 5-11 junior, scored a game-high 15 points to go with eight rebounds, two steals and two blocks.
“We had a rough little patch at the end of the season, but that definitely fueled us,” Knowles said. “It made us a little angry. Don’t nobody want to lose.”
Douglass, ranked No. 8 in the final Kentucky Media Elite 16 poll, stumbled with four losses in its last five regular season games against some of the state’s top teams and escaped with a harrowing 46-43 win over Paul Laurence Dunbar in Sunday’s 11th Region Tournament finals.
Waide, Douglass’ third-leading scorer, struggled in some of those games down the stretch and went scoreless against Dunbar. She broke out of the funk against Henderson with 12 points, all on 3-pointers.
“It felt great. I felt like my team has been waiting for me to do this,” Waide said. “I’m just super glad I have a team like this that pushes me.”
Moberly said it was important for Waide to get off to a good start.
“I talked to Tamia before practice the day before yesterday. I said, ‘We need you. We need you to win,” Moberly said. “I told her not to worry about her offense so much, because I know that she does get down on herself. … I told her ‘Just let the game come to you and relax.’”
Next, Douglass (25-7) will face the winner of Wednesday’s other afternoon game between No. 2 Assumption (24-5) and No. 5 Calloway County (33-2). That will be an 11 a.m. tip on Friday.
The Rockets routed five-time defending state champion Sacred Heart in the 7th Region finals last week and beat Douglass 67-35 in the second week of this season. The Lakers went undefeated for more than half the year and claimed the midseason Kentucky 2A Championship tourney crown for mid-size schools.
This story was originally published March 11, 2026 at 1:56 PM.
