‘They deserve this.’ Taylor County extends Sweet 16 run with down-to-wire win

About three weeks before Taylor County’s first game tipped off in December, its head coach, Matthew Turner, abruptly resigned after one season in Campbellsville.

Farrah McLean, one of the Cardinals’ assistant coaches, reached out to a friend to see if he’d want to come out of retirement and coach the defending 5th Region champions.

Re-enter Donnie Swiney, who coached for 25 years at Elizabethtown (the last seven as its head coach) before retiring after the 2022-23 season. He expected his only time in gyms this winter to be spent with his daughter Jade, an eighth-grader on E-town’s junior varsity team.

Instead, last week, he was coaching against the Panthers in the 5th Region semifinals. One game later, Taylor County defeated Bethlehem 52-35 for a second straight region title and gave Swiney his 200th win as a head coach — three years and eight days after what he believed was his final game in that role.

“I wasn’t actively searching for any coaching job — much less one to lead a team who went to the Sweet 16 last year,” Swiney said. “I hadn’t even truly thought of getting back into coaching, but when I heard what happened, I felt like I could at least help to right the ship and keep it afloat for a while.”

The Cardinals continued to stay afloat Wednesday night, holding on to defeat West Jessamine 60-58 in the first round of the Clark’s Pump-N-Shop Girls’ Basketball Sweet 16.

Cardinals withstand second-half charge

Taylor County led by as much as 17 in the second quarter and 34-23 at halftime before the Colts rallied.

West Jessamine (22-13) briefly took the lead early in the fourth quarter, but Taylor County’s Kayley Benningfield answered immediately, putting the Cardinals back in front by two with 6:10 to play.

West Jessamine stayed within a couple of points most of the rest of the way before Taylor pushed ahead 59-55 on an inbounds play with 17 seconds left. Benningfield hit a cutting Greta Bradstreet for an easy layup.

West Jessamine’s Ariana McLoney hit a 3-pointer in the waning seconds to cut the Cardinals’ lead to one, but Bradstreet hit the first of two free throws and Taylor County secured the rebound when she missed the second one.

“We played pretty well the first half and in the second half they played really well,” Swiney said. “They made shots, killed us on the offensive glass, but down the stretch I thought we were mentally tough enough to pull it out.”

West Jessamine outrebounded the Cardinals 35-19. A single Colt, Claire Marshall, had as many rebounds as the whole Taylor County team.

Marshall demonstrated the impact a star can make without scoring: She had just nine points but grabbed 19 rebounds (eight offensive), 10 assists and three steals.

“She’s a heck of a player,” Swiney said. “She may be the leading candidate for Miss Basketball next year, I don’t know. With the injuries that she’s had, to be able to come back and play at this level? … Their record did not indicate how good of a team they were.”

West Jessamine played 12 games without Marshall, who had a hamstring injury. Down double digits in the second half could have been reason to pack it up, but the Colts seem to thrive on adversity.

“They took their beatdowns when they were seventh- and eighth-graders starting on varsity, which is phenomenal in its own right,” West Jessamine coach Matt Hilkens said. “We put together the hardest schedule we could this year to push them and when you look back on it, you see how many of the Sweet 16 teams we actually played and competed with. It was nothing new for us. We’re used to having to battle and fight for everything that we have.”

Taylor County’s present and future

Kennedy Deener, a 5-foot-7 point guard, is ranked by PrepGirlsHoops as the No. 3 recruit in the state’s 2029 recruiting class — a group paced by Ryle’s Jayden McClain, a 6-6 forward, and 5th Region rival Charlotte McCurry, a 6-0 wing who plays for John Hardin. Both of them are on ESPN’s national watchlist.

At E-town, Swiney coached Erin Boley, a national Gatorade player of the year who starred for Notre Dame and Oregon. Boley and Deener are very different players. The former was a 6-2 force in the post who matured into an excellent 3-point shooter by the end of her varsity career. She was a walking double-double and among the most unguardable players in KHSAA history.

“They’re different types of players,” Swiney said. “ … What I can speak to is that she’s a fierce competitor, and she’s probably one of the two best freshmen I’ve had the privilege to coach at her age. They’re different types of players, though. Boley wasn’t a point guard. Deener isn’t 6-2, but is more versatile than Boley was, especially as a freshman. …

“With some age and maturity, she’ll be a tremendous leader for this program, but right now, she’s still learning what being a good leader truly means.”

Her youth showed down the stretch against West Jessamine. She fouled out with 25 seconds left, sending Marshall to the free-throw line, where the Colt cut Taylor County’s lead to 57-55.

“It could be an injury, it could be a foul-out, whatever it is, next man up,” Swiney said. “I’m sorry, next girl up. We’ve still gotta finish the game and put people on the floor who can execute.”

Deener finished with a team-high 19 points, three assists and two steals. She’s had role models in leadership this season from Swiney and two “wonderful” assistants, McLean and Donavis Duncan, who he said were essential to keep on staff.

Despite the extenuating circumstances, Taylor County probably wouldn’t have had too hard of a time finding a high-quality coach to take the reins of a defending region champ led by a rising freshman star. But Swiney stepped up, in part to help out a friend, but mostly to be there for a group of girls who’d been abandoned.

“What happened with our old coach, it was unfortunate timing, but he had family stuff going on, and we don’t hate him for it,” said Bradstreet, a sophomore who scored 18 points. (The reasons for Turner’s resignation have not been reported or disclosed). “He’s a good guy, he’s a great guy, I loved him as a coach, but he needed to do what was best for his family, and it was just unfortunate timing. … It didn’t really matter who our coach was — we were going to win.”

If all his presence has delivered was another well-intentioned adult in the room, then it’s been a success.

“This has not been a walk in the park for any of them,” Swiney said. “I felt really bad for them early on because they got dumped on. I know I probably shouldn’t talk about this in the media, but I’m sorry. It’s bothered me all year long. Their coach left them. … And this old guy comes in, they don’t know me from Adam. They were receptive from Day 1. They were willing to learn and do whatever it takes, and that’s kind of been our motto here in the postseason: to do whatever it takes to get back here. …

“They deserve this. And they did not deserve what happened to them in November. Kids should not be treated that way.”

This story was originally published March 12, 2026 at 12:02 AM.