Simon Kenton rides big first half to first Girls’ Sweet 16 semifinals berth
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- Simon Kenton’s big first half lead carried them to the state semis for first time.
- Brynli Pernell scored 18 and was 8-for-10 from the line, 6-for-6 in fourth.
- Owensboro Catholic rallied late but fell short; should return everyone next season.
Looking to make its first state tournament semifinals in program history, Simon Kenton flew out of the gate to a 23-10 lead over Owensboro Catholic on Friday in the Clark’s Pump-N-Shop Girls’ Basketball Sweet 16 at Rupp Arena.
The Pioneers’ advantage ballooned to 24 points in the third quarter before the Aces forced them to grind out a 63-50 quarterfinals win.
“I think our win last night definitely gave us a high coming into this game,” said Simon Kenton junior point guard Brynli Pernell, who scored a game-high 18 points and went 8 for 10 at the free throw line, including all six of her fourth-quarter chances. “I think it showed … I think we came into it knowing that we didn’t want our season ending tonight, and that we have a really good game tomorrow if we were to win, and we wanted it more.”
Simon Kenton topped Ashland Blazer 70-61 on Thursday, riding eighth-grader Angela Kabeya’s clutch second-half 3-pointers to keep the Kittens at bay.
On Friday, Owensboro Catholic made an 18-6 run in the third quarter capped by a 3-pointer from Katie Hagan that brought the Aces within striking distance at 50-41 with 49 seconds left in the period.
This time, Simon Kenton senior Anna Kelch stepped up with a 3-pointer to stem the tide and put the Pioneers back up by 12 going into the fourth. Kelch finished with eight points and eight assists. Kebaya added 10 points.
“It was really big. We needed that stop,” Simon Kenton coach Jeff Stowers said. “I kept telling them we need to keep it above 10, because once they see it’s out of double figures, it’s going to give them a little life.”
Owensboro Catholic trimmed its deficit to nine once more, but not until there was just 1:33 left in the game. Simon Kenton made eight of its 10 fourth-quarter free throws to secure the victory.
“We like to make things hard. We got off to the start that we wanted, then we kind of bogged down,” Stowers said. “I have no idea what the situation was, but I knew in the end we were going to get our stuff together. … We had some uncharacteristic mistakes that we’re going to clean up before we play tomorrow.”
Those corrections will be on the fly. The Pioneers tip off their semis at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, less than 18 hours from Friday’s postgame news conference. The finals will come six hours later.
Regardless of the challenge, the Pioneers were happy to move on after two first-round exits over the previous three seasons.
“It’s special for me because it’s my last year, and we want to win state this year,’ said Haylie Webb, who scored 15 points to go with a team-high eight rebounds. “I think we have a really good chance of doing that.”
Owensboro Catholic coach Michael Robertson lamented he didn’t switch defenses until the Pioneers had put them in a substantial hole. But his young team has no seniors, so it should be back with a ton of big-game experience next season. Sophia Newby led the Aces with 14 points and 12 rebounds. Taylor Mannahan scored 10.
“This group, I will say this, they have a lot of fight in them,” Robertson said. “They weren’t going to give up, they weren’t going to quit. And they just fought. We went to more of a zone press, trying to get a little bit more quicker with the traps, and I thought we had a little bit of success with that. … But they hit their free throws.”
This story was originally published March 13, 2026 at 9:47 PM.
