George Rogers Clark backs up No. 1 ranking with its first Girls’ Sweet 16 crown
For decades, George Rogers Clark established itself as one of the best girls high school basketball programs in the commonwealth.
The problem was the Cardinals kept running into a bigger overdog in the state tournament.
Sacred Heart’s run to five consecutive state titles came at the expense of Clark in the 2022 quarterfinals, the 2023 semifinals, the 2024 first round and finally last season in the championship game.
But this year, Kentucky’s No. 1 girls team heading into the postseason hailed from a more rural stretch of I-64.
And whether you call the school George Rogers Clark or Clark County, you can now call it girls state champions for the first time in school history.
Clark senior Teigh Yeast scored the first six points of the fourth quarter, and the Cardinals held No. 2 Assumption without a basket for more than four minutes of the final frame to help turn a back-and-forth 33-33 tie into a 48-43 championship game win Saturday in the Clark’s Pump-N-Shop Girls’ Basketball Sweet 16 at Rupp Arena.
“You know, 365 days ago, we were on the other side of this thing. It didn’t feel very good, that bus ride home. That was a long offseason. From day one we started in the summer. The talk was: Gold ball, not silver ball,” said Clark coach Robbie Graham as he sat next to the Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s state championship trophy, appropriately featuring a big gold basketball. “We wanted to get back here. We want to win the gold ball. And every day, it was talked about. Every single day.”
Yeast, a Miss Basketball finalist as the 10th Region’s co-player of the year, had just four points going into the last period. She finished with 12 points, four rebounds and four steals to earn tournament most valuable player honors.
“I had a slow first three quarters, but, I mean, I had to keep playing. I didn’t want to end my very last game in my high school career playing like that,” Yeast said. “So, definitely, when it was tied coming in, I knew we had to get that dub, so I had to step up myself.”
Assumption comes out as the aggressor
Things looked bleak for Clark in the early going. The Cardinals committed eight first-half turnovers leading to 10 points of the Rockets’ 21-19 halftime lead.
Ashlinn James, Assumption’s Miss Basketball finalist as the 7th Region’s co-player of the year, had nine of those points. She finished with a game-high 20.
Most of Clark’s turnovers came as it tried to feed post players in the half-court offense.
“When you’re receiving the ball, you’ve got to step to the ball and meet the pass, and we weren’t doing that,” Graham said. “So they got a couple of runouts … and we just had to maintain. We were only down two at halftime, and we kept saying it could have been 12 to 15. … We’re within striking distance.”
Clark junior guard Kennedy Stamper helped tighten the gap at the end of the second quarter after the Cardinals fell behind 21-14 with 1:57 until the break. She drove down the left lane with a head-fake stutter for a layup with 23 seconds left. A traveling violation on Assumption set up Stamper’s 10-foot fadeaway that beat the buzzer to trim the margin again. Stamper finished with 10 points.
“We definitely needed it going into halftime,” Stamper said. “We weren’t playing our best ball, but it definitely got us into a hot streak, and we were able to come out, you know, on top and start making a bunch of plays.”
In the third quarter, three Clark offensive rebounds and three Assumption turnovers helped stake the Cardinals to a 33-27 lead with 2:39 left in the period. Assumption answered with six straight points from point guard Se’Rae Bundrent-Palmer. A Kylie Moore steal set up the last, a fast break layup by Palmer to tie the game at 33-33 going into the fourth quarter.
That’s when Yeast and Clark’s defense took over. The Cardinals also got a massive game out of 6-foot eighth-grader E’liyah Strode, who notched 15 points, nine rebounds and four blocks. She scored four points in the fourth, including a putback basket.
“I told myself I had to bring it, not for me, but for my team, because I know last year I didn’t play such a big role, but it was still sad to see all the seniors that played give their all and didn’t get it,” Strode said. “So I wanted to give my seniors the chance to have that gold ball and have it in our trophy case and to really show them that I’m here for y’all.”
Assumption coach Caryn Kovatch pointed to rebounding as likely the key stat of the game. Clark outrebounded the Rockets 28-25. The Rockets (27-6) also had been ranked No. 1 at times this season and defeated Clark 61-56 in triple overtime at home in Louisville on Jan. 8.
“This was the game that we wanted to be in from the beginning of the season, and I’m so incredibly proud of our team and the season that we have had and the joy that they have brought me,” Kovatch said. “The sisterhood that we have built together has been incredible, and we will walk away from this game with our heads high. It was an incredible game.”
‘We always came in expecting to be No. 1’
Clark’s Stamper, a Cincinnati commit and Herald-Leader first team all-state selection last season as a sophomore, has started for the Cardinals since seventh grade. That includes every state tournament loss to Sacred Heart since 2022, many times with Clark as the No. 2 ranked team in the state.
“I’m going on my fifth year, so I’ve been waiting for this one,” Stamper said. “So yes, it feels super nice. Each year, this is the same goal. But we don’t look at rankings, so No. 2 never mattered. We always came in expecting to be No. 1, expecting to win a gold ball. And this year, it just became a reality. So, very blessed. I’m doing it with the people I love. And I mean, these people support us, and it’s amazing just the community coming out tonight.”
The KHSAA announced a crowd of 5,110 for Saturday’s final. More than half supported Clark (32-2).
Graham took the Clark job in 2012 and went 13-18 his first season. He went to the state semifinals the next year and hasn’t had a losing season since. Graham has led Clark to 10 of its 19 region championships and been to the Sweet 16 every year of the past decade, excluding the 2020-21 season.
In addition to running into eventual state champion Sacred Heart from 2022 to 2025, the Cards lost to 2019 champ Ryle in the quarterfinals and back-to-back state champion Mercer County in the 2017 and 2018 brackets.
“I probably adequately can’t describe how I feel right now,” Graham said. “It’s for them, you know, not this old guy right here. It’s about them. It’s about that locker room and those ladies. They have to hear me two hours a day, six days a week.
“They’ve earned every bit of this.”
This story was originally published March 15, 2026 at 3:46 AM.
