Henry Clay boys and girls cruise into finals

Henry Clay, ranked third in the state, took a few moments to get their legs under them, but when they did, they trampled Bryan Station with a burst of three-pointers and offensive rebounds for a 73-61 win Tuesday in the 42^nd District boys’ semifinals at Scott County.

The Blue Devils’ Mr. Basketball candidate Isaiah “Pun” Tisdale, who led all scorers with 28 points, keyed runs in the first and second halves that bent and then broke the Defenders’ defense.

Bryan Station jumped to an 8-0 lead as the Blue Devils missed six straight baskets. A corner three-pointer by Bryan Station’s Rafael Few brought a timeout by Blue Devil’s Coach Daniel Brown three minutes into the game.

Brown admitted some team nerves early. “I think it’s just tournament time,” he said. “That first quarter we just (needed to) get settled in. We’ve got some experienced guys. After that timeout, we settled in and our defense caught our wind. Once we climbed back in it, I though we had the momentum.”

After a DeAndre Dishman putback put the Defenders up 14-8 with 1:45 left in the first, they failed to score for more than four minutes.

During the lull, Henry Clay converted a four point trip to tie the game 14-14 when Tisdale got fouled on a 3-point miss, made the first two free throws and had his miss put back in by teammate Krizall Mitchell with a half minute left in the first quarter.

Tisdale then blocked a layup at the other end to secure the last possession of the period. His three-point try missed, but Leander Ridgeway corralled it for another lay-in to give the Devils a 16-14 lead before the buzzer. The Devils never trailed after that.

“Coach kept telling me to go to the hole and stop settlin’, so that’s what I did,” Tisdale said. “Once we got on that run we felt like they just broke down and … we just kept attacking.”

As hard as it was to stop Tisdale, the Devils were harder to stop on the glass. Henry Clay grabbed 53 rebounds to Bryan Station’s 27. Twenty-three of those boards came on the offensive end, including seven of Jordan Jones 14 boards off the bench.

“(Jones) isn’t the one that gets all the credit,” Brown said. “He was the one that dictated a lot of the runs. He was active on both ends.”

In the second half, Henry Clay left no doubt. Consecutive unanswered three-pointers by Ridgeway, Ridgeway and Jones were part of a 13-0 run that broke the game open. The Devils extended the cushion to as much as 62-31with 6:25 left in the game before easing into the 12 point win. The Devils shot only 12-36 from the field in the first half. They improved on that by going 16 of 27 in the second (59.3 percent).

Ridgeway joined Tisdale in double figures with 19 points for Henry Clay. Tim Dunn led the Defenders with 17 points and Andre Davis chipped in 11. Dishman led Bryan Station on the boards with nine rebounds to go with his seven points.

Henry Clay’s victory sets up a finals matchup with No. 14 Scott County on Thursday. The Blue Devils lost both regular season games to the Cardinals.

Girls: Henry Clay 49, Sayre 30

Henry Clay dominated Sayre in a girls 42^nd District semifinals game..

The victory set up the Blue Devils’ third matchup with Bryan Station this season. The Defenders suffered blowouts to Henry Clay both early and late in the year, but Devils Coach Eric Sanford expects a tough game in Thursday’s finals.

“Bryan Station is a guard oriented team, so we know we’re going to have to guard the perimeter,” Sanford said. “We’re not going to be able to pack it in on them, but we can control the glass and contest shots all night long.”

Henry Clay and Sayre played more than five scoreless minutes before Nakeisha Green got a layup and a foul to make it 3-0 with 2:40 left in the first period.

Sayre executed some nice plays to get within 7-6 at the end of the first. But Henry Clay’s size and pressure began to take its toll in the second period. Four offensive rebounds and putbacks, three by the Devils’ leading scorer T’laya Lyvers, contributed to a 10-2 run that put Henry Clay out front 21-10 at the half.

The Devils ran off nine straight points to open the frame with a three-pointer and another putback by Lyvers included as they stretched the lead to 32-10. Adding to the frustrations, Sayre’s 5-foot-11 center Isabel Pergande fouled out less than halfway through the third. The Spartans got no closer than 15 the rest of the way.

Lyvers led Henry Clay with 11 points and eight rebounds. Dee Dee Wheeler scored 14 to pace Sayre.

Sanford extended the team’s sympathies to the family of Fayette County school board chairman John Price, who died Tuesday of leukemia.

This story was originally published February 23, 2016 at 10:44 PM with the headline "Henry Clay boys and girls cruise into finals."