A new name is on top of Lexington’s all-time boys’ basketball scoring list
Kyle Rode is one of the best basketball players to ever step on a court in Lexington, Ky. He’s got a new record to prove it.
Rode, a senior at Lexington Christian Academy who’s signed with Liberty University, became the city’s new all-time scoring leader with a late free throw in LCA’s 68-55 win over Paul Laurence Dunbar in the 43rd District championship game on Friday. Rode finished the night with 32 points; he needed 30 to pass Taveion Hollingsworth, a former star for Dunbar who currently plays for Western Kentucky University, who set the previous mark in Feb. 2017.
Hollingsworth passed Mike Allen, the former Bryan Station standout who had held the boys’ scoring record since 1989, in a loss at West Jessamine on Feb. 14, 2017. Hollingsworth ended his career with 2,495 points after scoring 44 points in a loss to LCA in the semifinals of that season’s 43rd District tournament.
That season was the first time LCA won a district championship, and was the first of now three straight following Friday’s victory. Both LCA and Dunbar qualified for this year’s 11th Region tournament by virtue of reaching the district finals.
Rode’s career scoring total sits at 2,498 points. Lexington Catholic’s Kelli Stamper holds the city’s all-time scoring mark, regardless of gender, with 2,539 points. Rode needs 42 points to eclipse that mark.
Julius Berry, who starred for the old Dunbar High School in the late 1950s, is credited with scoring 3,000 points in the KHSAA record books but no complete documentation is believed to exist from his games. Due to school segregation, Dunbar was not a member of the KHSAA until Berry’s sophomore season. He died in 2001.
This story was originally published February 22, 2019 at 11:50 PM.
