Track star could help Marshall County race back to the Girls’ Sweet 16
Note: Herald-Leader high school sports writer Jared Peck traveled to Louisville on Saturday to see the Statewide Mortgage Valentine Shootout at Butler Traditional High School where 12 of the best girls’ basketball teams in the state competed in a morning-to-night showcase event. Here’s one of the stories to come out of the day.
Returning a solid, experienced team that had no seniors last season, defending 1st Region champion Marshall County came into 2021 as a favorite to earn a return trip to the Girls’ Sweet 16.
And that was before adding one of the state’s all-time great high school track athletes to its roster.
Sophie Galloway, a Graves County transfer who owns multiple state track and field titles and an all-time mark, recently signed with Tennessee as a track athlete. As her track career took off, Galloway stepped away from basketball as a junior, but she couldn’t resist a chance to play hoops again after her family moved to Marshall County.
“I don’t have to (play), but I love the girls,” said Galloway, who last played basketball two seasons ago when Marshall County Coach Aaron Beth was the head man at Graves County. “Coach Beth is like a second dad to me.”
Now, with the 6-foot-1 Galloway alongside 6-2 junior Halle Langhi in the post and a 5-11 wing in junior Jada Driver, the Marshals have one of the tallest, most athletic starting lineups in the state.
“It’s awesome. I love it,” Langhi said of playing with Galloway. “She can jump up high and get those rebounds. And you can’t double down on one of us.”
The advantages are clear. Langhi scored 17 points, including a game-clinching low-post bucket in the final minute to help the Marshals beat No. 6 Bardstown, 55-50, on Saturday at the Statewide Mortgage Valentine Shootout at Butler Traditional High School. Galloway scored 11 and Driver 13 in the effort to go along with multiple blocked shots for each during the game.
“It helps a lot to be tall,” Langhi said, laughing. “It’s hard to guard, sometimes. You can be really fast, but you can’t be teaching tall.”
The victory has helped No. 2 Marshall County (11-1) rocket up the Dave Cantrall Ratings since its season-opening loss to No. 7 Bethlehem.
Langhi has begun seeing better opportunities in the post since teams have to split their defensive attention between her and Galloway.
“Halle is really maturing as a player,” Beth said. “She doesn’t have the athleticism Sophie has, but she has a lot more basketball skill. She’s played her whole life. She’s getting stronger, getting more aggressive … . Those two together are going to be a handful for every team we play.”
Marshall County and Bardstown (10-2) were each on 10-game win streaks heading into Saturday. The Marshals led by double digits in the third period before Bardstown stepped up its defensive full-court pressure late to tie the game in the final minute at 50-50.
With her defending fronting her, Langhi sealed off the left block and received a ball over the top for an easy lay-in to break the tie and ultimately help secure the win.
“It was huge,” Beth said of the victory. “To be able to come in and beat a team that has this kind of athleticism — obviously, it was a very competitive game. It went back and forth the whole day. Super proud of our girls for adjusting to the speed of the game.”
To put Galloway’s track stardom in perspective, as a sophomore in 2019 she defended her Class 3A long jump and triple jump state titles and won the 100-meter hurdles. And she owns the state triple jump record with a leap of 40 feet, 7 inches. Beth sees Galloway getting her basketball legs back under her.
“She’s an unbelievable athlete … . She’s even got Olympic aspirations, so to have her on the point of our 1-2-2 half-court traps is definitely a pleasant thing for the coach,” Beth said. “She’s just now coming into her own (on the court). She’s going to get better over the next five or six weeks. I’ve seen her do it before and just the last week and a half, it’s been a phenomenal job from where she was to where she is, and I know there’s still a pretty high level she can go even beyond this.”
Driver scores 11.6 points per game and Marshall has a pair of veteran guards helping run the show with Cayson Conner on point and leading the team with 14.7 points per game and Layne Pea contributing 8.2 points per game.
“You dream as a coach about getting to coach teams like this,” Beth said. “I had a team very similar to this my first year at Graves. We went to the state tournament and got beat by three to Allen County and then (Allen) got beat by three in the finals, so that’s the closest I’ve ever been to coaching a team that had a legitimate shot.”
Highlights
This story was originally published February 8, 2021 at 8:03 AM.
