‘Our leader came through.’ EKU commit leads Douglass to 42nd District championship.
Eastern Kentucky University commit Dashawn Jackson came alive after halftime as No. 6 Frederick Douglass pulled away and beat Henry Clay 59-49 in the 42nd District finals at Bryan Station High School on Friday night.
After scoring just two points in the first half, Jackson buried the Blue Devils in the second. His three-pointer late in the third quarter gave the Broncos the lead for good, 41-38. Jackson followed that with a steal and coast-to-coast layup at the buzzer to cap a 15-2 Douglass run.
“We’ve been saying all year that when you put those deposits in … eventually you’re going to get a withdrawal,” Douglass Coach Jason Moseley said. “In the third and fourth quarter, the deposits we’ve been putting in all year, we finally got some withdrawals.”
Jackson dropped a dagger with two minutes left in the game, drilling another three with a defender in his face to stretch the Douglass advantage to 12.
“Really, I wasn’t even thinking, I was just in the flow of the game,” Jackson said of his back-breaking three. “My basketball instincts just took over and I fired it up.”
Jackson finished with 14 points and five assists. Zaydan Fergerson scored a game-high 16 points in the win, knocking down seven of 10 shots from the field. He hit two crucial buckets in the paint late in the fourth quarter to help squash Henry Clay’s rally attempt.
“We call him ‘Mr. Do It All’ for a reason,” Jackson said of his fellow senior Fergerson. “He does it all on both sides of the ball. He was huge tonight.”
Douglass (17-1) also won both regular-season matchups between the Broncos and Blue Devils, one by 11 points and the other by eight.
Both teams struggled to find offense out of the gate. Douglass drained a pair of three pointers and led 9-8 after one quarter. The lead switched hands three times in the second. Trailing by four, Henry Clay closed the first half on a 10-4 run that included seven straight points from Aziel Blackwell and took a 23-21 advantage into the locker room. Blackwell finished with 11 points and four rebounds.
After a grind-it-our first half, the third quarter was a track meet. Henry Clay (12-7) took its biggest lead, 36-28, when Kanye Henderson finished a drive while being fouled and hit the free throw. The Broncos’ Tyson Barrett then scored seven points as part of the deciding run that Jackson finished.
“These guys are a resilient group of young men … We preach family, and our leader came through and made big plays, winning plays in the end,” Moseley said of Jackson. “These guys stuck together and they took everything Henry Clay had — and they’re a really talented, well-coached group of young men — but my guys decided we weren’t going to lose.”
Konlin Brown led Henry Clay with 14 points, nailing four of six three-point shots. The rest of of the Blue Devils combined to go 1-for-14 from long range. Harrison Lynch had 10 points and nine boards in the loss.
Scott County girls take title
Senior forward Kenady Tompkins produced a double-double and dominated down low as Scott County’s girls knocked off Frederick Douglass 44-37 to win their fifth straight district title in the night’s first game.
“I’ll tell you, that was a hard-fought one in a row,” Scott County Coach Steve Helton said when asked about the Cardinals’ run of consecutive district championships. “My goodness, hats off to Douglass. They’ve improved throughout the year. I don’t know if we would have won that game earlier in the year.”
Each matchup this season between the Cardinals and Broncos has been competitive, with Scott County winning the first regular-season meeting by 10 and Douglass snapping the Cardinals’ 40-game district win streak with a six-point victory in the second.
Tompkins scored 10 points to go along with 15 rebounds and four assists. She was called for a technical late in the game after staring down a Douglass player who committed a hard foul on Tyra Young as the Cardinals ran down the clock. Young hit seven of eight free throws, including several down the stretch, to help seal the win.
It was a physical matchup throughout. One Scott County and three Douglass players fouled out.
Scott County (10-8) pushed a two-point halftime advantage to 10 midway through the third quarter, but the Broncos went on a 9-2 run that included a pair of buckets from Allison Wallace to pull within 26-23 heading into the fourth. A point-blank basket by Tompkins stretched the Cardinals’ advantage back to seven at 33-26.
Wallace led all scorers with 16 points. The junior guard hit back-to-back threes as Douglass (10-13) took its first lead of the night at 6-5. Ayanna-Sarai Darrington had a double-double for the Broncos with 10 points on 5-for-9 shooting and 13 boards.
Tompkins gave the Cardinals the lead for good with a putback that made it 15-13 Scott County at halftime. Makiyah Moore chipped in 12 points for the Cardinals.
“We found a way to win. We’re definitely going to enjoy it and get ready for the region tournament … They showed some toughness tonight,” Helton said. “Survival. It was a good win for us, hopefully a little momentum for us.”
This story was originally published March 20, 2021 at 7:50 AM.
