6-foot-6 star, big hearts propel Bullitt East to first Sweet 16 championship game
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2022 Girls’ Sweet 16 coverage
Click below to read all of the coverage from Kentucky.com and the Lexington Herald-Leader during the Girls’ Sweet 16 State Basketball Tournament in Rupp Arena.
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Bullitt East brought the biggest stick of anybody to the girls’ state tournament, and it has dished out plenty of pain.
The Chargers on Saturday rolled against Southwestern, 66-42, in the semifinals of the Mingua Beef Jerky Girls’ Sweet 16 to advance to their first championship game. That game was scheduled for later Saturday night.
By the fourth quarter, the only thread left to resolve was whether or not Chargers star Gracie Merkle would topple the record for rebounds in a state tournament game. She ended three shy of matching the previous record — Butler’s Valerie Owens had 24 against Sheldon Clark in 1976 — and led Bullitt East with 27 points. Emma Egan finished with 13 points and eight rebounds while Lilly Reid added five assists.
The presence of Merkle — a 6-foot-6 center who sees double- and triple-teams with more regularity than the missed shots she’s able to secure — figured heavily in the three Bullitt East victories, all by double-digits. But the total buy-in from the team is what has made the biggest difference in this group making history rather than faltering, as it did last year in the first round against the same school, Bethlehem, it handed a 15-point loss on Wednesday.
“I think that’s one of the things that has set us apart, besides ‘we’ve got a 6-6 kid,’” said head coach Chris Stallings, who has guided the Chargers to four state tournaments and has them in their third straight. “Our pieces just fit so well together, and not one of them cares (about shots). Gracie doesn’t care if she gets 10 touches or 20. She’s never said to her teammates, ‘You gotta get me the ball.’ And the guards aren’t selfish. It’s just a basketball team, and they’re put together well. And they love each other.”
Bullitt East was up by 14 after the first quarter, and Merkle had a double-double by the 5:47 mark of the second. The Warriors capitalized on a four-minute scoring drought by the Chargers get to within 19-10 with 3:42 to play in the first half, but Bullitt East closed on a 9-4 run to take a 28-14 lead into the locker room.
Ayden Smiddy scored Southwestern’s first seven points and along with Kaylee Young had 11 points to lead the Warriors, who sought their first finals berth in the last four seasons. They were without Kayla Noritis, their leading scorer and rebounder through two Sweet 16 games. The senior suffered an ankle injury in Southwestern’s quarterfinal win over Franklin County and went through warm-ups with the team Saturday, but head coach Junior Molden didn’t feel good about playing her.
“We did everything we could to prepare, but when I watched her warm up, I was scared I would hurt one of our student-athletes and I couldn’t take that gamble. I had to sit her,” Molden said through tears. “She knew it. We talked about it. It’s tough when you had a tournament like she was having. She was having an MVP-type tournament.”
The Chargers’ win came two years to the date that the 2020 Sweet Sixteen was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They’d won the day before but ultimately would never play in the quarterfinals; the tournament was officially canceled a few weeks later.
Stallings said the team would spend Saturday night in Lexington, win or lose. It’s savoring every second of this year’s experience.
“Last year’s loss against Bethlehem, that first round, it really motivated us,” Merkle said. “We knew we had to come back. We knew it was our year to be able to go back to the state tournament, the state championship, now, and win it all.”
This story was originally published March 12, 2022 at 1:56 PM.
