Girls Sweet Sixteen Day Two, Pt. 1
Welcome back to opening-round coverage of the 2022 Mingua Beef Jerky Girls Sweet Sixteen Basketball Tournament. We’re now six games into the first round with two more contests to go on Thursday before we move onto the quarterfinal round. If you missed any coverage from Wednesday’s action at Rupp Arena, you can catch up by clicking the links here and here.
The first half of Thursday saw two more schools advance in the tourney, as the Bowling Green Purples and Cooper Lady Jaguars took down Letcher County Central and Pikeville, respectively. Thursday night action features Corbin vs. George Rogers Clark at 6:00 p.m. before a highly-anticipated matchup between Sacred Heart and Anderson County at 8:30 p.m.
Without further ado, let’s dive into the recaps.
Bowling Green 58, Lecther County Central 45
The opening game of Thursday’s slate didn’t feature the haymaker-trading that Meade vs. Boyd did to open the tournament up on Wednesday. Letcher County Central failed to get on the scoreboard until there was 1:54 left in the first quarter and Bowling Green had already run up an 8-0 advantage thanks to buckets from four different starters.
Letcher woke up in dramatic fashion to close the quarter, though. Alice Lloyd commit Kaylee Banks knocked down a 3-pointer and so did her teammate Tori Holcomb. Bowling Green’s fifth starter, LynKaylah James, scored a basket in between the Letcher 3s. But Holcomb finished off the period with a two to cut the lead to 10-8.
Letcher may be outmatched but they showed some fight. Unfortunately, the second quarter was more lopsided. Bowling Green’s Meadow Tisdale — the younger sister of Kentucky football safety Vito Tisdale — scored four straight points to open the lead back up to six, 14-8. James was responsible for the next six Purples points as their lead only grew and the few baskets Letcher converted weren’t enough to keep up.
James made a pair of free throws to put Bowling Green up 10. Then this bucket by Tanaya Bailey made it a 27-15 game heading into the half.
The start of the second half looked much different than the first. Tisdale made a pair of layups while Banks one-upped her with a pair of 3s to keep Letcher in the ball game. Throughout the third, when Bowling Green would extend the lead out to 10-12, the Lady Cougars found a way to respond and cut it back to single digits. They just couldn’t bring the deficit under seven though.
Bowling Green kicked open the floodgates to start the fourth. Tisdale knocked down a triple and scored a layup to help push the Purples’ lead to 15 with six minutes to play with Banks on the bench due to foul trouble. A few minutes later, Bowling Green got the lead up to 17 — too big a gap to make up at the end of the fourth.
Credit Letcher County Central, though. The Lady Cougars hung in for most of the afternoon against a far superior group of athletes for Bowling Green. Banks was extremely impressive with 16 points and 3-4 shooting from distance. I also found it funny that she was subbed out at the end of the game for a different girl on her team named Kaylee Banks. Two girls with the same name on the same roster. Imagine that.
For Bowling Green, Tisdale and James dominated the undersized forwards for Letcher. Tisdale led all scorers with 18 while James added 15. The duo also combined to shoot 12-13 at the free-throw line. The Purples knew their advantage and hammered it away in the post with their bigs.
— Alex Weber
Cooper 57, Pikeville 37
Despite having the worse record, the Cooper Jaguars (24-9) took down the Pikeville Panther (31-3) 57-37 in game two action on Thursday afternoon. Cooper was a machine. Whitney Lind and Logan Luebbers Palmer combined for 39 points for the Jaguars. On the flip side, Kyera Thornsbury led Pikeville with 15 points on 7-10 shooting, however, the valiant effort wasn’t enough to push the Panthers to victory.
Cooper didn’t wait to jump out to an early lead. The Lady Jaguars began the game on a 7-0 run. Pikeville responded, shooting 7-11 in the first frame. Nonetheless, the Panthers couldn’t stop Palmer. The Cooper guard dropped eight first-quarter points, including two buckets from 3-point range. Powered by Palmer, the Lady Jags strolled into the second period with a commanding 19-14 lead.
The second frame wasn’t nearly as action-packed as the first. Cooper’s defense was to blame for the period’s slow pace. They consistently double-teamed Pikeville star Trinity Rowe. The sophomore guard led Pikeville’s offense this season, averaging 16.2 points per game. Cooper’s pesky defense caused seven first-half turnovers for the Panthers.
Defense wasn’t the only place Cooper gave the Panthers headaches. The Jaguars dominated the boards, snagging four times more offensive rebounds than Pikeville in the first half. After a grind-it-out quarter, Cooper was ahead 29-22 at the halftime break.
Coopers’ monstrous defense was even more problematic in the second half. The Jaguars forced the Panthers to commit seven miscues in the third frame. Cooper capitalized on Pikeville’s mistakes, tallying 19 points off Pikeville turnovers by the fourth quarter.
The Panthers’ 3-point shooting kept them in the contest. Through three frames, Pikeville was 50% from deep. Nonetheless, Cooper went into the final eight minutes of the game with a comfortable 40-27 advantage.
Pikeville was desperate for a miracle in the final period, yet there was none to be found. Cooper piled on the Panthers, outscoring them 17-10 in the fourth quarter. In the closing minutes of the game, the Lady Jaguars put on a clinic from the charity stripe. The team shot a jaw-dropping 22-26 from the free-throw line. When the final buzzer sounded, Cooper handed the Panthers a 57-37 loss.
Rebounding was the difference. In the contest, Cooper out-rebounded Pikeville 27-17. Consequently, the Lady Jaguars scored more second-chance points than the Panthers. Cooper will advance to face Bowling Green on Friday at 6 p.m. in the quarterfinals of the tournament.
— Grant Grubbs
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