Jim Mashek

SOUTH WARREN BOYS CLAIM FIRST VICTORY; McLAINE HUDSON’s 30 POINTS SEND LADY SPARTANS PAST AC-S

South Warren High School’s boys basketball team opened the 2023-24 season with back-to-back losses, both by double digits.

The Spartans changed the narrative in a hurry on Tuesday night on the South Warren campus.

Junior guard Griffin Rardin, who has moved into the starting role at the point, guided the Spartans to an early lead and scored a team-high 17 points, all in the first half, as South Warren cruised to a 77-43 victory over visiting Allen County-Scottsville.

South Warren (1-2) hit plenty of outside shots and stayed comfortably ahead of the Patriots, who dropped to 1-3 with the defeat.

Second-year South Warren coach Carlos Quarles was pleased with his team’s balanced scoring — four Spartans finished in double figures — and ball movement against the Patriots’ defense.

“That’s what we strive for,” Quarles said afterward. “We want to have a lot of people be able to do different things for us. It’s a total team effort. We’ve worked hard to develop all our players.

“We kind of take the month of December to figure ourselves out.”

Rardin, a key player in the Spartans’ drive to the KHSAA baseball state quarterfinals in the spring, kept South Warren on the attack against AC-S. Rardin hit some early 3-pointers to give the Spartans the lead in the first quarter, and after scoring 17 points in the first half, seemed content to distribute the ball to his teammates.

Junior forward Thad Hall, who spent the bulk of the 2022-23 season on the South Warren junior varsity, showed a deft shooting touch from the outside. He finished the game with 15 points, all of them coming on 3-point field goals.

South Warren guard/forward Bryce Button, the starting quarterback for the Spartans’ football team, had 13 points, 11 of them in the third quarter.

“It was only a matter of time with Griff,” Button said. “He stayed patient and let the game come to him.”

Quarles substituted freely against the Patriots, but they seemed to be at their best with Griffin Rardin at the point. Rardin is the son of second-year WKU baseball coach Marc Rardin, who was in the stands behind the South Warren bench.

Griffin Rardin was encouraged by the Spartans’ victory.

“I just knew I had to step up for this team,” he said. “When you don’t have a lot of experience, and you’re the point guard, it’s up to you to create shots, for my teammates. We’ve focused on defense, a lot, in practice and we still have a lot of work to do on our transition game.”

Senior guard Drew Hudson had 10 points for the Spartans. Jackson Morris led the Patriots with 10 points and teammate Chase Ross finished with eight.

The Patriots are on the road to face Westmoreland (Tennessee) on Saturday night, while South Warren will tangle with Webster County on Saturday afternoon at Owensboro’s Sportscenter.

SOUTH WARREN GIRLS 61, ALLEN COUNTY-SCOTTSVILLE 51 — South Warren evened its record at 1-1 as sophomore guard McLaine Hudson took control early in the game.

Hudson scored 30 points, while keeping her Spartans teammates active on the offensive end of the floor, to give South the victory.

“We were able to get the ball up and down the court,” South Warren coach Lane Embry said. “I think we got a lot of good shots. We just relied on defense all the way through.

“We have a lot of unselfish girls, that’s for sure.”

Hudson said the Spartans have plenty of offensive options, but she took the initiative in leading South to its first victory of the season.

“I think that’s one of our biggest strengths, we have some depth,” Hudson said. “If we can take our opponents out of their comfort zone, I think we can do some good things out there.”

Allen County-Scottsville dropped to 1-2 with the defeat. Senior guard Jayleigh Steenbergen led the Patriots with 24 points, and teammate Avery Morris, a freshman, finished with 15.

AC-S faces Russellville High School on Saturday morning in the State Farm Fourth Region Challenge at Bowling Green High School. South Warren, meanwhile, plays host to Franklin-Simpson on Thursday evening.