LEXINGTON — Meadow Tisdale put it in plain terms, just two weeks ago, when the Bowling Green High School girls basketball team were in the early stages of their mission.
The school’s first state champion in girls’ basketball. Numero Uno. The Chosen One. The Trend Setter.
Take your pick.
Tisdale, the Lady Purples’ standout junior forward, summed it up after Bowling Green steamrolled South Warren 64-41 in the KHSAA 14th District Tournament at Warren Central High School.
“We’re trying to make history,” Tisdale said. “We hoping to get three gold trophies, one at a time.”
The Lady Purples have collected the first two, and with some pretty lopsided numbers to account for them.
But the ultimate challenge is still in front of them.
Win four games, in just three days, to hoist a KHSAA state championship trophy on the floor of Rupp Arena, for the first time, no less.
It all starts with Friday’s quartefinal game, a 5 p.m. CST showdown with Cooper High School in Union, Kentucky, a town in Boone County just 18 miles southwest of Cincinnati.
Cooper outscored Pikeville 28-15 in the second half, claiming the second game of Friday’s first session at Rupp Arena with a 57-37 victory. This was immediately after Bowling Green turned up its defense to exile Letcher County Central, winning 58-43 to reach the Sweet Sixteen quarterfinals for the second consecutive season.
Head, his coaching staff and the BGHS players watched the Cooper-Pikeville game in Rupp Arena, before returning to their team hotel. On Friday morning, Head said the Lady Jaguars have an imposing front line and a strong outside shooting game to their matchup with Bowling Green.
“We’ve got to rebound,” Head said. “They’re an extremely good rebounding team, and defensive team. They shoot the ball well from the perimeter.
“They kill people on the boards.”
Head wasn’t being literal, of course, but he knows the importance of rebounding in a half-court game. At the level of the state tournament, lower scores are commonplace. Two winning teams managed more than 53 points on Wednesday, the first of two days of quarterfinals play. After the BGHS girls eliminated Letcher County Central, Cooper and Pikeville were locked in a low-scoring game until the Lady Jaguars pulled away late in the contest.
In last night’s finale, Sacred Heart, the defending KHSAA state champion, subdued Anderson County 43-38. It was Sacred Heart that ousted Bowling Green from the Sweet Sixteen last year, a 66-54 verdict that brought the Lady Purples’ season to a halt.
Bowling Green is gunning for its first appearance in the tournament’s semifinals, which would be in the second of the two semifinals, at approximately 12:30 p.m. Saturday. That would give the first winning team, which plays at 10 a.m. on Saturday, a significant logistical advantage with the championship game to unfold just a few hours later.
That’s right, to win the state championship, you’ve got to win twice in a single day.
“We’ve never been to the final four, at Bowling Green,” Head said.
And he’s embracing the chance to do it, to be the BGHS trailblazers.
“It’s very unique to have that schedule for the final four teams,” Head said. “However, I truly believe it makes winning it even more special.”
Cooper’s Whitney Lind averages 17 points and 7 rebounds per game, and teammates Logan Luebbers Palmer and Liz Freihofer are scoring at a clip of more than 10 points per game. The Lady Jaguars shoot 40 percent from the field, but particularly important, 31 percent from 3-point range.
“They’re really good outside shooters,’ Head said. “We’ve got to find our winning formula for it.”
That’s certainly what Meadow Tisdale, the KHSAA 4th Region Player of the Year, has in mind.
“We’ve just got to come out, play hard and rebound … just play like we know,” Tisdale said.
Tip-off is at 5 p.m. CDT.
