LEXINGTON — There were tears, and there were long faces.
The Bowling Green High School girls basketball team has become a force in the Commonwealth, under fifth-year coach Calvin Head, and tradition is something you need to maintain a level of excellence in this basketball-mad state.
Bowling Green took another significant step this weekend, despite its season ending 55-47 loss to Cooper High School on Friday night at Rupp Arena.
Head and his coaching staff had the Lady Purples ready for this KHSAA Sweet Sixteen, and that was clearly evident in their opening game. The next night, well, they had to overcome one bad break after another, and it didn’t happen.
Meadow Tisdale, the KHSAA 4th Region Player of the Year, and BGHS teammate LynKaylah James took the initiative in first-round tournament play, a 58-45 victory over Letcher County Central, a small school in Southeast Kentucky near the Virginia state line.
Tisdale and James have been the backbone of the BGHS girls squad, going back to the 2019-20 season, when they won the 4th Region Tournament at WKU’s E.A. Diddle before traveling to Lexington for the Sweet Sixteen. The Lady Purples were having lunch on the day they were scheduled to square off with Russell High School when Head took a phone call from Bowling Green ISD administrators that they wouldn’t get to play on Kentucky high school basketball’s greatest stage after all.
COVID-19 claimed another victim.
So the Lady Purples went back to work in the summer months of 2020, and into the 2020-21 season.
They were clearly the best team in the KHSAA’s 14th District, as well as the 4th Region, although Barren County was a formidable rival in the second stage of the postseason. Barren County coach Piper Lindsey has built a top-flight program herself, but the Lady Purples are usually better near the basket, which is where Tisdale and James do their thing.
WINNING THE KHSAA 4TH REGION TOURNAMENT.
Barren County had no answers for the Lady Purples’ inside presence on March 4, in a 4th Region semifinal at Diddle Arena. Tisdale connected on 8 of 13 field-goal attempts and led Bowling Green to a methodical 50-33 victory over the Trojanettes. The 5-foot-11 junior forward had 19 points and six rebounds for the Lady Purples, who completed the task at hand the next night with a 62-34 thrashing of an upstart Franklin-Simpson squad.
They were going back to Lexington.
The celebration was a little subdued.
It did have a special moment, when junior guard Saniyah Shelton grabbed teammate Emma Huskey, the Lady Purples’ personable senior, a guard who always gets the most out of her talents.
When the all-tournament team was being introduced, Shelton grabbed Huskey, and wouldn’t let go, as she walked toward the awards table at mid-court.
Huskey sported a big smile, but she wasn’t sure what was happening until Shelton gave her the all-tournament plaque presented to those individuals chosen for the team.
A symbolic gesture, sure, but it meant a lot to Huskey. To her teammates. Especially to Calvin Head.
“I was speechless, really, when Saniyah did that,” Huskey said that night. “But this team does have a special bond, together. A sisterhood. It’s always our goal to get to the big stage.”
Huskey’s a great role model for her younger teammates, and she endured a tough night on the court in Bowling Green’s loss to Cooper under the bright lights of Rupp Arena.
Huskey missed a couple free throws when the Lady Purples were scrambling to get back in the game. The undersized guard played nearly the entire game, failing to score but giving Bowling Green some valuable leadership when the Lady Purples needed it most.
And Bowling Green trailed by just three points, at 50-47, with one minute, 13 seconds still showing on the Rupp Arena clock.
Somehow, with Meadow Tisdale fouled out, and LynKaylah James about to follow suit, Calvin Head’s Lady Purples still had a chance, however remote.
Cooper, of course, had other ideas.
The Lady Jaguars held on to win, 55-47, and they exchanged pleasantries in the handshake line before returning to their respective locker rooms.
KHSAA custom dictates the winning team does the opening press conference, to give the losing squad a little time to compose themselves before going before the astute print scribblers, TV barking dogs and assorted other media types looking for a few quotes and/or sound bytes.
(Just kiddin’, my electronic homeboys. We’re good.)
So Cooper coach Justin Holthaus and three of his players — leading scorer Whitney Lind and the Freihofer sisters, Liz and Kay — stepped up to the podium in the bowels of Rupp Arena first.
The Cooper contingent was gracious in victory, saying all the right things about their opponent, and they’ll be paired with defending state champion Sacred Heart in the second semifinal game at about 12:30 p.m. CDT on Saturday, needing two victories in about 8 or 9 hours to complete the path to a state championship.
(That KHSAA logistical decision is an absolute disaster, having the kids play twice in one day, but that’s another conversation for another day.)_
You might remember that it was Sacred Heart that defeated Bowling Green in the KHSAA quarterfinals last year, a gritty 66-54 victory that sidelined the Lady Purples for the season.
Calvin Head chose Tanaya Bailey, who fought through an ankle injury to lead the Lady Purples with 17 points, and Emma Huskey to represent his team in its final press conference of the 2021-22 season.
Bailey and Huskey had tears in their eyes. And they were as true as it comes.
“I was hurt, but I didn’t want to let my team down,” Bailey said.
I managed to ask Emma Huskey if she could put Bowling Green’s season into perspective before the Lady Purples returned to their team hotel, with swirling snow falling outside Rupp Arena.
“Obviously, this isn’t the outcome we wanted,” Huskey said. “I thought we pushed each other, played hard, all season long. I thought we gave it our best shot.”
They sure did. Congrats, Lady Purples. Take a bow. It was a great run indeed.