Jim Mashek

BOWLING GREEN TAKES EARLY EXIT FROM KHSAA SWEET SIXTEEN

LEXINGTON — The Bowling Green High School girls basketball team has experienced plenty of success over the last decade or so.

Under former coach LaVonda Johnson, the Lady Purples won a LOT more games than they lost. They were always a team to watch in the KHSAA’s 4th Region Tournament at WKU’s E.A. Diddle Arena.

Then Calvin Head left Russellville High School, for the BGHS campus, in the summer of 2017. The Lady Purples’ first-year head coach had some ideas about building a program.

Building a culture.

Expecting to win.

Counting on your upperclassmen.

Perhaps it’s the final component that fueled Head’s BGHS team over the last three-plus months.

The Lady Purples endured plenty of ups and downs, significant injuries, and more twists and turns than you’ll find in an open-wheel auto racing course or at an Alfred Hitchcock film festival.

Bowling Green has reached the KHSAA Sweet Sixteen in each of the last four seasons. The Lady Purples didn’t get to play at Rupp Arena three years ago, finding out they’d been sidelined by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic the day before their scheduled first-round game.

The Lady Purples went back to Rupp Arena, in 2021, and slipped past Bishop Brossert in first-round play, claiming a 50-48 victory. Then Head’s BGHS squad ran into Sacred Heart Academy, and after staying within striking distance for the better part of three quarters, the Lady Purples struggled at the offensive end over the final eight minutes.

Sacred Heart 66, Bowling Green 54.

Sacred Heart went on to win the state championship that year, and Calvin Head had plenty of talent returning for the 2021-22 school year.

The Lady Purples encountered little trouble in winning the KHSAA’s 14th District and 4th Region tournaments. LynKaylah James joined forces with Meadow Tisdale near the basket, and Bowling Green remained one of the heavyweights in Kentucky girls basketball.

Bowling Green got back to Lexington, and in first-round play, the Lady Purples were paired against Letcher County Central, a small school from the southeastern corner of the state.

Bowling Green took control fairly early and knocked off Letcher County Central, claiming a 58-45 victory over the Lady Cougars. Head’s Lady Purples were back in the Sweet Sixteen quarterfinals.

Cooper High School knocked off the Lady Purples 55-47, on the Rupp Arena floor, but Bowling Green impressed with a 29-8 overall record, and we knew Head’s squad was probably the team to beat in the KHSAA’s 4th Region for 2022-23.

They were.

Except no one could do it.

Bowling Green went 15-0 against 4th Region opponents, and the Lady Purples claimed their fourth consecutive Sweet Sixteen berth with a dismantling of a tradition-rich Barren County program at WKU’s E.A. Diddle Arena. Bowling Green won that game, 59-37, in a tournament that had been pushed back a day because of severe weather and wind damage in South Central Kentucky on March 2.

Less than 48 hours later, the Lady Purples were on their way to Lexington, for another Sweet Sixteen.

“It’s just a blessing to be here, given what this team has gone through this year,” Calvin Head told the handful of media representatives in the postgame press conference.

The next day, Head and his team were back at Rupp Arena, watching the second day of first-round games and enjoying their final moments together, as a team, before the three-hour trip back to Bowling Green.

“Meadow (Tisdale, the 4th Region Player of the year) is receiving her award for the region’s top player, as chosen by the KABC (Kentucky Association of Basketball Coaches) and she’ll pick up that award (Friday) before we go home,” Head said.

Head understood he could count on his talented Lady Purples triumvirate — Tisdale, Saniyah Shelton and Tanaya Bailey — to get his squad through the tough times.

And there were plenty of them.

In the first week of February, junior guard Ryleigh Campbell sustained a torn ACL during a practice session at the BGHS Arena.

This was two or three days AFTER Meadow Tisdale injured her knee in a runaway victory over Warren Central, and WHILE the Lady Purples were tangling with the likes of two-time state champion Sacred Heart Academy, longtime rival Barren County and Bethlehem High School.

Bethlehem was back in the Sweet Sixteen this year, but the Banshees ran into traditional powerhouse McCracken County in the first round.

McCracken won that game, 71-41.

“We played six teams that made it to the Sweet Sixteen, two of them twice,” Head said.

That would be, in case you’re wondering, Sacred Heart, McCracken County, Bethlehem, Henderson County, Owensboro Catholic and Cooper High School, located in the Greater Cincinnati area.

Cooper eliminated the Lady Purples one year ago, but Calvin Head wanted to play them again. Likewise, his players.

Put together a challenging schedule, the thinking goes, and you’ll be better prepared for an inevitable challenge.

Even with Saniyah Shelton, Meadow Tisdale and Tanaya Bailey moving on after graduation in May.

Shelton is headed to Eastern Kentucky University on an athletic scholarship. Tisdale has cast her lot with Northern Kentucky University, also in Greater Cincinnati. And while Bailey has been recruited, by smaller colleges and junior colleges alike, she plans to pursue a nursing degree and likely will concentrate on academics.

Unless …

“If somebody wants to talk to me, I’ll listen,” Bailey said.

Calvin Head is right.

If you schedule the likes of Backwater High School, the 40-and-up YMCA Dad Bods and the proverbial Little Sisters of the Poor, you’re not going to be ready for tournament basketball. And pretty much EVERYTHING changes in tournament basketball, which we’ll get to … in a minute.

“We’re gonna schedule accordingly,” Head said flatly. “You don’t rack up wins just for the sake of doing that … we want to challenge our kids. We’ll have four seniors next year, but we’ll have several kids in different roles, new roles … we’ll have some kids playing varsity basketball for the first time.”

Bowling Green’s 24-11 season and unprecedented fourth consecutive Sweet Sixteen berth will pay serious dividends down the road.

To wit:

**** Ryleigh Campbell became a vital cog in the Lady Purples’ machine this season, leading the team in 3-pointers (51) and 3-point shooting (38.1 percent), before her soul-crushing knee injury;

**** Junior guard/forward Jasiyah Franklin became a force in the open court, improving in her offensive play all the time;

**** Sophomore guard NaTaya Wardlow, the 5-foot-1 dynamo — “don’t let her size fool you,” Head said with a smile — emerging as a defensive catalyst, and, finally;

**** Sophomore forward Katy Smiley, the daughter of BGHS assistant coach Steve Smiley, moving into the starting lineup and becoming the team’s best 3-point threat in a matter of days, AFTER Campbell’s devastating knee injury.

“Just a blessing, to be here,” Calvin Head said again on Thursday evening at Rupp Arena.

Not only that, but senior point guard Saniyah Shelton — as versatile a player as you’ll find in girls high school basketball — was injured in a car accident late Saturday night after the Lady Purples’ resounding 73-39 victory over Metcalfe County.

“A car came over from two or three lanes on Scottsville Road,” Shelton said, “and I knew they were going to hit us (Shelton and team manager Brady Hamilton were in the vehicle) … I was really sore, the whole next day or two …”

It was an odyessy in a journey wrapped up in an adventure for the Lady Purples.

“What Jasiyah (Franklin) did was crazy good,” Head said. “She grew up in front of our eyes. Katy Smiley shot the ball really well. She was fearless out there. And NaTaya Wardlow, her game is getting better all the time. These are the kids that will move into bigger roles next year …

“You’re always trying to build a winning culture.”

Katy Smiley led the BGHS girls with 20 points against Owensboro Catholic, banking a 25-footer from the left wing just before the final horn sounded.

Calvin Head played his high school basketball at Todd County Central and went into coaching early, serving as a student assistant at Lindsey Wilson College. He came to Bowling Green under some unfortunate circumstances, with his predecessor’s departure.

On August 24, 2017, Head told the Bowling Green Daily News what he had in mind for the Bowling Green High School girls basketball program:

“I’m very, very excited about the opportunity to coach at one of I think the top five programs in the state of Kentucky,” Head said in an interview with former Daily News sportswriter Elliott Pratt. “Rich history of winning and being successful. I’m looking forward to getting in and getting my hands dirty, meeting the kids and just going to work right away.”

Head already has served as the Russellville High School athletic director. He’s a special education teacher at Bowling Green. He’s a constant, at BGHS boys games, even when the Lady Purples aren’t playing in a doubleheader. (LIkewise for BGHS boys coach D.G. Sherrill, who was in Rupp Arena on Wednesday morning about 10, 11 hours after the Purples’ 52-50 overtime loss to No. 1-ranked Warren Central in the 4th Region title game.)

“I know if the shoe were on the other foot, Calvin would be here,” a weary-eyed Sherrill told me in the Rupp Arena officials/coaches/media entrance.

It’s been a rewarding journey, any way you slice it, as senior BGHS center Meadow Tisdale put it on Thursday.

“I’ve tried to make a name for myself, be a good teammate, work hard since I got here,” Tisdale said.

Shelton was equally gracious, moments after the loss to Owensboro Catholic.

“I’m blessed, just to be here,” she said. “I was in a pretty bad automobile accident after our semifinal game on Saturday night … I’m proud of this team, proud of these seniors (Tisdale and Tanaya Bailey) and thankful for everything we’ve got (at Bowling Green High School).”

Calvin Head’s players are obviously listening. And learning. And winning.

They’ll be back in November. Because they’ll be putting in the time between now and then.

Count on it.