Jim Mashek

KHSAA STATE CHAMPION TO BE DETERMINED OVER NEXT 12-13 HOURS

GEORGETOWN, Kentucky — Greetings from the Starbucks off Interstate 75 in this charming burg located about 20 minutes north of Lexington.

The Warren Central High School boys basketball team, a dogged bunch if there ever was one, are playing for more than a KHSAA Sweet 16 state championship on Saturday.

They’re playing for their school on Old Morgantown Road and the surrounding community. They’re playing for the KHSAA’s 4th Region, their homeboys at South Warren, Warren East, Greenwood, and, yes, Bowling Green High School.

Bowling Green knows these guys as well as anybody.

The sportsmanship between the two schools, at least as far as basketball goes, is quite impressive.

Warren Central has taken care of business in its first two Sweet 16 games, eliminating Pulaski County with little trouble, 80-55, before advancing to the semifinals on Friday afternoon with a hard-fought, closer-than-the-score-would-indicate, 64-48 victory over Ashland Blazer High School.

Veteran WCHS coach William Unseld, right-hand man Cedric Gumm and the entire Warren Central coaching and support staff have been preparing for this day for a long, long time.

Certainly since last year’s pursuit of the school’s second state championship in boys basketball.

Certainly since the Dragons’ only loss of the season, a 60-43 setback to Mason County on December 27 in a holiday tournament at Lexington Catholic High School.

Certainly since Unseld and the Dragons left the WCHS campus with a festive send-off before arriving in Lexington Tuesday evening.

Take your pick.

Warren Central has taken on some live underdogs in this amazing run at a possible state championship.

D.G, Sherrill’s BGHS Purples, for starters. Bowling Green took Warren Central to overtime, on the Dragons’ home court, before Central caught fire in overtime to win 75-67 on February 3.

That was a district game, though. Players and coaches from both teams would wake up the next morning knowing they still could make a championship run.

Bowling Green would get a couple more shots at Warren Central, first in the KHSAA 14th District title tilt, which in the big picture was for show and seeding.

Seeding for the impending KHSAA 4th Region Tournament, which would unfold one week later at WKU’s E.A. Diddle Arena. So the Dragons strolled onto the Greenwood High School floor and put it in their pocket pretty early, taking an overwhelming 75-56 victory.

Warren Central teammates Chappelle Whitney and Kade Unseld got hot early, and later on, Omari Glover and Damarion Walkup got in on the fireworks, and the Dragons were on their way to WKU with all the momentum they’d need.

You would think.

A depleted Franklin-Simpson squad was no match for the Dragons in quarterfinal play. William Unseld could used his bench extensively in that one, and 10 different Warren Central players scored in the 73-28 rout of the Wildcats.

Damarion Walkup, the 6-foot-4 defensive dynamo, led the Dragons with 18 points in that game.

Five nights later, after the KHSAA 4th Region girls tournament was completed, Warren Central had an interesting opponent in upstart Warren East High School.

Second-year East coach Kyle Benge has done a masterful job on Louisville Road, and the Raiders had plenty of firepower, including 6-foot-8 albatross Isaiah Andrews, a quick cat with a shooter’s touch from the perimeter and a shot-blocker’s mentality under the basket.

Warren Central caught fire early and never relented, taking an 81-45 victory.

Then the matchup we anticipated all along, Bowling Green and Warren Central, would commence at E.A. Diddle Arena.

It evolved into a half-court affair, with Warren Central in front most of the way, before the Purples climbed back into it late in the game.

And in the fourth quarter, it became a one- or two-possession affair.

And the feel of a prizefight.

William Unseld had Damarion Walkup hold the ball at mid-court, in the final minute and change of regulation, with the score tied at 50. Walkup could bring Mason Ritter, the Purples’ splendid 6-foot-8 center, away from the basket in such a scenario, and that’s what Unseld wanted.

The Dragons didn’t get a great shot to win it, however, as Walkup’s awkward baseline jumper was off the mark.

Overtime.

Warren Central struck first, but soon it would become a half-court slugfest. After the Dragons used a timeout in the final minute of overtime, WCHS senior guard/forward Omari found teammate Kade Unseld in the lane, and got him the ball.

Ritter was headed in that direction, too, so Unseld had to make a twisting motion to bank a 6- or 7-foot shot off the glass to put the Dragons in front, 52-50, with five seconds left.

Sherrill’s Purples did everything right to pull it out. And almost did.

They inbounded the ball to Ritter at midcourt, and quickly used another timeout, their last one of the game, if memory serves.

The Purples’ Deuce Bailey inbounded the ball, and BGHS teammate M.J. Wardlow lowered his shoulder, intent on finding a spot for a stop-and-pop jumper.

And that’s exactly what Warren Central anticipated.

Wardlow whipped the ball to the perimeter, on the right side, where junior BGHS guard Luke Idlett was waiting.

Idlett got off a 25-footer, barely, but it was just a tad short, and the Dragons would win 52-50.

Punching their ticket back to Lexington.

In non-district play, Warren Central mixed it up with the likes of Owensboro High School, Louisville’s De Sales High School, Louisville’s Manuel High School, Paducah Tighlman and the aforementioned Purples from across town in Bowling Green.

Basketball royalty, pretty much.

You can’t come any closer to a state championship, and not actually win it, in what the Dragons experienced one year ago today.

Warren Central arrived in Lexington last year as a plucky underdog, the Medium-Sized Engine That Could.

Nobody was going to take the Dragons for granted, certainly not Male, their first-round opponent. But Male was considered a pretty heavy favorite.

That impressed the Dragons none too much.

Warren Central went out and took the fight to the Bulldogs from Derby City, winning 57-54.

Then the Dragons eliminated Murray High School 54-48 in the quarterfinals, before returning to Rupp Arena the next day to square off with Covington Catholic.

Chappelle Whitney — yes, in case you’re wondering, he was named after comedian/actor/activist Dave Chappelle — went to work near the basket and scored 21 points, while senior shooting guard Jaiden Lawrence added 15 to send the Dragons to a pulsating 61-58 victory over the Colonels.

Then time became everything.

George Rogers Clark, which had already played its way into the championship game that Saturday night, was back at its hotel. Chilling for the showdown with the Dragons at Rupp.

William Unseld and his staff, meanwhile, were doing double time on the Rupp floor and in the media area to get the Dragons to the buses and back to THEIR hotel.

The clock was runnin’.

(Full disclosure: I didn’t make that quick press conference. I have never had much of a sense of direction, and I’m seated in the upper deck press seating, and going against the traffic of fans leaving the arena, and my arthritis, I was walkin’ around like Fred G. Sanford, without any Warren Central quotes for my quick hitter story.)

This year, there’s no such concern.

Yes, the Dragons still have to win TWO games, not one, to claim the school’s second state championship in boys basketball.

But if they can get past Woodford County — a quick, athletic team that caught fire late in the 2022-23 season — they’ll have time to get some LEGITIMATE rest for the championship game.

That would be, believe it or not, against Lexington’s Frederick Douglass High School, or George Rogers Clark High School, in Clark County.

It’s almost setting up as a Hollywood ending.

The Warren Central players are rock stars up here at Rupp Arena. They’re recognized on the concourse. Coaches from other schools offer their encouragement. They’ve lost just one game.

They’ve won 34 of them.

It’s all going to unfold, in time.

William Unseld is gonna have his team ready to play.

Warren Central guard Izayiah Villefuerte returned me a text message, this morning, to indicate that was the case.

“Yes sir, we all got our rest,” Villafuerte said. “We are all ready for today.”

Man, this is gonna be a lotta fun.

Good luck and good fortune, Dragons.

I gotta clean up and boogie on down to Rupp my own self.