Raiders beat Barren County to grab early district lead

Published 6:54 am Saturday, December 14, 2024

by Jeff Nations

After two straight seasons of dropping the opening game of District 15 play against Barren County, Warren East’s boys’ basketball team decided to see what it feels like to be front-running instead of playing catch-up.

On the night the school honored legendary former boys’ basketball coach Tommy Compton by officially naming the court in his honor, the Raiders played inspired basketball in the second half to snap a halftime tie and roll to a 64-50 victory Friday night.

“They beat us the last two years at home,” Warren East coach Kyle Benge said. “Our guys have an understanding of that, a lot of them were a part of that. When you’re only playing six district games, it’s important to come out and get that first win and give our guys some confidence.”

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Barren County (1-3 overall, 0-1 District 15) set the tone early, racing out to a 10-2 lead before the Raiders regrouped a bit to trail 14-11 after the first quarter.

Tied at 18 in the second quarter, a five-point scoring burst put the Trojans back up with 2:14 left in the first half. Warren East (4-1, 1-0 District 15) closed the gap again, with senior guard Brenden Bratcher’s 3-pointer going the other way following senior forward Dane Parsley’s blocked shot tying the game at 23-all with 15 seconds left in the half.

The game was still tight midway through the third when Prince’s 3-pointer ignited a decisive 15-3 run that put the Raiders up 33-32 with 1:11 left in the third. East got a trio of 3s in that stretch and shot lights-out in the quarter by hitting 10-of-11 attempts from the field.

“One time during the timeout, I told our guys that it felt like they were scoring on every possession and we weren’t, so that’s a bad combination,” Barren County coach Warren Cunningham said. “If they go on a run, then we’ve got to keep it in the four, five or six range and it kind of got away from us a little bit.”

Up 12 to start the fourth, the Raiders pushed their lead to as many as 15 while never letting the Trojans get closer than 11 the rest of the way.

“I thought Barren County did a really good job of game planning, kind of slowing us down,” Benge said. “We want to play out in transition. They did a good job offensively of being patient. I thought we weren’t very fundamentally sound there on the defensive end in the first half, silly fouls, reaching in. But then in the second half, anytime we got a stop I would tell them to push it in transition. They’re a really good offensive team and they got extra rebounds in the first half where we couldn’t get out in transition, so it was an adjustment of us just playing faster, playing loose.”

Prince finished with a game-high 26 points. He scored 17 in the second half.

“You kind of see why I think he’s the best player in the region,” Benge said. “He handles the ball, he shot it well. There was a stretch there in the third quarter, fourth quarter where we really isolated him on the ball screens and we took advantage of some matchups that they had.”

Bratcher added 18 points for the Raiders.

“We just had to pick it up on defense,” Prince said. “The intensity made us go harder on offense and that’s what we were talking about the whole time in the locker room. It was really just the pressure. We weren’t necessarily trying to cause a turnover, just force a bad shot so we could get the rebound and go.”

Senior guard Tate Spillman scored 17 points to lead Barren County. Senior forward Joshua Decker added a double-double with 10 points and 13 rebounds.

“I thought they made some good plays there in the third quarter and we had some opportunities, but we didn’t take advantage of them,” Cunningham said. “So it’s kind of a combination of things there in the third. But they’ve got a good team. Prince and Bratcher are both a handful. I thought we were better tonight. We took some steps, but it’s just going to take us a little bit of time. Hopefully we can be there at the end.”

Both teams were slated to play in the Barren Hoops Classic on Saturday at Barren County High School.

BCHS 14 9 11 16 — 50

WEHS 11 12 23 18 — 64

BCHS –– T. Spillman 17, Decker 10, Clemmons 8, Bewley 7, Blackburn 2, Hardy 2, Nunn 2, W. Spillman 2.

WEHS — Prince 26, Bratcher 18, Gravil 6, Hogue 5, Sloan 4, Lightfoot 3, Miller 2.

GIRLS

Barren County 47, Warren East 37

Visiting Barren County put together a crushing second-quarter en route to claiming a 47-37 win against District 15 rival Warren East on Friday.

The Trojanettes outscored the Lady Raiders 19-4 over the final six minutes of the second quarter, turning a one-point deficit into a 27-13 lead by halftime.

“Defensively we were really, really good and that’s kind of where we won the game tonight,” Barren County coach Piper Lindsey said. “I think holding a team to 13 points in a half, that’s excellent. I feel like the girls just really bought in to what we were trying to have them do. I thought we were just really active defensively and we did a good job of knowing where everybody was and knowing personnel.”

Warren East (3-1, 0-1 District 15) made a little headway in the second half, trimming the deficit to nine points at 32-23 by the end of the third quarter. A pair of made free throws by senior Lydia Jones got East within seven with 7:37 to play, but Barren County (2-2, 1-0 District 15) let them get no closer.

“I think we just passed the ball well and we played defense,” said Barren County freshman guard Adalynn Slagle, who scored a game-high 16 points. “Our defense just translated over to our offense, which helped us hit shots more.”

Senior Katie Gearlds added 10 points for the Trojanettes, who were set to play Cumberland County in the 4th Region State Farm Challenge on Saturday at Bowling Green High School.

Lydia Jones had 11 points, and senior guards Kennedy and Madison Lawson added nine points each for East.

“It’s certainly not the way we wanted to start out our district, but we hope to learn and grow from this game,” Warren East coach Jenny Neville said. “Last year we started out in similar fashion, losing to Barren County in the first game, so we reminded our team of what we did last year and that it’s very feasible to come back and get the No. 1 seed. However, we can’t just expect it to be given to us. We’ve got to work hard and grow from the mistakes we made tonight and correct them in our next game.”

East was set to face host Bowling Green in the 4th Region State Farm Challenge on Saturday.

BCHS 6 21 5 15 — 47

WEHS 5 8 10 14 — 37

BCHS — Slagle 16, Gearlds 10, Byrd 8, Elmore 6, Burton 3, Bragg 2, Wilson 2.

WEHS — L. Jones 11, K. Lawson 9, M. Lawson 9, Wardlow 5, Collins 2, Carver 1.

About Jeff Nations

Sports Editor, Bowling Green Daily News

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