Hardy’s career night boosts Trojans over Gators
Published 9:47 am Wednesday, January 29, 2025
Barren County senior Brey Bewley (3) drives to the basket while Greenwood senior Nick Simpson (3) defends during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Barren County junior Kade Hardy (23) puts up a shot during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Barren County senior Tate Spillman (5) drives to the basket while Greenwood senior Garrett Hatcher (5) defends during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Greenwood senior Tyler Reiter (14) Barren County senior Will Spillman (12)l and Barren County senior Jackson Reece (21) chase after a loose ball during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Barren County junior Ben Blackburn (35) and Greenwood freshman Ethan York (30) dive for a loose ball during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Barren County senior Joshua Decker (32) drives to the basket while Greenwood junior Ojare Murrell (12) defends during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Greenwood senior Nick Simpson (3) drives to the basket while Barren County junior Kade Hardy (23) defends during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Greenwood senior Ryan Troutman (24) puts up a shot while Barren County senior Brey Bewley (3) defends during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Greenwood senior Asher Pettus (4) puts up a shot during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Greenwood senior Ryan Troutman (24) looks to pass while Barren County junior Kade Hardy (23) defends during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Greenwood senior Nick Simpson (3) puts up a shot over Barren County senior Waylon Clemmons (33) defends during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Greenwood junior Ojare Murrell (12) drives to the basket while Barren County senior Joshua Decker (32) defends during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Barren County senior Tate Spillman (5) looks to pass while Greenwood sophomore Martell Tuttle (2) and Greenwood senior Ryan Troutman (24) defend during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Greenwood junior Ava Morrison (30) grabs a rebound during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Greenwood eighth grader Anzlee Hendrix (1) drives to the basket while Barren County sophomore Shelby Byrd (24) defends during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Greenwood eighth grader Anzlee Hendrix (1) puts up a shot during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Greenwood senior Savannah White (5) looks to pass while Barren County junior Ann Ashley Atkinson (35) defends during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Barren County Trojanettes head coach Piper Lindsey looks on during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Greenwood sophomore Molly Tandy (10) looks to pas while Barren County freshman Mahalia Burton (3) defends during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Greenwood eighth grader Anzlee Hendrix (1) attempts to keep the ball away from Barren County freshman Adalynn Slagle (11) and Barren County junior Ann Ashley Atkinson (35) during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Barren County freshman Mahalia Burton (3) puts up a shot over Greenwood sophomore Molly Tandy (10) during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Barren County senior Katie Gearlds (30) drives to the basket while Greenwood junior Ava Morrison (30) defends during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Barren County junior Ann Ashley Atkinson (35) drives to the basket while Greenwood senior Savannah White (5) defends during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Barren County freshman Adalynn Slagle (11) puts up a shot during a double header between Greenwood and Barren County on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Greenwood High School. Barren County won both games. The Lady Trojanettes won 60-35 over Greenwood, while the Trojans defeated the Gators 71-65.
Barren County junior Kade Hardy risked making the next extended family gathering a bit tense Tuesday night.
The Trojans’ junior guard delivered a career-high 26-point performance in a 71-65 road win at Greenwood – coached by his first cousin, Will McCoy.
No hard feelings, though.
“Family’s not supposed to do that to family, are they?” McCoy joked afterward. “That kid works his butt off. You don’t have games like that by accident. He’s a gym rat. He got off to kind of a slowish, inconsistent start and he’s been playing really well as of late. He had a career night and I’m happy for him. It’s over – he’s family and I’m really proud of him. He really changed up the way we were trying to guard them tonight. He really shifted our game plan.”
Greenwood (14-8) set a blistering pace early, pushing the tempo and knocking down 3-pointers off catch-and-shoot kickouts to to the arc. The Gators got three 3s – each from a different player – in the first quarter as they pushed ahead by as many as six points.
But for every Greenwood rally, Hardy had the answer. He hit three 3-pointers in the first quarter to help keep Barren County (13-9) afloat during that early onslaught.
The Gators kept going for the knockout, surging ahead by as many as nine points at 33-24 in the second quarter on an Asher Pettus 3-pointer.
The Trojans finished the first half in a flourish, getting back-to-back treys from Jackson Reece and Brey Bewley to trail just 36-34 at the break.
Already at 16 points by halftime, Hardy didn’t cool down during the break. His eight points including two more 3-pointers, plus a seven-point quarter from Bewley, helped Barren County wrest control of the game and set a pace more to its liking the rest of the way.
“It was a good night,” said Hardy, whose previous scoring high was 20 points. I love playing coach McCoy – that’s my cousin, so it always means something to come up here and make a couple shots, play a good game and get a good win against them.”
The Trojans opened the third quarter on an 8-0 run with consecutive 3s from Bewley and Hardy to push ahead 42-36 with 6:24 left in the quarter. Greenwood rallied to within 46-44 after a Nick Simpson pull-up jumper, but Barren led 55-50 going into the final quarter.
The Gators hung around the rest of the way, but the Trojans kept fending off a real surge. After another Pettus 3-pointer got Greenwood back within 65-61 wihth 1:29 to play, Bewley went to free-throw line and missed the second shot – teammate Joshua Decker grabbed the offensive rebound, passed the ball to Hardy and the Gators had to foul again. Hardy hit both free throws to stretch the lead back out to seven.
Greenwood answered with four straight points to cut the deficit to three, but Bewley hit 3-of-4 from the free-throw line the rest of the way to seal the win.
“I thought we made shots,” Barren County coach Warren Cunningham said. “I didn’t tell our team this, but I told our coaches – we’re going to have to score some points because they’re going to score. They’re good enough offensively, they make shots, they can score around the basket. They’ve got a lot of different guys that can score, so I knew we had to score some. We’re not going to beat them 40-38 tonight, so we had to make some shots. Kade got us going and that’s contagious. We were trying to run some stuff to get him the ball and it freed some other guys up.”
Bewley added 19 points, Tate Spillman had 12 points and Decker finished with six points, six rebounds and four blocks as Barren County won its fifth straight game heading into Saturday’s road game at Monroe County.
Pettus led four Gators in double-figure scoring, finishing with 14 points and nine rebounds. Garrett Hatcher added 13 points, and Ryan Troutman and Nick Simpson finished with 12 points each.
“I still felt OK at halftime,” McCoy said. “They were on fire. I was really hopeful they would cool off. And what happened is we did a better job defensively, but kind of lost our way on offense. Still just waiting for us to play a good, solid 32 minutes on both sides of the ball. It’s been about three weeks since we put together a complete game on both sides.”
Greenwood hosts District 14 rival Warren Central on Friday.
BCHS 16 18 21 16 – 71
GHS 19 17 14 15 – 65
BCHS – Hardy 26, Bewley 19, T. Spillman 12, Decker 6, Reece 4, Clemmons 2, Nunn 2.
GHS – Pettus 14, Hatcher 13, N. Simpson 12, Troutman 12, York 5, Murrell 4, Reiter 2, Tuttle 2, Meador 1.
GIRLS
Barren County 60, Greenwood 35
Visiting Barren County got a 26-point outing from sophomore Shelby Byrd in Tuesday’s 60-35 win against Greenwood.
Barren County (19-2) separated in the first quarter with an 11-0 run, turning an 8-7 deficit into an 18-8 lead by the end of the first quarter.
The Trojanettes forced 10 turnovers in the first eight minutes, with Byrd scoring 12 points in that first quarter.
“We keep on bragging about our defense and I told the girls in the locker room, ‘Don’t get tired of hearing it,’ because that’s kind of the end thing we want to say every time is that your defense won that game for you. I feel like it creates easy opportunities on the offensive end.
“This group’s just special because we kind of change and tweak different things that we’re doing and they kind of do it on the fly. They trust each other and they trust us. They’re just a really good group that’s just believing in themselves and doing the little things to make it happen.”
After Gracyn Nealon hit a 3-pointer to open the second quarter for the Lady Gators, the Trojanettes got back-to-back 3s from Ann Ashley Akinson and then two more baskets from Byrd for a 10-0 run that pushed the lead out to 28-11 with 4:26 left in the half.
From there, Greenwood (8-10) never recovered – Barren County outscored the Lady Gators 15-2 in the fourth quarter.
Barren County (19-2), which has won 12 straight games, forced 28 turnovers while losing 14 in the win. Atkinson added 14 points, Kaitlyn Elmore had eight points and Hannah Bragg tallied four blocks. Barren is at Monroe County on Saturday.
Nealon led Greenwood with nine points off a trio of 3-pointers, and tallied six rebounds and five blocks. Ava Morrison added eight points. The Lady Gators host Warren Central on Friday.
BCHS 18 14 13 15 – 60
GHS 8 11 14 2 – 35
BCHS – Byrd 26, Atkinson 14, Elmore 8, Burton 4, Bragg 3, Griffiths 2, Slagle 2, R. Wilson 1.
GHS – Nealon 9, Morrison 8, Hendrix 7, Spidel 6, Tandy 3, White 2.
