Spartans earn first-ever win over Purples
Published 10:30 pm Friday, January 16, 2026
South Warren has waited a long time for this.
Every year since the school opened back in 2010, the Spartans have faced off in boys’ basketball against crosstown rival Bowling Green – most times twice, sometimes three times in a season. Never once had South Warren beaten the Purples heading into Friday’s matchup at Bowling Green.
Turns out, 38th time is the charm.
After withstanding an 11-2 fourth-quarter run that tied the game late, the Spartans took the lead one last time and held the Purples scoreless over the last 2 minutes, 28 seconds to claim a long-awaited 50-47 victory.
“We didn’t go into the game looking at school history and not beating Bowling Green because we weren’t there for all of them,” South Warren coach Carlos Quarles said. “We looked at it as an important district game that impacts seeding, so we wanted to handle that with a championship, business-like approach and not make the game bigger than what it was. It’s a district basketball game that we needed. We came and handled business. I’m proud of my guys.”
South Warren (13-3 overall, 2-1 District 14) was up 45-36 after a Junior Perkins 3-pointer with 6:38 left in the game. Down nine points, Bowling Green (10-9, 0-3 District 14) was far from done. Hudson Aikens hit a fadeaway jumper, then came back down the floor on the next possession and nailed a 3-pointer that shaved the deficit to four. After another turnover by the Spartans, BG’s Anthony Davis scored on a fast break to make it a two-point game.
Jaxen Decker’s basket in the paint ended South’s more than two-minute scoring drought, but Davis hit a pair of free throws and then scored on a jump hook on the baseline to knot the score at 47-all with 3:28 to play.
Perkins set up the go-ahead basket for the Spartans on their ensuing possession, driving midway through the lane before spotting Decker cutting to the basket for an easy score underneath. After the Purples failed to answer, Perkins drew a foul the next time down the floor and hit one of two free throws to set the final score at 50-47 with 2:28 left on the clock.
Bowling Green took a timeout with 1:50 left to set up a play against the Spartans’ 2-3 zone, but South’s Clay Willis forced turnover by swatting a pass away. Bowling Green nearly stole the ball right back, but Perkins fell on the loose ball and called timeout to retain possession.
The Spartans then effectively burned clock, with Perkins’ second missed free throw leaving Bowling Green just 17 seconds to try and tie the game – the Purples got off a shot, but a 3-pointer by Tre Thomas didn’t find the mark on a buzzer-beating try.
“Considering it’s never been done before, it means a lot,” said Decker, a senior. “It’s just a goal, to come in and beat them and that’s what we did.”
The Purples outscored South Warren in three out of four quarters, but the second quarter proved their undoing. Leading 17-14 after the first quarter on on the strength of a trio of 3-pointers by Braylon Anderson, Bowling Green went ice cold in the second with a 1-for-13 shooting performance over that eight-minute span. That allowed the Spartans to turn a three-point deficit into a 28-21 halftime lead.
“The second quarter beat us,” Bowling Green coach D.G. Sherrill said. “Hat’s off to South – they took advantage of us short-arming some shots, quick-shooting some shots. And they just did a good job of scoring in transition. They kind of took control of the game there. They’re a good basketball team – when they’re ahead, they play really well. They’re good, veteran players. They didn’t get shook. They took good care of the ball. They mixed up their defenses a little bit. We weren’t great against the zone.
“I tried to tell our guys during timeouts, you’re exerting more energy tonight than you have defensively, so you’ve got to now drive the ball. You’re going to short-arm shots because you’re tired. Shots that when your legs are fresh are going in, the adrenaline’s gone so now you’ve got to get downhill. And I thought we did a great job of driving downhill. I thought there were a lot of collisions at the rim – I’m not saying if there were fouls or not fouls – but we were colliding at the rim and being aggressive.”
South Warren pushed its lead to nine in the third quarter, but the Purples started inching back with Christian Muhire’s basket off a baseline drive cutting the margin to three points. Johan Pratt hit a free throw and Perkins scored on a buzzer-beating drive in the lane to push the Spartans’ advantage back out to 42-36 by the end of the third.
Perkins finished with a team-high 14 points, Pratt had 13 and Owen Shively scored 11 points – all in the first half. South Warren was 21-of-44 (47.7%) from the field.
“It feels great – we’ll celebrate it, but we’ve got to move on to the next game,” Perkins said. “We’ve got a tough game next week at home against Greenwood and we need to go out here and play our best to win.”
Anderson led the Purples with 14 points, with Anthony Davis adding 13. Bowling Green was just 17-of-51 (33.3%) shooting.
South Warren was scheduled to play at Breckinridge County on Saturday, while Bowling Green was slated to visit Russellville.
SWHS 14 14 14 8 – 50
BGHS 17 4 15 11 – 47
SWHS – Perkins 14, Pratt 13, Shively 11, Decker 6, McIntyre 3, Willis 3.
BGHS – Anderson 14, An. Davis 13, Aikens 7, Muhire 6, Ar. Davis 2, Thomas 2, Doyle 1.
Girls
Bowling Green 32, South Warren 21
Bowling Green survived a dreadful third-quarter shooting performance by leaning on its defense in Friday’s 32-21 win against South Warren.
Leading 21-12 at halftime, the Lady Purples went just 1-of-17 shooting in the third quarter. But by forcing 10 turnovers in that frame, Bowling Green (8-7, 3-0 District 14) didn’t allow the Spartans to cut into its lead very much. South Warren (5-12, 1-2 District 14) trimmed just two points off that nine-point edge as the Spartans managed just five shot attempts in the third quarter.
“Defensively, we were pretty good tonight,” Bowling Green coach Calvin Head said. “We took five charges, which as been an emphasis of what we’ve been trying to do defensively. That kept us in it. We’ve got to finish around the rim. We got so many opportunities around the rim in the first half and that second half. If we could start capitalizing on those things, I think you would see some separation there. But I thought we had a great amount of attention to detail on what we wanted to do defensively that helped us navigate through the treacherous third quarter.”
Kori Ware scored seven points and grabbed seven rebounds before fouling out late to lead the Lady Purples, who were set to host McCracken County on Saturday.
JaNya Anderson finished with a game-high eight points and Averi Fugate tallied 12 rebounds and five blocks for the Spartans, who are home Tuesday against Daviess County.
“They do a great job on the defensive end and unfortunately we just didn’t execute our stuff well enough and our stuff wasn’t good enough tonight,” South Warren coach Lane Embry said. “Hopefully next time it will be. We’ll just keep working on it. Our young guards were a little overwhelmed by the physicality early in the game. I think they grew up throughout the game and did a better job of handling the ball late in the game. We just didn’t get the shots that we needed and when we did we didn’t hit them.”
SWHS 3 9 6 3 – 21
BGHS 8 13 4 7 – 32
SWHS – Anderson 8, Kuzma 4, Calvert 3, Barber 2, Gatewood 2, Fugate 1, Osborne 1.
BGHS – Ware 7, Strow 6, Brown 5, Hall 4, Pratt 3, Woods 3, Graves 2, A. Smith 2.
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