‘Why Not Us?’: Barren County stuns Warren Central in region opener

Published 10:34 am Tuesday, March 11, 2025

By Micheal Compton

The Warren Central boys’ basketball team lost in the District 14 title game to Bowling Green, but the Dragons still entered the Region 4 Tournament as one of the favorites — if not the favorite — to claim the region title.

Three straight region crowns, a 13-game win streak in opening-round games of the region tournament and a 72-49 win over its first-round opponent Barren County in the regular season had Warren Central as a heavy favorite to move on to next week’s region semifinals.

None of that mattered to the Trojans.

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Barren County pulled off one of the biggest upsets in recent history in the Region 4 Tournament, leading wire-to-wire and stunning the Dragons 58-44 on Monday at E.A. Diddle Arena. The Trojans held Warren Central to 37% shooting and held a significant 34-22 advantage on the boards to stun the Dragons and move on in the region tournament.

“I thought we had a great week of preparation and I thought we were really focused,” Barren County coach Warren Cunningham said. “I thought we had as good of a week of practice as we’ve had all year. We got some rest and we got some practice time in. I thought it gave us some time to gather ourselves and get ready to go.

“We have great respect for Warren Central. Gosh, they’ve won a whole lot of games here. We just said all week that sooner or later somebody was going to beat these guys. It was going to happen sometime and why not us? I thought we had the team to do it.”

The Trojans were able to seize the momentum early and never allow Warren Central to recover to pull off the upset.

Barren County (20-12) got off to a hot start with four 3-pointers in the first five minutes to build a 14-2 advantage.

By contrast the Dragons were cold in the first quarter, going 2-for-12 and trailing 16-5. Barren County opened the second with a pair of free throws to push the lead to 13 before Warren Central got going with six straight to make the score 18-11.

Warren Central (26-7) got as close as five in the quarter, but Barren County was able to push its advantage back to 27-19 by halftime.

“The past couple of weeks we have been getting off to a hot start and that has helped us build our confidence throughout the game,” Barren County senior guard Tate Spillman said. “Once one person starts making shots, it leads to other people making shots. It’s contagious.”

Warren Central started to make the climb back, opening the second half with a 7-2 spurt to trim the deficit to 29-26. The Trojans regained the advantage with back-to-back three-point plays and a shot in the paint to go back up by double digits.

The Dragons got it down to seven again late in the third quarter before an 8-0 run by Barren County broke the game open — allowing the Trojans to keep Warren Central at bay in the final quarter.

“You can’t stop a run when you are missing layup after layup and we were missing layup after layup,” Dragons coach William Unseld said. “We got it to three and took a bad shot. We go back down and we give up three. We just couldn’t get over that hump. Right there was still our chance. Once we didn’t, all of a sudden you look up and you are down 13.”

Spillman led Barren County with 17 points, while Kade Hardy added 14 points.

Barren County shot 43.6% from the field, including 7-for-19 from 3. Warren Central was 17-for-46 from the field and 4-for-18 from 3.

“I thought we did a really good job guarding them,” Cunningham said. “After watching more film, I didn’t think we could zone them. We tried to zone them a lot the first game and I just didn’t think we could do that. We rebounded. We turned it over a little bit, but we made shots. The first game, the biggest difference in the stats was they went 12-for-21 from 3 and we were 3-for-18. We had two fewer turnovers than they did in the first game and we outrebounded them by two. We had to try to neutralize (the 3) a little bit and try to keep everything else where we are at and I thought we did that.”

Robert McAfee led the Dragons with 12 points, with K.J. Johnson added 10 points.

The loss ends a three-year run as region champion for the Dragons that included a state runner-up finish in 2022 and the program’s second state title in 2023.

Warren Central ended the season losing three out of four, including the only two losses to region opponents in the final two games of the season.

“Even today I texted them, ‘It is time for you to create your own legacy.’ ” Unseld said. “I said, ‘You guys are trying to hang on to what other teams have done. You have to create your own.’ We had great kids. We just didn’t sacrifice enough to be a great basketball team. Some of them put social life over basketball this year. We’ve got nice kids. We weren’t tough like a normal Warren Central team. Credit to Barren. They executed. They made the shots. They played with energy.

“We deserved to lose. It would have been a travesty if we won the game, because we did not deserve to win it. We didn’t play at the level we needed to win that game.”

Barren County advances to face Clinton County in the semifinals at 6:30 p.m. on March 17. It’s a rematch of a Feb. 14 game in Albany where the Bulldogs won 50-48.

WCHS 5 14 14 11 — 44

BCHS 16 11 16 15 — 58

WC — McAfee 12, Johnson 10, Kirk 9, Anthony 9, McCombs 2, North 2.

BC — Spillman 17, Hardy 14, Nunn 9, Bewley 9, Decker 7, Reece 2.

I am a sports reporter and movie critic for the Bowling Green Daily News.

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