Photos and story by Joseph Barkoff:

​Edmonson County High School boys' basketball closed out their annual tournament in game three of Rafferty’s/Double Dogs Caveland Classic against visiting Owensboro Knights Christian Friday, December 22nd in Brownsville.
 
Edmonson opened the tournament Wednesday Dec. 20th against the Bluegrass Blazers of Oakland, defeating them 78-59, shooting almost 55 percent from the field with four players in double figures for scoring and a total of 29 rebounds.
 
On the second night, Thursday, Dec. 21st, Edmonson faced Owensboro Knights Christian. They defeated the home school team 85-63 with six players in double figures for scoring. Edmonson shot just below 43 percent from the field and hauled in 43 rebounds.
 
Night three, in the final game of the tournament, Bethlehem came out pushing the pace, and seemed to keep the Wildcats off their style of a more controlled game. Due to the pace and handful of turnovers, the first quarter ended with Bethlehem on top 22-13 over host Edmonson County.
 
“We gotta play better defense to start out the game,” Edmonson head coach Trey Tinsley said after the game. “I felt like it always takes us a quarter to play defense.”
 
At 11 games in, they need to start better defensively and stop committing “silly” turnovers,” he said.
 
“Against quality teams, you can’t put yourself in a hole,” Tinsley said.
 
Despite being behind in double digits most of the quarter, Edmonson was able to claw back to within 6 points by the end of the first half.
​

​Edmonson was losing the rebound war 17-8, and while both teams were shooting around 45 percent from the field, Bethlehem was taking more shots.
 
If they want to win big games, Tinsley said, they have to rebound it and get off to better starts defensively.
 
“We had a good tournament,” he said. “I would’ve loved to get the third one there to win our Classic.”
 
They have won two of three now in the couple previous weeks, including this week,  and Tinsley said he is ready for them to win three out of three next week.
 
“We’re learning stuff and we’re getting better,” he said.
 
The second half, Edmonson came out playing their style of more cerebral play and continued their momentum, taking Bethlehem’s lead down to 2 points around 4 minutes left in the third quarter. 
 
Two three-pointers from Bethlehem and the lead was back to 8 points, 44-36 in favor of Bethlehem.
 
With just under a minute-and-a-half left in the third, Edmonson trailed again in the double digits, 47-36.
 
With a classic up-and-in, rebound, shoot, score from Edmonson County junior power forward Wyatt Gravil as the buzzer sounded, the Wildcats trailed back in single digits, 49-40 with 8 minutes left in the tournament.
 
Edmonson was not able to find the solution for shutting down Bethlehem and getting within 6 points during the final minutes was as close as they would get. 
 
The final score was 68-56 in favor of Bethlehem of Edmonson.
 
“We started off really slow,” senior shooting guard Will Alexander said after the game. “I feel like we’ve been starting off slow and we can get to that point where we start off games how we finish them, I feel like we can win these games.”
 
Alexander had 16 points and 1 rebound, Gravil had 10 points and 3 rebounds, senior power forward Layne Ashley had 9 points and four rebounds and junior power forward Joshua Decker with 4 points and 5 rebounds, according to the unofficial stats by the Edmonson Voice Live Broadcast.

“I was happy with how we played in the first two games,” Alexander said. “We obviously want to win everything, but 2 and 1, you can’t be too upset about it.”
 
The Wildcats travel to face Thomas Nelson at 7:30 p.m. January 2 in Bardstown.
 

Photos and story by Joseph Barkoff:
​
It was a long nine days for Edmonson County High School Lady Cats basketball. Six games in nine days, with the final three games on back-to-back-to-back nights in the 17th Rafferty’s/Double Dog Caveland Classic hosted by Edmonson County High School in Brownsville.
 
The Lady Cats (11-1) went 5-1 on their busy week leading up to Christmas, suffering their first, and only loss so far in the season to a Franklin-Simpson team thought of as possibly the best in the state in their division.
 
“I can live with that,” Edmonson head coach Jody Booth said of their one loss in the six-game stretch.
 
In the final game of their six games in nine day stretched they faced Glasgow High School in the Rafferty’s/Double Dogs Caveland Classic Friday, December 22nd in Brownsville.
​

“I feel like we played really good tonight,” Booth said after the game. “Last night we struggled closing the game out in the fourth quarter and that was the message going into tonight that we need to play for each other.”
 
“They played free tonight,” he said.
 
If a mistake was made, his team didn’t dwell on it, and just moved onto the next play, Booth explained.
 
“We hit our open teammates,” he said. “We set our teammates up.”
 
The Lady Cats drew first blood with a bucket from freshman guard Shelby Sowders, but then the Lady Cats seemed to stall out as the Scotties went on a 9-point run.
 
Perhaps the previous days’ events had taken their toll, with a handful of turnovers and effort minus their usual precision, the Lady Cats clawed back to within 1 point by the end of the first quarter.
 
It was 13-12 in favor of the Scotties, but the Lady Cats were about to get another wind.
 
“I don’t know what it is about the slow starts,” Booth said.
 
But he doesn’t freak out when it happens either, he said, “because I trust my team.”
​

The Scotties opened the second with the ball, but after one set of turnovers from each team, Sowders scored the first bucket of the new quarter, again. 
 
Taking the lead, again, to open the quarter, it was now with the score 14-13 in favor of the Lady Cats.
 
Two plays later, Sowders, after crossing into her offensive zone, no one from Glasgow stepped up to defend her so she dropped a three-pointer from the top left.
 
The next play, Edmonson junior guard Kennadi Swihart sank a three from the deep left corner and it was now 20-13 in favor of the Lady Cats.
 
It was a 16-point run on Glasgow for Edmonson before the Scotties would move the score board in their favor again. By then, there was just over a minute remaining in the first half with Edmonson up 27-15.
 
Edmonson outscored Glasgow 18 to 3 in the second quarter and the half ended with Edmonson up 30-15 over Glasgow.
 
It was 48-27 by the end of the third quarter and while the Scotties got within 13 points by the final buzzer, Edmonson County held on, handily, for the win 58-45.
 
In the fourth quarter Booth acknowledged their lead they had built caused them to get “a little sloppy,” he said.
 
The unofficial stats curated by the Edmonson Voice Live Stream had Edmonson County sophomore center Cariann Williams with another double-double night scoring 16 points and hauling in 13 rebounds plus five or six blocked shots. Swihart had 15 points and 5 rebounds, Sowders had 9 points, 5 rebounds, junior guard Jenna Cook had 8 points and junior forward Julie Norris had 3 points with 6 rebounds.
 
Edmonson shot 60 percent to Glasgow’s 41 percent from the field for the evening.

Swihart feels the tournament went pretty well for both her and the team, she said. 

Not expecting to stall out and rest on their success so far, the team hopes to continue to improve with their short time off before they resume play next year and continue their momentum in January, Booth said.

“This tournament has really helped us get back as team and get closer again,” Swihart said.

There will be people who doubt them, she said. But they can’t get settled or get big heads about it. They just need to keep playing their game and prove to folks they are the team they say they are. 
​
“I’m really proud of our girls and how we’ve been doing and how our season has gone so far,” she said. “No one thought we was going to do this good and we have proved so many people wrong.”
​

The annual Caveland Classic basketball tournament, sponsored by Rafferty's/Double Dogs, is returning to Edmonson County High School this week.

Both boys and girls teams will play daily/nightly from Wednesday, December 20th at 11AM until Friday night at 7:45PM.

The Edmonson County boys will begin play on Weds. at 11AM against the Bluegrass Blazers home school league, with the Lady Cats taking on Todd County Central afterwards at 12:45PM.

Both the Lady Cats and Wildcats will play at 6PM and 7:45PM respectively, on Thursday and Friday night.

All ECHS games will be broadcast on the Edmonson Voice.

Story and photos by Joseph Barkoff:

​Edmonson County Lady Cats took the floor against a bigger, stronger more experienced Franklin-Simpson team in the Kentucky Division 2A Girls' Sectionals tournament Saturday, December 16th at Warren East High School in Bowling Green. 
 
Edmonson suffered their first loss of the season and were outscored 70-33.
 
“It’s tough,” Edmonson County head coach Jody Booth said after the game. “I mean, any time you lose like that it’s tough. Franklin-Simpson is a top-three team in the 4th Region for a reason.”
 
Sticker shock aside, Edmonson County did not lay down or show frustration over the course of the game.
 
They drew first blood after 40 seconds with a three-pointer from junior guard Jenna Cook. With a couple quick lead changes, Edmonson took an early lead, 5-4, but then Franklin-Simpson went on an 8-point run until a smooth three-pointer, this time from Edmonson junior forward Julie Norris put them back in the hunt.
 
With just a few seconds left in the first quarter, the score 14-10 in favor of Franklin-Simpson, Edmonson sophomore center Cariann Williams posted up and dropped a bucket off the glass left-handed to move back within 2 points.
 
“We knew it was going to be a battle,” Booth said.

​In the second quarter, Franklin-Simpson started to pull away, holding on to a 9-point lead for most of the quarter until just over 2:30 remaining in the half when they began to create some real distance. Slowly at first, but by the end of the half, the score was 33-16 with Edmonson down.
 
They have had the same coach for a few years, and players who have bought into the system and “you’ve got two bigs that are almost unstoppable,” that’s what they do, Booth said.
 
“They are so aggressive and we just haven’t seen that,” Booth said. “That’s what’s going to make us better though. We are gonna keep our heads up, stay positive, use it as a learning tool and just know we have to get stronger with the ball. Fundamental stuff. We’ll be fine.”
 
He was proud of his team for not getting visibly frustrated during the game, he said.
 
“We are sitting at 7-1, just played in the 2A Championship against a really good team, and we we’re sitting as a (predicted) maybe 8,9,10 in our region, we’re not frustrated, we’re gonna move on, use it to learn,” Booth said.
 
They have a busy week next week so they can’t put their heads down and worry, he said.

The unofficial stats according to the Edmonson Voice Live broadcast had Williams with a double-double, hoisting 17 points and reeling in 11 rebounds. Freshman guard Shelby Sowders had 5 points and three rebounds, junior guard Kennadi Swihart fouled out with 4 points and three rebounds, and Cook had 3 points and four rebounds. The Lady Cats shot an unusually low amount of attempts, going 12-32 from the field at 37.5% while Franklin-Simpson shot 46% at 27 for 59.
​

Next week the Lady Cats return to action for the Rafferty’s/Double Dogs Caveland Classic hosted at Edmonson County High School Wednesday Dec. 20 at 12:45 p.m. in Brownsville. All ECHS games will be broadcast on the Voice.

...

Story and photos by Joseph Barkoff:
Edmonson County drew first blood against visiting rival Grayson County but ultimately lost 77-64 Friday, December 8th in Brownsville.
 
Edmonson started out smartly, and strong. Despite being up by double digits briefly in the first quarter, Edmonson took a 9-point lead into the second.
 
The second quarter was more of a tug of war where Grayson tied it at one point with just under 2 minutes to play in the half. 
 
The half would end with Wildcats up by 2 points, 41-39.
 
This was a rivalry game and it showed with the level of determination, sometimes over-zealously, according to the technical fouls called. 
 
“I will say on our part, we got to be smarter than that,” Edmonson County head coach Trey Tinsley said after the game. 
 
They talked about it before the game, he said.
 
“Don’t get caught up in the rivalry,” Tinsley said to is team before. “Just play the game. And I thought we did that for a half, but you have to do that for four quarters.”

With four technical fouls, including one for Tinsley when he argued a technical foul called on senior shooting guard Will Alexander after a three-pointer and an alleged taunting motion. It was Alexander's second tech of the game, which disqualified him from the remainder of the contest. According to KHSAA regulations, he may be looking a two-game suspension as a result.
 
“We have to keep out poise,” he said.
 
“We have to handle ourselves with class,” Tinsley said.
 
With 1:56 left on the clock in the third quarter it was tied again 47-47. Then with 1:13 left, Grayson would take the lead for the first time in the game.
 
They did not look back, nor surrender the lead again. 
 
Grayson made a 16-0 run against Edmonson, and the Wildcats had no answer until a free throw with 4:30 left in the game.
 
The game concluded with Grayson ahead 77-64 of host Edmonson at the final buzzer.

“It’s definitely a tough loss losing to our biggest opponent of the year so far,” senior power forward Lane Ashley said after the game. “The rivalry goes back for years, and year and years.”
 
Edmonson is a young team and will get better, Tinsley said.

Despite the loss, the Wildcats had 5 different players in double figures: Joshua Decker 13 (with 19 rebs), Tyler Wilson 12, Layne Ashley 10, Will Alexander 10, and Braden Wright 10.

​“The second half, some things didn’t go our way, it happens, we’ll come back” Ashley said.
 
They are going to take the weekend off and come back Monday at practice ready to battle, he said.
 
The boys next take on the Bluegrass Blazers Tuesday, December 12th at 7:30PM at home.

Story and photos by Joseph Barkoff:
Edmonson County High School Lady Cats basketball extended their season opening win streak to five games Friday, December 8th with a 48-39 win against the visiting Grayson County Lady Cougars in Brownsville.
 
While they led from the opening tip to the wire, it was not all unicorns and rainbows, especially in the second half.
 
“We started good and that was our point in the locker room-- that we needed a good start and we had to let ‘em know we was here,” Lady Cats head coach Jody Booth said after the game.
 
In their previous contest against Logan County, at Logan County, they played flat, Booth said, and he did not want that repeated against long-time rivals Grayson.
 
“I’m just proud of the way we started,” he said.
 
The Lady Cats gave up only one field goal in the first quarter.
 
“I didn’t realize, and that’s impressive,” Booth said. “That’s the girls, that’s not me.”
 
Grayson drew first blood, sinking only one of three free throws after just 15 seconds, but did not score again until another free throw over 7 minutes later. By then, the Lady Cats were up now 13-2 with only 1:24 left in the first quarter.
 
The first half ended with ECHS ahead of GCHS 26-16.
​

​“We started out super strong, then we started getting fouls,” junior guard Kennadi Swihart said.

While there were signs Grayson County was making adjustments towards the end of the first half, it wasn’t completely apparent until the second half when after two minutes Grayson had cut the lead to 1 point.

“We let (Sydney) Perkins get hot, and we shouldn’t have done that,” she said. “We just let her shoot, and she just kept on shootin’ and shootin’ and that was our fault.”

Edmonson pulled back away with a four, and then short lived, 5- point lead until Grayson scratched their way back to within 1 with 1:25 left in the third quarter.
 
The tug of war continued between the two long rivals and the third quarter ended with ECHS ahead 36-33 with one quarter left.
 
The Lady Cats extended their lead to 7 points, but it was again short lived when the Cougars battled back to within 1 point.
 
The 1 point would be as close as the Lady Cougars could get though, thanks to junior Julie Norris, who had two key buckets, including a three-pointer down the stretch that snuffed out any real chance for a Grayson comeback. The Lady Cats would extend their lead to the final score of 48-39 with a final two free throws from junior guard Jenna Cook with less than 10 seconds left in the game.
 
“I really believe we grew a lot tonight, just as a better team we pulled together and we were able to pull it out,” Booth said.
We came out strong and played all four quarters really strong, I think, Swihart said. 
“I just love seeing our girls compete,” Booth said.
 
We will respect our opponents, but we will not fear anybody, Booth has said in the past.

​ 
“I’m just proud of the defense,” Booth said. “All in all I think we had a good defensive effort tonight. We had a few brain farts, but it happens. I am pretty sure we shot 20 for 25 at the free throw line, and that’s the ball game right there.”

Swihart led the Lady Cats in scoring with 14 points and 2 rebounds, sophomore center Cariann Williams had 13 points and 6 rebounds, and junior guard Jenna Cook added 12 points and 6 rebounds in the Lady Cats' first district win of the season.
 
The Lady Cats (5-0) and host Adair County (1-3) at home December 12th at 8 PM on Tuesday.