By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Two boys basketball teams ranked among the top 10 in the Northern Kentucky coaches preseason poll will play nationally ranked opponents in the Griffin Elite Prep School Classic on Saturday at Northern Kentucky University’s BB&T Arena.
Covington Catholic will take on Oak Hill Academy of Virginia at noon in the first of four of games on the schedule. Oak Hill was No. 24 in the latest MaxPreps national prep school rankings. CovCath was voted No. 1 in the local coaches poll.
The final game on Saturday will be Cooper vs. La Lumiere of Indiana at 6:45 p.m. La Lumiere was ranked No. 9 in the nation by MaxPreps and Cooper was voted No. 6 by local coaches.
The other two games in the classic will be Cincinnati Oak Hills vs. Legacy Early College of South Carolina at 2:15 p.m. and Cincinnati Elder vs. Huntington Prep of West Virginia at 4:30 p.m.
Sponsored by St. Elizabeth Healthcare and Griffin Elite Sports & Wellness, the four-game charity event will raise funds for Ryan Custer, a former Elder basketball player who shattered his C5 vertebrae in an accident and is now paralyzed from the chest down.
General admission tickets priced at $8 for students and $12 for adults are being sold at the participating high schools through Thursday. Tickets are also available on Ticketmaster. Admission at the gate will be $12 for everyone.
The games will feature prep school players being recruited by some of the top NCAA Division I programs in the nation, including Duke and Michigan State.
Two players ranked among the Top 25 in the nation by USA Today are Huntington Prep senior forward Jaemyn Brakefield, who has committed to Duke, and Oak Hill Academy senior shooting guard Cameron Thomas, who was recruited by Louisiana State.
Other players on the Huntington Prep team who have made college commitments are A.J. Hoggard (Michigan State), Zach Loveday (Baylor), Dudley Blackwell (Iowa State) and Isaiah Cottrell (West Virginia).
The returning starters on CovCath’s roster are 6-foot-5 senior center Neil Green and senior guard Grant Disken, who averaged a team-high 13.9 points with 71 3-point goals last season when the Colonels won their second straight 9th Region championship.
Noah Hupmann is a 7-foot-1 senior center who transferred to CovCath last summer. Three promising underclassmen on the roster are 6-foot-4 sophomore forward Colin McHale, 6-foot-5 freshman forward Chandler Starks and 6-foot-3 sophomore guard Walker Horn, another transfer student.
Cooper has won 105 games over the over the last four seasons under coach Tim Sullivan. He lists senior guards Kevin Centers and Gavin Pearson, senior forward Zac Jennings and 6-foot-5 junior forward Jacob Deere as the Jaguars’ top returning players.
