By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Ryle was voted No. 1 in a preseason poll of local girls basketball coaches conducted by the NKyTribune, but two other teams also got first-place votes in the online balloting.
The Raiders received eight first-place votes and a total of 105 points. Notre Dame was second with 96 points and one first-place vote. Cooper was third with 92 points and two first-place votes.
Junior guard Abby Holtman is the top returning scorer on the Ryle girls basketball team that’s ranked No. 1 in the preseason coaches poll.
Dixie Heights, the team that won last year’s 9th Region championship, placed fourth with 76 points, followed by Holy Cross (65), Conner (51) Highlands (38), Newport Central Catholic (37) Scott (15) and Walton-Verona (11) to round out the top 10.
Ryle has four of the top five players returning from last year’s 23-3 team that lost to Notre Dame, 53-50, in the 9th Region semifinals. The veterans include juniors Austin Johnson and Abby Holtman and sophomores Sarah Baker and Quinn Eubank.
Holtman is the Raiders’ top returning scorer with a 12.9 average. Eubank averaged 10.1 points and 10.6 rebounds in her first season as a varsity starter.
Notre Dame will have mostly seniors in the starting lineup, including Lacey Bradshaw and Macie Feldman, the top two scorers on last year’s region runner-up team. Cooper’s top player is junior forward Whitney Lind, who led the team in scoring and rebounding each of the last three seasons.
One of the three returning starters for Dixie Heights is senior forward Madelyn Lawson, who had team-high averages of 14.3 points and 8.1 rebounds for last year’s 9th Region champions.
The first day of the 2021-22 Kentucky high school basketball season is Monday, Nov. 29 with the post-season playoffs beginning on Monday, Feb. 21.
Ryle senior voted Ms. Kentucky Volleyball by state coaches
Ryle senior Lucy Trump was voted Ms. Kentucky Volleyball by the state coaches association for being the leading hitter on a team that climbed to No. 5 in the state rankings and finished the season with a 28-9 record.
Lucy Trump
Trump, who will continue her athletic and academic career at the University of Notre Dame, finished the season with 464 kills in 105 sets for a 4.42 average that ranked among the state’s top 20. She also had 333 digs on defense and 43 service aces.
Trump is one of three local players named first-team all-state by the Kentucky Volleyball Coaches Association. The others are Holy Cross sophomore Julia Hunt, Notre Dame junior Sydney Nolan and St. Henry senior Taylor Preston.
The second-team all-state nominees included Notre Dame senior Emily Bentley, Campbell County senior Rylee McKinney and St. Henry senior Abby Schaefer.
St. Henry will play Bowling Green in the quarterfinal round of the state volleyball tournament at 2 p.m. Friday at George Rogers Clark High School in Winchester. The winner will advance to the semifinals at 10 a.m. Saturday with the championship match set for 7 p.m. that night.
NewCath, Ryle win football playoff games by wide margins
Ryle and Newport Central Catholic won first-round games in the state high school football playoffs by double-digit margins Thursday night.
Ryle eliminated Campbell County, 35-7, in Class 6A and Newport Central Catholic knocked off Bellevue, 36-20, in Class 2A. Both of the winning teams will take an 8-3 record into the district finals to be played next week.
Local teams will play in nine first-round playoff games in five different classes on Friday with Beechwood and Brossart putting perfect 10-0 records on the line.
