Tyler Dixon | Owensboro Times
Despite making their first KHSAA Sweet Sixteen appearance since 1997, the Apollo E-gals couldn’t extend their stay in Lexington as they ran into perennial power Henderson County in the first round but that didn’t deter E-gal coach Natalie Payne as the future is bright for her 3rd Region champions.
The Lady Colonels scored the first bucket of the game and never trailed as they took down Apollo 55-31 to put them in a battle with Russell at 8 p.m. EST for a spot in Saturday’s semifinals.
Payne said she knew it would be a difficult matchup coming into Thursday.
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“Henderson County, they’re just a very talented team and a very patient team with their offense,” she said. “If they do get a cushion and make a run, they’re going to take their time. They’re going to take a lot of time off the clock, as they should. They use that to their advantage and we just found ourselves in a deficit that was hard to overcome, especially there right at the end of the half. I think we missed some easy baskets and we weren’t able to capitalize on mistakes. You’ve got to capitalize on every mistake that they make because they make so few.”
Henderson County held an 18-10 lead after the first and were up 20-10 before the tide started to shift toward the E-gals.
Apollo then went on a 7-0 run to cut it to three with 3:00 left in the second but a Sadie Wurth 3-pointer pushed the Lady Colonel lead to six and they never looked back in the second half.
Payne said the inside and outside game of the Lady Colonels make them a terror to stop.
“They’re very difficult to guard because they have a really strong inside game and they have great guard play as well,” she said. “They’re very patient and they capitalize on any mistake that you make. Very heady guards and they don’t get too rattled so they are a tough team to defend.”
Henderson County held the E-gals to single digits in the final three quarters because once the Lady Colonels have a lead, they rarely give it up.
Payne said if she could change anything about the game, it’d be how they converted around the rim.
“I wish we could have finished as little more about the basket but that’s the game,” she said. “That’s just the game. You can say if then and if that but that hurt us. I wish we could have capitalized more on some of their mistakes because they make so few.”
Despite the game not going their way, senior Kassidy Daugherty said the final ride has been memorable with her fellow seniors in Zoë Floyd, Amber Dunn, Addison Carter and Brylee Rhodes.
“It was a year for the books,” she said. “It wasn’t anything that we planned for. We kept getting pushed back, we kept getting shut down. It was really hard to get going but we kind of found our identity after the Graves County game before the district started. We just took off. We didn’t want to settle with just winning the region, this is definitely not how we wanted it to end but we were resilient through the whole year. Through injuries, through shutdowns and sickness, we played together.”
Payne echoed her senior’s sentiment.
“I love my kids,” she said. “I wouldn’t trade them for anything. These seniors, they’ve meant so much to this program over the past four years … We finally found our identity and it took us a while but to me, that identity is we learned how to sacrifice for each other and we took a look at the bigger picture. Wins and losses come and go but like I told them in the locker room, these memories that we have and this run we’ve been on is something that’ll stay with you forever.”
The E-gals graduate three of their top five scorers this season but return juniors Amaya Curry and Shelbie Beatty, Thursday’s leading scorers for Apollo.
Payne said she wants her younger players to savor the opportunity they had and know that it takes a lot of work to get there.
“We talked about it all week to soak it all in because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” she said. “This is where we want to be every year. Year in and year out, we want to build that type of program that expects to get there so we’re trying to build off of this and capitalize off of this and hopefully these young kids learned a lot from your senior’s leadership.”
Henderson County 55, Apollo 31
AHS 10 7 6 8–21
HC 18 8 10 19–55
AHS: Shelbie Beatty 11, Amaya Curry 8, Amber Dunn 7, Kassidy Daugherty 3, Zoë Floyd 2
HC: Jarie Thomas 17, Sadie Wurth 13, Kaytlan Kemp 8, M’Kyra Dixon 4, Savannah Lacer 3, Alexa Mullins 2, Shalyn Sprinkles 2, Allyson Rideout 2, Graci Risley 4
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Apollo falls to Henderson County in KHSAA Sweet Sixteen - The Owensboro Times
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