Kentuckians cherish basketball stories about the Carr Creek’s, Cuba’s, and Webster County’s of the Bluegrass State.
Kentucky is just one of two states—the other being Delaware—where all high school basketball teams compete for a single state championship. But many fans across the Bluegrass State want the KHSAA (Kentucky High School Athletic Association) to begin classifying high school basketball.
I think making that move would be the death of Kentucky high school basketball as we know it. Why? It would put an end to the underdog stories that we revere.
Carr Creek, 1928 (photo, Lexington Herald-Leader)
Consider the case of Carr Creek, a team from the rugged terrain of far eastern Kentucky. In 1928, Carr Creek High had a total enrollment of 42 students with only 18 boys enrolled. Yet that team made it all the way to the state title game before losing a heart-breaker to Ashland Paul Blazer, 13-11, in quadruple overtime.
But that wasn’t the end of the Carr Creek story. 28 years later, the team made it back to the championship game and won, 72-68, over Henderson City to claim its first–and forever its only–state title. The school closed in 1974.
But Carr Creek’s story isn’t a one-hit wonder. Other examples include the 1952 state champion Cuba Cubs (Graves County), the 1976 champion Edmonson County Wildcats, 1983 runner-up Carlisle County, and the 2008-09 Elliott County Lions, a team that advanced all the way to the semifinals.
The same story applies on the girls’ side. A prime example is this year’s version of the Murray Lady Tigers. The team enters Northern Kentucky University’s BB&T Arena with a 32-2 record. Despite having an enrollment of just 480 students, the Lady Tigers are participating in the state tournament for the third straight season. That makes Murray the smallest school at the state tournament this year and the second-smallest overall (Owensboro Catholic is the smallest with 446 students).
Jessica Winders scores against favored Christian County (photo, The Gleaner)
My school, the Webster County Lady Trojans, is another example. Last Saturday night, Webster County (670 students) took on Christian County (1200 students) and won the Second Region title. To win, Webster County had to overcome the size of 6’2″ Trinitee Jackson, an Arkansas State signee, who towered over a Lady Trojan frontcourt whose tallest player is only 5’ 8”.
And on the way to beating Christian County, the Lady Trojans knocked off Henderson County (2,050 students) and Hopkinsville (1,163 students). And, now, Webster County will enter the Sweet Sixteen as the third-smallest of the 14 public schools in the tourney and the fifth-smallest of the 16 region representatives.
Webster County is proof that Kentucky high school basketball doesn’t need to be classed.
Let’s face it: nobody ever made a movie or has written a book about a team that was supposed to win. The stories Kentuckians cherish are about the Carr Creek’s, Cuba’s, and Webster County’s of the Bluegrass State.
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Cameron Brown is a former Webster County basketball player an undergraduate student at Western Kentucky University, double majoring in journalism and history—with a minor in broadcasting. Contact Cameron at Cameron.brown288@topper.wku.edu
