Kensley Feltner with her mother/coach, Melinda Feltner, after scoring her 4,000th career point.
Becoming only the fourth female high school basketball player in Kentucky to ever reach 4,000 career points was an “awesome” feeling for Lawrence County senior Kensley Feltner.
Doing it by scoring 33 points in her final regular-season home game in a win over Greenup County — she had the game-winning assist — made it even better.
“Doing it at home in front of the biggest home crowd we had all year was great,” she said on WLAP Sunday Morning Sports. “The support from the community has just been insane. It’s just a blessing.”
She is leading the state in scoring for a second straight year with 29.3 points per game and helped the Bulldogs beat Betsy Layne in the 58th District Tournament Monday that will advance Lawrence to the 15th Region Tournament again. She had 36 points, including 20 in the first half when the rest of her teammates were struggling to score.
“A lot of hard work paid off last year and this year,” she said. “I think where I committed and signed early with Belmont and didn’t have to worry about recruiting helped. The whole recruitment created a lot of stress last year. This year has been more stress free.”
Now there might be a bit of stress the next few weeks as Lawrence tries to win the 15th Region title — it lost to Pikeville in the regional final in 2022 and Pikeville is the favorite again — and awaits the results of the Miss Basketball voting where she is one of 17 finalists.
“I have wanted to win the 15th Region since my mom took me in the fourth grade to the state when it was at Western Kentucky. The atmosphere was great and I have always dreamt of going and playing there. Now that it is at Rupp makes it even better,” she said.
“We have been relentless this season and playing with a chip on our shoulder. We want to get back to the regional championship game. We know it will not be easy and we could lose. If that happens, it will still have been a great year with these girls. But I really want to see our team go to state.”
What about Miss Basketball?
“I have wanted to be Miss Basketball since third grade,” Feltner said. “I knew I wanted to be a candidate for Miss Basketball and now that I am I do want to win it. I looked up to Savannah Wheeler of Boyd County in our area (Miss Basketball in 2019) . I feel like I have established my career. If people don’t vote for me I respect that, too. But I hope they do vote for me because I would love to win it.”
No matter what happens, though, she has joined Whitney Creech (5,527 points from 2008-16 at Jenkins), Jamie Walz (4,948 points at Highlands from 1991-96) and Geri Grigsby (4,385 points at McDowell from 1974-77). Feltner now has 4,065 points in her career and 915 this season.
Feltner admits reaching 4,000 points still seems “insane” to her.
“I am extremely thankful for it. It has been a lot of hard work. I am blessed that I was not hurt. We have had great seasons to go deep into tournaments,” Feltner said. “I know it is an amazing accomplishment and is just very, very special. All my teammates have been so supportive but now I am just thankful we can focus on the real goal of winning the region.”
