Donna Moir (Les Nicholson Photo)
If you are looking for a reason to think Sacred Heart cannot win a fourth straight girls state tournament championship, then pay attention to the seven games Sacred Heart has lost this season.
If you are looking for a reason to think Sacred Heart (27-7) will win again, note that all seven Sacred Heart losses came to out of state teams and Sacred Heart still has at least three Division I prospect, including top five junior ZaKiyah Johnson (18.9 points, 7.3 rebounds per game).
Cooper plays Danville Christian Academy tonight at 8:30 at the state tourney after Sacred Heart takes on George Rogers Clark at 6 in a rematch of last year’s state title game. Cooper coach Justin Holthaus saw his team lose twice to Sacred Heart this season.
“Until someone beats them, they are the team in the state to knock off,” Holthaus said. “They have got a lot of talent and can do it a lot of ways. Zakiyah is tough on the perimeter or gets to the rim. They can feed it inside. They are disciplined. They are very physical. In the half-court game they are good enough to take away some of your pieces. Typically it’s one shot and done against them.
winning three straight.”
George Rogers Clark coach Robbie Graham knows it is a “tall task” playing Sacred Heart.
“We know what we are up against. Donna Moir is one of the best, if not the best, coaches ever to lace it up in Kentucky high school basketball,” he said.
Sacred Heart also features Reagan Bender, who has a Louisville offer among others. She averages 13.6 points and 2.9 points per game. Center Angelina Pelayo, a North Carolina Wilmington signee, averages 10.3 points per game and shoots 62 percent from the field.
Moir won her 800th game this season and admits her team might have been more excited than her when she did it. Now they want to be the first team to win four straight state titles.
“We know the pressure is on us,” Moir said. “It’s been on us all year. We have played everybody in Kentucky and there are some awesome teams. We went to Phoenix and went 0-4. We went to D.C. and played two awesome games and were right in the game with three minutes to go and did not come out on top.
“We have played (and beat) George Rogers Clark. It has been a tough schedule but I feel like it has prepared us for the postseason.”
GRC lost junior Ciara Byars to a knee injury in early January. She was the team’s leading scorer and rebounder and a top 25 player nationally in her recruiting class.
GRC (30-4) has continued to thrive and has won seven of its last eight games since the 61-49 loss to Sacred Heart on Feb. 9. Three players — Kennedy Stamper (11.8), Jailenn Green (10.6) and Teigh Yeast (10.1) — average in double figures and four more average between 4.4 and 7.9 points per game.
Yeast, a sophomore, transferred to GRC from Mercer County when her father became the GRC athletics director. She helped Mercer win the 12th Region title last year.
“She’s a premier athlete in Kentucky. She won four state (track) championships at Mercer,” Graham said. “She does so many things. We were in our 2-2-1 trap and she snags a ball out of the air that you won’t see a lot of girls do. She has come into her own. She was kind of laid back. She has a very high character and fits in great with our kids.”
