Todd Griffin Photo
Lyon County has had a lot of special moments during Travis Perry’s illustrious career but one thing is missing — winning a game in the All “A” Classic.
Lyon gets another chance this week at the All “A” Classic at the Corbin Arena in Corbin. Lyon County will open All “A” Classic play Thursday at 11:30 a.m. EST against Owensboro Catholic. If it wins, Lyon would play either Augusta or Walton-Verona in the quarterfinals Friday at 6:30 p.m. The semifinals will be Saturday and the title game on Sunday.
“It’s always good to compete against Class A schools but we try to keep the same perspective no matter who we are playing,” said Perry, the state’s all-time leading scorer and a University of Kentucky signee. “If we focus on what we can do, we have a good chance to win any game.
“For Lyon County, winning the All ‘A’ has been a main goal for us and I didn’t realize Lyon had never won an All ‘A’ (state) game until recently. So if we can do that, we will be making more history. We just have to take it one day, one hour, one minute, one rep at a time and not get ahead of ourselves.”
Lyon was 31-6 last year but lost to University Heights in the 2nd Region All “A” title game. Perry’s sophomore season Lyon went 29-7 but lost to Breathitt County at the All “A” state. The year before Lyon finished 22-4 but fell to Murray in the All “A” in a game played in Eddyville after weather disrupted the event.
“We’ve had some rough losses in the All ‘A’ but everything happens for a reason,” Perry said. “Whatever happened is what God wanted to happen. Realizing we have never won a game in this is kind of crazy but now we have another chance to take care of that.”
Perry also has a great chance to become the first Kentucky high school player to reach 5,000 points if Lyon plays the way it hopes at the All “A” Classic. He went into this season with 4,359 points after breaking King Kelly Coleman’s scoring record during the state tournament in March. He has 559 points this year — he’s second in the state in scoring at 29.4 points per game — and has 4,918 points going into Thursday’s game with Owensboro Catholic.
“My mindset is all about winning. Winning takes care of a lot of things. If you have a bad night and the team wins, I’m happy. If you get 50 (points) and lose, I am not happy. I know teams want to say they shut me down and held me to 10, 15 or 20 points. I am prepared for that and just want to win.
“We are playing pretty well. They are still mistakes we can all clean up. We have had some younger guys play well and they are playing hard in the roles they have. Everybody wants to be a shooter but not everybody can be on a great team. I am just trying to preach that we all need to do the little things to win and our younger players have stepped up big time. We have enough guys who are not taking enough shots and need to take uncontested shots they have.
“Fortunately playing in some of these big moments and games that we have has helped prepare us all for what lies ahead the rest of the year.”
One Response
He is a natural bucket getter. Be another great kid for the Cats. I have a feeling they are going to make a run this year in the all "A".