Male dominates Mercy 78-59

BOWLING GREEN — The Battle of Louisville turned out to be a mismatch Wednesday.
Male throttled Mercy 78-59 in the first round of the Houchens Industries/KHSAA Girls’ Sweet Sixteen in E.A. Diddle Arena.
I’Liyah Green, a 6-foot-1 junior, missed a triple-double by one block, finishing with 25 points, 14 rebounds and nine blocks.
Emilia Sexton added 23 points.
The Bulldogs (24-4) advanced to Friday’s quarterfinals, where they will take on Henderson County.
Henderson whipped Male 47-28 on Jan. 30.
“It (seems) like yesterday because we got our heads just beat in and handed to us,” Male Coach Champ Ligon said. “… I was really hoping when the draw originally happened that we’d get another shot at Henderson County.
“It’s a challenge. They’re a great team. They absolutely just destroyed us that night and they haven’t backed up any.”
Male didn’t back up after Mercy (26-7) jumped to a 12-4 lead.
Ligon called a timeout and his team responded with a 29-2 run.
“I have no idea what I talked about in that timeout,” Ligon said with a smile. “I just tried to settle them down and keep playing. … We were just talking about rebounding — we had to do a better job on the boards because they were getting a lot of second shots, and we had to do a little better job of handling the basketball.”
Male led 36-21 at halftime and was never threatened.
“We came out not so good,” Green said. “But they gave me the ball and, when I got it, I tried to go score. If I didn’t have it, I passed it back out and they executed.”
Male committed 35 turnovers but grabbed 52 rebounds, while Mercy had 25 errors and 33 boards. The Jaguars shot just 11.1 percent (3 of 27) from three-point range.
“Wow! I didn’t see this coming,” Mercy Coach Keith Baisch said. “I definitely thought we’d be playing on Friday. Just the way that we’ve been playing and things like that — the way this group has come together.
“Give Male all the credit in the world. They were lights out tonight and, unfortunately, we weren’t.”
Hannah Bewley led Mercy with 14 points and seven rebounds. Jessica Laemmle had 12 points.