Male outlast Henderson County 86-81

BOWLING GREEN — In the second-highest scoring game in tourney history, Male upended Henderson County 86-81 in Friday’s quarterfinals of the Houchens Industries/KHSAA Girls’ Sweet Sixteen.
Taylor Jackson led the Bulldogs (26-4) with 18 points. I’Liyah Green turned in a double-double of 16 points and 13 rebounds. Then came Emilia Sexton with 12 points and India Green with 10.
Male will take a seven-game winning streak into Saturday’s semifinals.
Henderson dealt Male a 47-28 defeat on Jan. 30 in the LIT, but Friday’s game had little resemblance to that day.
“We scored 28 points in that game. Tonight we came out and scored 28 in the first quarter,” Male Coach Champ Ligon said. “If that’s not a credit to these young ladies, I don’t know what is.
“We went back and looked at the tape and we practiced for this moment, and the girls executed under pressure. What a tremendous job. I’m really proud of them, and hopefully we can keep this thing going.”
Male, which committed 35 turnovers in a first-round win over Mercy, had only 18 against Henderson’s pressure defense.
“The way they play defense kind of feeds into our style if we can handle the pressure,” Ligon said. “The first time we played them we didn’t handle the pressure. Tonight we got the ball in quick, we got it down the floor, we got it to our players in the middle and we were just able to take them out of (their defense). They eventually had to back out of the full-court press and goi into a half-court or three-quarter 1-2-2.”
Henderson (28-3) had an eight-game winning streak snapped.
The Lady Colonels’ Maci Brown, who scored 26 points, set a Sweet Sixteen record by dropping in eight three-pointers in 14 attempts. DeAsia Outlaw totaled 25 points, eight rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks.
Male scored the first six points of the game and never trailed.
The Bulldogs led by as many as 15 in the second quarter and were up 48-38 at halftime.
Henderson clawed back, with a Brown three-pointer cutting the deficit to 81-79 with 1:17 left.
Male scored the next five points, though, to put the game in hand.
“I’m proud of our kids for fighting back,” Henderson Coach Jeff Haile said. “We kind of got behind early in the ball game. I can’t say we weren’t ready to play, but we sure didn’t look like it to start the ball game. They did a great job, Louisville Male, give them credit. They handled our pressure really well at the beginning of the ball game. … They were getting some layups and some good, clean looks on us.”