The Lions' share: Boyd County holds off rival, breaks 13-game losing streak to Tomcats

Feb. 3—ASHLAND — Boyd County was determined to break Ashland's win streak against them on Friday night as it entered a packed James A. Anderson Gymnasium.

"This is just a whole different animal," Boyd County coach Randy Anderson said of the game. "This rivalry goes back a long, long time and the communities are into it"

The Lions took down the Tomcats, 88-80, to earn their first win against their archrival in 14 meetings.

"Our guys played hard for four quarters," Ashland coach Ryan Bonner said. "But defensively we just didn't get the job done."

The Lions stumbled out of the gates, allowing the Tomcats to jump out to an 8-0 lead.

"I get it, jitters and whatever," Anderson said about the early deficit. "Basically, (it was) take a big, deep breath and let's get back to being us. And it came down to us getting stops and not giving them second shots. It took us four minutes to get that out of our system."

After a few minutes, Boyd County settled down and was lifted by a sophomore Rhett Holbrook, who tallied nine in the latter half of the opening frame.

After taking a 20-19 lead into the second quarter, the Lions led by as many as seven in the opening portion of the second frame.

Ashland battled back and posted another 19-point quarter. Senior Rheyce Deboard put up 10 points in the quarter to keep the Tomcats within striking distance.

"Rheyce has been really consistent for us this year," Bonner said. "He's also been a great leader in our locker room. He's going to be the first one to correct any mistakes that were made tonight. We'll go back and break this down and show it to our guys in hopes that we'll fix the correctable mistakes moving forward."

The Lions were able to add a couple more to their lead and headed into the half with a 41-38 advantage.

A pair of made 3s from sophomore Cole Hicks went a long way in keeping the Lions in the driver's seat from buzzer to buzzer in the second quarter.

"We just have to do a better job of taking away the catch from those guys," Bonner said. "We emphasized trying to make every catch, every field goal attempt extremely difficult. I thought there were possessions where we had lapses in that. But, Boyd is a really good team and they also made some really tough shots, and we knew they were going to do that."

At the half, Holbrook led all scorers with 15 points. Deboard was just behind with 14.

Both squads were shooting above 50% at the break.

In the third quarter, Boyd County came out looking to set the tone for the rest of the game and create some significant separation.

The Lions did just that.

Boyd County put up 22 points in the frame and held Ashland to just 11.

"I thought we gave up too many points in transition," Bonner said. "That hurt us. They're a really good transition team that tries to score as quick as possible. But, throughout the course of the game, we didn't get enough consecutive stops to seal the deal, unfortunately."

It was the largest quarter differential of the game.

Now up 63-49, the Lions looked to keep their foot on the pedal.

That's exactly how things started, as the first three Boyd County baskets of the final quarter were made 3-pointers.

"That's huge," Anderson said of his teams ability to sink shots from downtown. "We hit 17 last night [against Fairview] and didn't even realize it. It's just who we are and what we are. I think we shot 12% the first time we played [Ashland]. So, you can tell me, it's huge."

Boyd County extended the lead to 79-63 and called a timeout.

Two minutes later, the Lions had to call another timeout after Ashland trimmed the margin to 79-71.

The Tomcats looked reenergized and ready to run back up the hill towards the Lions.

"It was our pressure defensively that was leading to tempo offensively," Bonner said "It was getting us good looks in transition and allowing us to score early. Which, maybe we should've looked to do earlier in the game. Obviously, we were in a scenario where we had to find a way to get some more possessions and get some ball pressure on them."

Ashland would manage to make it a six-point game with about 30 seconds to go, but the clock would work against them.

Also working against the Tomcats was Boyd County's ability to knock down clutch shots from the line. The Lions would make five of six in the final half-minute of play.

As the dust settled, Boyd County kept control of the game and left with the road victory.

"I thought our guys did a really good job," Anderson said. "I've got the best assistants in America. Film scout, and personnel... I really felt like our kids listened and took care of the scout plan."

The 88 points posted by the Lions is the most points Boyd County has scored against Ashland in the 25 years of scores listed on the KHSAA website.

"Again, this rivalry is big," Anderson said. "And [Ashland] has been good for three or four years now. You just want to somehow and someway, in the young kids' mind, to block out that and just play."

The last time the Lions defeated the Tomcats was an overtime victory in the 2019 64th District championship game. Ashland responded just 10 days later by defeating Boyd County for that year's 16th Region title.

Deboard led all scorers with 28 points, including five made 3-pointers, the most by anyone on the night.

The Lions were led by freshman Jacob Spurlock, who finished with 23.

Boyd County hosts Letcher County this afternoon.

"They gave us a home-and-home," Anderson said of Letcher County being added to this season's schedule. "It's a long haul for them on a Saturday, throw on top of that it's senior day and we've got Trey Holbrook, who's been awesome."

Ashland hosts Ironton tonight..

"We have to have a short memory on tonight because tomorrow is an out-of-state rival game," Bonner said. "They're going to come in here and play extremely hard and are well-coached. And it's out senior night. We have three seniors in that locker room we all care about and we want to make sure that we send them out on senior night on a high note. So, we'll get some rest tonight and get back in the gym tomorrow and get ready to win a game for our seniors."

BOYD CO. FG FT REB TP

Spurlock 7-15 6-6 6 23

R. Holbrook 8-11 3-5 6 22

Hicks 8-11 2-3 3 21

Ellis 4-8 2-2 8 10

Taylor 3-5 4-4 5 10

Martin 1-1 0-0 0 2

T. Holbrook 0-1 0-0 1 0

TEAM 3

TOTALS 31-52 17-20 32 88

FG Pct.: 59.6. FT Pct.: 85. 3-pointers: 9-18 (Hicks 3-4, Holbrook 3-5, Spurlock 3-8, Taylor 0-1). PF: 14. Fouled out: None. Turnovers: 12.

ASHLAND FG FT REB TP

Deboard 11-26 1-3 4 28

Carter 9-18 4-4 5 25

Adkins 5-8 0-2 4 10

T.Davis 4-5 0-0 1 8

Lalonde 2-3 0-0 0 6

Conway 1-2 0-0 1 3

C.Davis 0-0 0-0 1 0

Frieze 0-0 0-0 1 0

Jennings 0-1 0-0 0 0

Mayor 0-1 0-0 0 0

TEAM 6

TOTALS 32-63 5-9 23 80

FG Pct: 50.8. FT Pct.: 55.6. 3-pointers: 11-27 (Deboard 5-11, Carter 3-7, Lalonde 2-3, Conway 1-2, T. Davis 0-1, Mayor 0-1, Adkins 0-2). PF 16: Fouled out: Conway. Turnovers: 8.

BOYD CO. 20 21 22 25 — 88

ASHLAND 19 19 11 31 — 80

Officials: Nathan Sutton, Paige Hurst, Roy Wright.

(606) 326-2658 — wadams@dailyindependent.com