2021 KHSAA Boys' Sweet 16: Quarterfinals

LEXINGTON, Ky (WTVQ) - It is has been a long week, but if you are a high school basketball team left standing on Friday, then you have a shot at the title.

Sixteen teams entered Rupp Arena on Wednesday, now only four remain.

Yesterday...i was sitting on the c1 3 arena at the girls' sweet 16.

I heard a worker say...it's off.

This is the last game of the tournament.

A year ago both the girls and boys sweet 16 canceled due to the pandemic.

A year later...it's back baby...and all the pagentry that comes with it.

After three days of mayhem...four teams are left standing for saturday's semfinals.

Who has a shot at the title?

Time to find out...the high school highlight reel starts now.

It took a comeback effort and a buzzer beater for the george rogers clark cardinals to make c1 3 it to the boys sweet 16.

Their second year in a row.

A first round win in the books.

Today though...a tough elizabethtown team standing in their way of the final four.

G-r-c and e- town...your game of the week.

Cards and e-town in the first game of the day.

1q..

Panthers had the cards on the heels off the bat.

Camden williams the steal..

And then the no- look in transition to jaquais franklin.

He had 22 for e-town.

E-town would jump out to an 8-0 lead.

Cards would settle in..

Jerone morton pumps..

Drives..

And gets the floater to go.

A few plays later..

Morton sizing up his guy..

Drives and finishes through contact.

The junior was the grc offense early on..

Again driving..

And finishing with his left.

He had 10 in the first.

16 total.

Final seconds of the 1st..

Grc with a chance to tie..

Aden slone's shot won't go.

Panthers..

Taking a advantage in a hurry.

Franklin lobs it down court to khia sherrard..

For the easy two.

E-town beats g-r-c 65-44.

Tough loss for the cards.

They will lose jared wellman, but they get back the stout trio of trent edwards, aden slone and jerone morton to build off of this season.

Josh cook "we didn't shoot it particularly well early.

Kinda got ourselves in a hole.

They're so fast in transition that if you don't make shots early they get a chance to get out ona fastbreak and they got some points.

They got 5 ball handlers on the floor so when they get you down it's pretty hard to get them to make turnovers and thigns like that."

Aden slone "we had a rough year and overcame a lot of adversity and still managed to go back to back.

So i'm just gonna look back on all the memories; eating with the team.

Hurt for the seniors, but we already went back to back so we're gonna make it a trifecta next year.

" up next ashland blazer and boyle county.

Tomcats have put the state on notice.

Ethan sellars with the catch and shoot from outside..

The three makes it 5-zip.

On the other end..

Luke imfeld with the strong drive..

And finish.

That would cut it to one.

Then things got out of hand in a hurry.

Colin porter with the block on imfeld..

On the loose ball..

Cole villers slides..

And passes it to zander carter..

Who'll just casually bang in the three.

Tomcats up 6.

In transition now..

Porter..

Moves the defense with eyes..

And finds sellars all alone in the corner.

He'll knock in the trey.

Sellars had 20.

Ashland was absolutely unconscious from range..

It's carter again..

Sidestepping and knocking in another three.

He had 18.

Tomcats would go to half up 30..

They'd hit that magic number of 35 in the third quarter...running clock initiated.

Ashland blazer beats boyle 80 to 44.

Dennie webb "guys we just got beat by a team that played lights out tonight.

They shot it well.

They played defense well so hats off to ashland.

They just kinda wore us out tonight.

To be honest, they did to us what we've been doing or what we've tried to do to people all year.

I don't think it was a lack of effort on our guy's part.

Just one of those games where nothing we did went right.

And a lot of that is attributed to ashland.

Ashland just played great."

Next up ballard and bowling green.

Early action..

Bruins came out with a haymaker..

Maker bar the block on one end.

Chaunte marrero with the finish on the other end.

More from ballard..

Gabe sisk driving..

And scoring in traffic..

He had 22.

A few plays later..

Defense leading to offense again..

The steal on one end..

Marrero with the euro finish at the other.

Ballard would go up 14-2 early.

Bowling green would fight back in it..

Willie wilson absorb the contact..

And getting the tough lay-up to drop.

Ballard beats bowling green 61 to 53.

Chris renner "we started out strong you know using the boxing terminology, we punched them in the mouth early.

Then they came back and punched us and we went through a stretch where we were not good and efficient offensively and we let them back in.

In the second half we did what we needed to do to make the winning plays to move on to tomorrow morning and the final four."

One more game...one more spot in the final four.

Highlands and mccracken county battling for it.

Early in the game, sam vinson kicks to luke muller for three.

Bottoms. only the beginning for him.

Vinson drives and kicks to guess who.

Muller for three.

Rattles home.

He had 29 points.

7 for 9 from three.

Bluebirds held a comfortable lead for most of the game.

Late 4th.

Noah dumas drives straight to the bucket.

Scores....and one.

Free throw makes it 50-44 highlands.

Ian hart drives baseline.

Fading jumper falls.

He led the mustangs with 15.

52-48 highlands.

Mccracken breaks the press.

Hart to brant brower for the bucket.

52-50 highlands just over 4 to go.

But highlands got stops and hit their free throws down the stretch.

Highlands beats mccracken 63 to 53.

Kevin listerman "we talked to our kids at halftime and during timeouts about just being mentally tough.

Getting stops.

Getting rebounds.

Coming up with loose balls.

And i think we did a much better job of that the second half, especially down the stretch.

And part of that was because we had the lead.

And then we knocked down enough free throws to keep them at bay and come out with the victory."

Alright...here's your final four with tip times.

Elizabethtown and ballard take the court at 11 a-m.

A little later...ashland blazer and highlands tip off at 2.

As we know...we are back to the old schedule.

Winners of those two will play for the title at 8 p-m.

A-b-c 36's austin miller will be at all three games.

He will have highlights tomorrow at 6:30 and hear from the champs at