With over 150 combined wins within the 3rd Region Tournament pool, the Lady Devils and the Lady Aces will have their work cut out for them as they chase a regional championship.
Owensboro Catholic will see Butler County at 6 p.m. on Monday, with the chance of taking on Meade County or McLean County in the semifinals. Head Coach Michael Robertson said regardless of the draw, no win will be easy with a 3rd Region pool that is talented as ever.
“Out of eight teams, seven or six of them all have 19 or more wins, so it’s a loaded field,” Robertson said. “You’re going to have to bring it every single night.”
The Lady Aces have not played the Lady Bears in recent times, with their last matchup taking place in 2010 where Owensboro Catholic won in the 3rd Region All-A Classic 79-56.
“I personally have not coached against Butler County, so that’s a new one,” Robertson said. “We haven’t seen them in a long time… We have a couple days to turn around and get it. We play the first night. The focus is on Butler County and to take care of business there and see what we’re able to do.”
Going into the 7:45 p.m. matchup on Monday, Robertson and company will look to prepare quickly with a focus on self-improvement to be at their best this postseason.
“I personally have not coached against Butler County, so that’s a new one,” Robertson said. “We haven’t seen them in a long time… We have a couple days to turn around and get it. We play the first night. The focus is on Butler County and to take care of business there and see what we’re able to do.”
Owensboro finds themselves on the other side of the bracket, with their first round matchup being Muhlenberg County at 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday and a chance to see Edmonson or Breckinridge County in the semifinals should they win. The Lady Devils are in the 3rd Region Tournament for the first time in a decade and Head Coach Jansen Locher and company are ready to continue to show people that they are a formidable foe against a talented Lady Mustangs team.
“I feel good,” Locher said. “Mostly excited that we get the Tuesday night game, because we’ll get an extra day to kind of prepare. We’re going to play Muhlenberg County and they’ve been playing well as of late. They have a hall of fame coach that has been here several times and won a lot of these games, so it’s going to be a great chance for us to kind of go out and prove that we belong out here.”
Coming off of a tough loss to Owensboro Catholic the 9th District Championship, Locher said that they have to just get back to playing their game to turn things around and grab a first round win.
“Just a little more focus on the little things,” Locher said. “We didn’t play our game early in the district championship and when we kind of did play our game good things happened. So just going back to the basics and doing everything that got us here and not trying to do anything different because of the atmosphere or because of the setting or anything like that [is key]. Just gotta keep playing our game.”
Having played four games at the Owensboro Sportscenter this season, something that Locher hopes benefits the Lady Devils as they look to make waves in the 3rd Region against Muhlenberg County at 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday.
“We feel like this city has really stood behind us this year,” Locher said. “I feel like we’ve had great crowds in our district games and we think they’re going to come out and support us during this regional tournament too. We’ve prepared for this. We’ve had several games at the Sportscenter this year, hoping we’d get to this point. So the atmosphere, the court and the setting shouldn’t be anything new to us and hopefully we can use that to our advantage.”
