While the Spencer County Bears had already made history by making their first ever appearance in the UK Healthcare KHSAA State Tournament, they weren’t ready to just settle on an appearance — they wanted to get the win too. But, with a first round draw of arguably the favorite to win the championship, that win wasn’t going to come easy.

The Bears took on the Great Crossing Warhawks in the nightcap Wednesday night at Rupp Arena. After a very competitive three quarters of play where the Bears and Warhawks went toe-to-toe, the game would ultimately slip away in the final eight minutes, falling to Great Crossing, 62-48.

“I’m proud of this group, they are battlers,” Spencer County head coach Jason Burns said. “We’ve had a couple of comeback losses over the course of the year, I knew what I would get from these guys. I’m just really proud of them, this meant a lot to our community.”

Great Crossing came out to a hot start early, getting the ball in the hands of big man, Malachi Moreno despite a tight defensive pressure on him throughout the first half. He would finish the night with a game-high 24 points as he found ways to break free down the stretch.

The Bears found ways to counter the Warhawks size, by sticking to the perimeter. Spencer knocked down nine 3-pointers across five athletes, with senior Camden Cox nailing three of them.

“We’ve got a good shooting team,” Coach Burns said. “Their length can’t be simulated. We saw them two years ago and had a little bit of an understanding of them, but their bigs are athletic and can get out to defense shooters and that causes problems. But, that’s where we knew we would have a shot (shooting three) we just didn’t hit enough.”

Cox would lead the Bears with 15 points on the night in his final performance on the high school basketball stage.

“I don’t believe in the moral victory in basketball, but in life, we won this year,” Cox said. “You almost can’t put it into words. We did what we set out to do and we were right there against a really good basketball team. We were one quarter away from maybe getting them there at the end.”

Spencer County came back in the second quarter, outscoring the Warhawks 16-8, to sit just one point back at halftime, 29-28.

Cox would nail five straight points in the third quarter with Luke Erhardt adding the emphasis with a pair of 3-pointers to go up 41-34 midway through the third.

Great Crossing would climb back, closing the third with the score knotted up 44-44. The Bears would never see the lead again as the Warhawks slowly built a 10-point lead and capped off the night up 14 for the final score, 62-48.

Spencer County caps of the 2023/24 season with a 25-10 record.

GREAT CROSSING 21 8 15 18 — 62 SPENCER COUNTY 12 16 16 4 — 48

GCHS: M. Moreno 24, J. Godfrey 11, J. Burrell 9, G. Richardson 8, V. Dawson 6, J. Warren 4.

SCHS: C. Cox 15, L. Erhardt 11, K. Marksbury 6, J. Armstrong 5, K. Baird 4, A. Barron 3, S. Seawright 2, J. Combs 2.