By Keith Taylor

Special to the Sun

Shamaya Behanan scored the first basket and then her teammates took over.

Behanan, one of two George Rogers Clark High School seniors honored prior to a 70-33  win over Frederick Douglass High School, made a brief appearance and scored on a layup before leaving for the remainder of the contest. Behanan has missed the past two weeks as she recovers from a hip injury and is expected to return for next week’s 40th District Tournament.

“It was a great feeling,” said Behanan. “I needed to help my team and I just wanted to be there for them. I’m going do everything I can to help my team out, so I’m going to just rest.”

Senior Malaysia Hill also was honored prior to the contest and also scored two points. Clark also was without starting guard Jasmine Flowers, who was recovering from an illness. Flowers is expected to return this week.

The Lady Cardinals (21-6) got off to a slow start, but outscored the Broncos 38-15 in the second half to put the game away, resulting in a running clock during the fourth quarter.

“For whatever reason, we don’t start well on senior night,” Clark coach Robbie Graham said. “The emotions of senior night and thinking about whatever. Douglass is struggling right now and we probably looked at some of their scores. We probably weren’t mentally ready to play, but that goes back on me.”

Clark sophomore guard Kennedy Igo paced Clark with 19 points, scoring 15 of those in the third quarter. Igo knocked down three 3-pointers to lead the Lady Cardinals’ offensive attack in the third quarter. Overall, Clark outscored Douglass 30-3 in the third frame to force a running clock for the remainder of the contest.

“In the third quarter, we came out and did a much better job defensively,” he said. “We got our hands on some more balls and got some easy baskets. The first half, we were getting several steals, but we weren’t converting. In the second half, we did a much-job of getting steals, getting deflections and converting. We were able to get into our press and set up some traps, so we could get more pressure, cause more turnovers and get some easy baskets.”

Maleaha Bell and Shelbi Wilson followed Igo with 13 points each and Hayley Harrison chipped in with 11.

The Lady Cardinals finish the regular season against Louisville Male at 7:30 p.m. Friday night at Norton Gymnasium. Clark opens 40th District play at 6 p.m. Monday against Montgomery County at the MCHS Arena in Mount Sterling.

“This week, we want to get our postseason focus,” Graham said. “We’ve got a really good team coming in on Friday and it’s going to really be a tough battle for us. We’re treating it like a regional game and we want to be focused and ready to go. It should be a great atmosphere and a really good game.”

Honors: Igo was named to the 10th Region Basketball Coaches Association regional team and was a first-team selection. Behanan was named to the second team and Harrison was part of the third-team.

Reunion set: The Cardinals also will honor the school’s 1988 10th Region championship team during their home finale Friday night at Norton Gym. Clark won four straight regional titles from 1988-91.

Boys Basketball

GRC Cardinals 73,

F. Douglass 60

The Cardinals stretched their winning streak to 16 games with a 73-60 victory over Frederick Douglass Tuesday night in Lexington.

Jordan Graham led Clark (26-3) with a game-high 25 points and has scored 40 points in the past two games. Brennan Canada followed Graham with 11 points in the double-digit victory.

The Cardinals made seven 3-pointers and made 15 of 27 attempts from the field. Clark finished with 19 assists and forced 16 turnovers. The Cards out-rebounded the Spartans 26-31 and collected nine steals and had seven blocked shots.

Clark concludes the regular-season at Henry Clay Thursday night. Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m.