Sometimes, there are just those kind of days, and those kind of games. That was the case Friday evening for the UHA Blazers. In a game that the Blazers never led, and was only tied once, UHA was upended by Mayfield 78-69 in the 3rd place game of the Paducah Tilghman Christmas Tournament. The game was a matchup of the two teams favored to win their respective regions in the All A tournment coming up in January.
After Mayfield scored the opening basket of the game, KyKy Tandy hit two free throws for UHA to tie the game at 2-2. The Cardinals then ripped off a 13-4 run to take a 15-6 lead. Mayfield would settle for a 19-13 lead at the end of the quarter.
Then, Connor Guthrie got going, in a big way. As the Mayfield junior started to heat up from deep range, the Cardinals began to put some distance between themselves and the Blazers. By the end of the first half, Mayfield’s lead was at double digits at 38-28. Guthrie hit three long range threes in the first half of play.
The margin stayed between 8 and 14 points for much of the 3rd quarter. However, Mayfield finished the quarter outscoring the Blazers 6-3 to extend the lead to 62-47.
In the 4th quarter, the UHA could never seem to get a rally started, as Mayfield was able to extend the lead to 18 points on a couple of occasions. The lead was cut down to the final margin as both teams played several young players for the final couple of minutes.
UHA was led again by KyKy Tandy, who was named to the All-Tournament Team, with 36 points. Taquan Hollowell was the only other Blazer to reach double figures with 11. Connor Guthrie led a balanced Mayfield attack with 21 points, including six 3-pointers.
With the loss UHA falls to 5-3 on the season. The Blazers will head up to Lexington after Christmas, where they begin play Wednesday in the Traditional Bank Holiday Classic, hosted by Lexington Catholic.
