Trigg County’s district title is their second straight and third in the last four years.
The last time Trigg won back-to-back district titles was 1975-76. Like the last two titles, the championships 30 years ago also came at the expense of Caldwell County and Crittenden County.
Head coach Bill Chumbler won his third district title with the Wildcats, tying him with Duke Burnett for second most as a Trigg coach. Jim Wallace won four district titles as head coach from 1967-78.
Chumbler has also won 11 district titles in his 12 seasons as a head coach in Kentucky. He won eight straight titles at Paducah Tilghman and three of four at Trigg County. The only time his team hasn’t taken home the district hardware was in 2004 when Ty Rogers led Lyon County to a 50-47 upset of the Wildcats in Eddyville.
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The district title was the 15th in the school’s history and 13th as a member of the Fifth District.
Trigg County won the Sixth District title in 1940 and 1947 and won two titles in the Seventh District in 1963 and 1965.
The Wildcats have added to their title total in recent years, winning five of the last 12 Fifth District titles.
Lyon County and Livingston Central have both won 16 titles, although the Cardinals now have the longest drought without a championship. Livingston last won a title in 1994.
Caldwell County won 12 titles before moving to the Seventh District before the season.
Trigg has won 11 titles in the Fifth District and 15 overall. Crittenden County has won six district titles.
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Crittenden County has lost 11 of their last 12 appearances in a district title game dating back to 1957.
Their reward for finishing as runner-up this year was a matchup with Eighth District champion Christian County in the Second Region Tournament that began Monday in Madisonville.
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Rodney Davis, Jeremy Jones, Jamaal Boyd, and T.J. O’Hara made up half of the All-Fifth District Team, which was voted on by coaches based on regular season play.
Davis, Jones, and Boyd were repeat members to the team, which did not include anyone from Lyon County, who was winless this year.
Livingston Central’s Andrew Groendal and Kurt Riley, and Crittenden County’s T.K. Guess and Jordan Wallace rounded out the team.
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On the girls’ side, Lyon County won their first district title since 1989 with a 57-45 win over Livingston Central Saturday night.
Lyon County, which has won nine straight over the Lady Cardinals going back four years, is the first school to win the district title after Caldwell County won 15 straight from 1991-2005. Caldwell County’s streak ended when they were moved to the Seventh District before the season started.
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Crittenden County still has the longest drought without a title on the girls’ side, last winning a championship in 1984.
Livingston Central has not won a district title since 1986, when that team also won the Second Region title.
Trigg County’s last district title came in 1990. They were the last team to win a championship before Caldwell County began their run the next season.
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Malissa Thomas is the first person to win a Fifth District girls’ title as both a player and head coach.
She won two titles as a player at Caldwell County and was an assistant coach for three more with the Lady Tigers before taking the Lyon County job last year.
She is also only the second female to coach a team to a girls’ district title, joining Andrea Forrester who won seven straight at Caldwell County from 1999-2005.
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Trigg County’s Laquisha Boyd was named to the All-Fifth District team – the second consecutive year she has been so honored.
Lyon County’s Tiffany McGregor, Allison Mussato, and Olivia Akridge were also named the to team, which included Crittenden County’s Jessie Mathieu and Darah Easley, and Livingston Central sophomores Lauren Whetstone and Kayla Schull.
McGregor, Boyd, Akridge, Mussato, and Mathieu were repeat members to the team, while McGregor was named to her fourth straight All-District team. Mathieu was named to three straight.
And there’s a good chance you’ll see many of these same names next year. Only McGregor and Mathieu are seniors.
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The Fifth District athletic directors, faced with a new format with the subtraction of Caldwell County, decided to make each night gender specific instead of seeding specific.
The two boys’ games Tuesday drew a smaller crowd than the boys’ games last year that were played after the girls’ games.
Had the schedule been made up by seeding this year, it would have featured a Trigg County/Lyon County doubleheader on Tuesday and a Crittenden County/Livingston Central doubleheader on Thursday.
The Ads knew the matchups coming into the tournament, and one can’t help but wonder if the crowds would have been larger with schools having to make one semifinal trip to Marion than two.
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Livingston Central will be the host of the 2007 district tournament, followed by Lyon County in 2008, and Trigg County in 2009.
Scott Brown is the sports editor for The Cadiz Record. He can be reached at sbrown@cadizrecord.com or by calling (270) 522-6605.
