Lewis County will be playing for the 16^th Region championship for the second time in school history against undefeated Ashland.

But, really, it’s the third time and the second one against the Tomcats.

Back in 1953, when Lewis County High School was called Vanceburg High School, they met the mighty No. 1 ranked Ashland Tomcats in the championship game.

It didn’t go well for Vanceburg as the Tomcats proceeded to record a 112-49 victory that is the most points ever scored in a regional championship game and most lopsided win in the final game.

A lot of teams lost to those Tomcats, who went to the State Tournament with a sparkling 28-3 record and designs on bringing the state championship back to Ashland. Paducah had other ideas, slowing the game down and stunning the Tomcats 46-44 in the first round at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington.

Nobody saw that one coming but that’s the beauty of the Sweet Sixteen.

Nobody ever knows for sure.

The Tomcats were led by their demanding coach, George Conley, who made sure he got every ounce of effort out of every player. It was a well-conditioned and extremely talented team. He’d assembled a roster the likes of which Ashland hadn’t seen in a long time. There was talent at every starting position and scoring power off the bench too.

They were even strong at manager – Jim Host filled that role and he was one of the best athletes in the school. Host, a baseball star pitcher for the Tomcats who signed a professional minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox, made his own way in life as one of the top sports communication executives ever in the field.

Host loves his Kentucky home here in Ashland and has often said the 1953 team was the best in Tomcat history – and makes no apologies about it. Others argue the undefeated 1928 state and national champions and the 1961 champions trump ’53 because of how those seasons finished.

Maybe those are arguments for another day and maybe this undefeated Tomcat team gets put in the conversation by the end of next week if they run the table.

Unlikely you say? How likely was 32-0?

This much is true. Ashland’s 1953 team is regarded as one of the most talented in school history with the likes of Earl “Brother” Adkins, who led the All-State voting and considered the Mr. Basketball of his day. He is one of the most decorated players in Tomcat history – playing in the Kentucky-West Virginia, North-South and Kentucky-Indiana all-star games once the season finished – and Adolph Rupp put him on his must-have list. He went to UK but was in Rupp’s doghouse because Brother brought his wife with him. The Baron wanted his players married to basketball.

Brother scored 35 against Vanceburg in that championship game. But there was more, much more. Bob Emrick and Jerry Henderson, Billy Ray “Squirt” Jennings, Lee Marshall, Bill Gray and John Woods were part of a team that didn’t lack for star power.

Ashland’s other losses that season came to Louisville Flaget 59-58 in the finals of the Louisville Invitational Tournament – the preeminent tournament of the day, and surprising home losses to Inez 77-71 and Hindman 57-54.

Back in the 1950s, the Tomcats, Clark County and Olive Hill were the usual suspects when it came to being 16^th Region powerhouses and top contenders. The Tomcats had to dispatch 10^th-ranked Clark County 51-45 in overtime during the opening round of the regional tournament on the Cardinals home floor in Winchester. Then they clobbered Olive Hill 74-47 in the semifinals before dismantling Vanceburg in the championship.

It was no mercy and no running clock as Ashland flexed its considerable muscle, defeating Vanceburg and then cutting down the nets on rival Clark County’s court, which had to be satisfying. The Cardinals were ranked No. 1 the previous season and edged the Tomcats 59-58 in the regional championship game played at the Ashland Armory. So revenge was in mind during that semifinal matchup.

The Vanceburg-Ashland game had another twist. The coach for Vanceburg that season was Bob Wright, who eight years later would guide the Tomcats to the ’61 state championship and a 36-1 season.

Brother Adkins played for Kentucky and Emrick and Henderson went to Florida.

Vanceburg was part of the 16th Region between 1943 and 1959 before being moved to the 10th Region. Vanceburg became Lewis County in 1962 and moved back to the 16th Region in 1972.

So the Lewis County-Ashland matchup for the regional championship has a little more history and a few links to it than some may have realized.

The absolute laser focus of this Ashland Tomcat basketball team amazes me. And I’m not talking about their shooting, which has been pretty darn laser-focused, too.

It’s their attention to detail. Every. Single. Detail. No matter what teams have thrown at them – and the kitchen sink may be coming next – they have found a way to not only win but to capture a community’s attention with every shot attempt, every no-look pass, every dribble and every cameo on ESPN.

Even during a day where hearts were heavy on the high school campus, when things happen that we don’t understand and can’t explain, when there were more tears than cheers, and when things a lot bigger than basketball dominated our attention, they kept their focus. Then they lifted everybody up, putting together one more dazingly display of basketball, and demolishing a team that many believed had the best shot at ending this season of perfection.

Ashland’s 67-39 victory over Rowan County in the 16^th Region tournament semifinals Thursday night was a rousing statement on the basketball floor, but it was so much more than that. It was salve for a school and a community that was going through a nightmare day that wouldn’t end, a day where there were a lot more questions than answers, a day when parents hugged their kids a little tighter when they came home.

These Tomcats are good young men who seem to have priorities in the right place. They have made remarkable gestures that even go beyond what a remarkable time they’ve had on the basketball floor. Ashland’s head coach Jason Mays marvels at his players too but don’t underestimate the man who is pushing all the right buttons on the sidelines and has said all the right things in the locker room, where he gets between their ears. He’s a good man, the right leader for these good young men, and Ashland should know that.

Colin Porter drives against Rowan County.

This is a mentally tough team. They proved it again by keeping focused on the job in front of them, and then recording win 32 for No. 32. That job represented not only each teammate, each coach and each fan but you can include classmates, teachers, an entire school and a small-town community, and a Tomcat family that endured the most horrendous of losses. It’s a family that needs our constant prayers because only God Almighty can bring them comfort. Please pray for them.

The Tomcats will try to keep this one-of-a-kind season going on Tuesday night against Lewis County in the regional championship game and there are no guarantees of what might happen.

Well, maybe one. The Tomcats will be focused. I’ve never seen them lose that, or a game, yet.

Ashland once upon a time had a coach who knew a little bit about the subject of perfect records.

Paul Patterson, who left for Taylor University after winning four consecutive 16th Region boys basketball championships at Ashland in 1979, retired in 2013 after winning 734 collegiate basketball games. He died on Sept. 21, 2021 after an extended illness.

Those are some amazing numbers, but Patterson’s impact on the 16th Region was enormous, too. He was 44-0 against region competition, a mark that may never be duplicated. Patterson’s trademark man-to-man defense became the model for others and soon became this region’s calling card. It’s not much of a stretch to say he changed the way basketball was played here.

The Tomcats’ best season under Patterson was in 1976-77, when Ashland posted a 30-2 record that ended with a loss in the state semifinals. Jeff Kovach, Jim Harkins and Mark Swift were key players on a team that simply made opponents look helpless.

His well-disciplined teams were feared because of the tenacity that he instilled in them.

Patterson left after the 1979 season even though the roster was loaded with size and talent, a team that seemed perfectly suited for his style of play. Ernie Simpson took the baton from Patterson and won the regional championship for a fifth consecutive year, although the run of regional victories ended with a loss to Holy Family in the 64th District finals.

As unimaginable as it seems today, the fanbase wasn’t always happy with Patterson even though he won four regional championships in a row and never lost to a region foe in the regular season. The style of play was thought to be too methodical for fans who were used to three decades of running and gunning.

There was none of that with Patterson’s style of basketball. His teams worked for the highest percentage shot possible, most of the time a layup or short jumper, on every grinding possession. The recipe for success included limiting opponents to under 50 points a game. His 1976-77 team did just that, limiting foes to 48.3 per game.

Here’s an interesting tournament fact. In the four years that Patterson coached the Tomcats to the regional title, only once was an Ashland played named tournament MVP – Harkins in 1976. The other years the MVPs went to David Rowe of Fairview (1977), Mark Dingess of Boyd County (1978) and Dave Layne of Holy Family (1979).

Patterson went 91-35 in his four seasons as the Tomcats’ head coach. His teams were always prepared and fundamentally solid at every position. Their lockdown man-to-man defense was, in a word, vicious.

He took that same coaching philosophy to Taylor University, where he has retired after becoming the second-winningest coach in Indiana college history behind you-know-who. He is one of the winningest coaches in basketball history period.

Patterson won 15 conference championships and made 14 appearances in the NAIA national tournament. He was a 12-time conference Coach of the Year and the NAIA national Coach of the Year in 1991 when he led Taylor to a school-record 34 victories and the program’s only Final Four berth.

Patterson, who is a member of the NAIA, Hanover College and Grant County (Ind.) halls of fame, leaves Taylor after amassing 28 winning seasons and 23 campaigns with 20-or-more victories. He also guided Taylor through one of the most successful 10-year stretches with 10 straight seasons of at least 25 victories from 1984 to 1994. That span put Taylor in the company of UCLA, UNLV and Lipscomb as the only men’s basketball programs to accomplish that feat.

Along the way, Patterson coached 24 NAIA All-Americans and boasts an extensive coaching tree that includes collegiate and high school coaches around the nation.

It was also during Patterson’s tenure that Taylor started its Silent Night game.

Every year, the Friday before final exams, Taylor University has the Silent Night game where students remain quiet until the 10th point is scored and then erupt in wild and boisterous cheering. In the late moments of the game, “Silent Night” is sung by everyone in the gym. A former assistant coach came up with the idea in the late 1980s and it was a packed event by the mid-to-late 1990s.

But if anybody was ever born to coach, it was Paul Patterson, and he proved it both in Upland, Ind., and Ashland, Ky.

His imprint on 16th Region basketball history will remain with us forever.