2008 Republic Bank Holiday Classic (Boys)
 
Lexington Catholic High School
Lexington, Kentucky
December 26-27 and 29-30, 2008
 
© 2008 Ron Harrison
 

Lexington Catholic boy's coach Brandon Salsman has put together a great four days of basketball.  Six of the the top twenty-five teams in the Lexington Herald-Leader pre-season preview are entered in this tournament.  They are #6 Clark County, #7 duPont Manual, #9 Lexington Catholic, #10 Hazard, #20 Adair County, and #21 Madisonville-North Hopkins.  Ft. Meyers (FL) is also entered in this tournament.

Many of the top players in the state are scheduled to play in this star-studded event.  Nine of the top twenty-five players in the Lexington Herald-Leader pre-season preview are featured in this tournament.  They are #1 Jon Hood (Madisonville-North Hopkins), #2 Jacob Jenkins (duPont Manual), #3 Vee Sanford (Lexington Catholic), #11 Darren Ballou (Adair County), #19 Vinny Zollo (Clark County), #20 Josh Whitaker (Hazard), #21 Aaron Watts (McCreary Central), #22 Robbie Stenzel (Clark County), and #25 Chuck Jones (Hopkins County Central).

The Lexington Herald-Leader preview also listed the best players in each region, and the number one ranked player in six of the 16 regions is scheduled to play in this tournament.  The regionally ranked number one players in this event are (Region 2) Jon Hood, (Region 5) Darren Ballou, (Region 7) Jacob Jenkins, (Region 11) Vee Sanford, (Region 12) Aaron Watts, and (Region 14) Josh Whitaker.

There will be 29 games played over a four day period, culminating in an overall championship game to be played on December 30th.  I will attempt to provide a capsule report for each game with expanded coverage to each game I personally view.  Spelling of players' names varies from program to program and sometimes the heights of the players also vary so I apologize in advance for any unintentional inaccuracies.