Lyon County's Perry named 2023 Kentucky Sports Figure of the Year

Lyon County High School basketball player Travis Perry was named as the 2023 Kentucky Sports Figure of the Year, according to voting tallied by the Lexington Herald Leader.

Perry is just the third high school athlete to win the award, along with Richie Farmer and Tim Couch. Another high school star, Reed Sheppard, finished second in this year's voting. Perry is set to join Shepphard as a teammate on the University of Kentucky Wildcats next season.

The honor comes as the all-time leading scorer in Kentucky high school basketball history continues to etch his name into national record books. 

On Saturday, Perry became the 10th player in the nation to ever reach 5,000 career points.

Although Lyon County suffered its second loss of the season 50-48 against Newport at the All "A" Classic, Perry finished with a game-high 22 points to put him at exactly 5,000 points for his career with eight games remaining in regular season play.

Perry has been on the Lyon County varsity since the seventh grade, when he averaged 20.6 points a game. He has led the team in scoring every season:

8th grade -- 26.6 ppg
9th grade -- 27.3 ppg
10th grade -- 27.5 ppg
11th grade -- 32.2 ppg

If Perry maintains his 29.4-ppg scoring pace for his remaining 8 regular season games, the high school sports website MaxPreps calculates that he could climb to 7th on their all-time scoring list.

According to MaxPreps, three players scored more than 6,000 points in their high school careers. They list the nation's all-time leader as Demond Carter, who amassed 7,494 points in six varsity seasons for Reserve Christian Academy in Louisiana from 2000-2006. 

Another source, the National Federation of High Schools, does not recognize scoring totals accumulated prior to ninth grade.




Travis Perry led Lyon County to the 2023 Sweet Sixteen, shown here vs. Newport. (Photo: YourSportsEdge.com /WKDZ)