A Royal success: Sparks excels as multi-sport athlete for Rose Hill
May 28—ASHLAND — Bellamee Sparks first trotted onto Rose Hill Christian's Charles Stewart Gymnasium floor for basketball practice as a sixth-grader.
Seven years later, after a Royals career filled with court time — be it basketball, tennis or volleyball — Sparks's final high school sporting event is nigh.
Sparks and Lakin Deerfield will represent Rose Hill in the state tennis doubles tournament next week at Top Seed Tennis Club in Nicholasville. Their first-round match is against Shelby Valley's Chloe Sykes and McKenna Caudill on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m.
It will be the culmination of a career that has included three state tennis trips, a dramatic series of events in December that put into question Sparks's athletic future — and so much time playing one sport or another wearing blue and white that Sparks didn't give much thought to which she liked best.
"As soon as one sport ends, I'm right into the next," she said. "People would ask me, what's my favorite sport?, and I'd be like, whatever season it is. I like to play sports, so whatever season it is, that's what it is.
"But I think I've picked now," she added with a laugh. "Basketball!"
Hoops indeed is Sparks's path to continue her athletic career, as she's signed with Kentucky Christian. But she has found tennis complements it well, and her coach agrees.
"Honestly, it mostly comes down to how much of a natural athlete she is," Rose Hill coach David Bush said. "She practices basketball much more than tennis and yet does extremely well in both. I just go over strategies with her specifically for doubles and let her athleticism take care of the rest. Her anticipation and ability to play the net is something we haven't seen in our region in a very long time."
That testimony carries weight, considering Bush's résumé as a five-time 16th Region Tournament boys singles champion from 2010-14.
Sparks has inherited that mantle of region champion from Rose Hill in girls doubles play. She teamed with older sister Delaynee Sparks to earn a region tournament semifinals berth in 2019, which sent them on to the state tournament. And, after the idle COVID-19 spring of 2020, the sibling duo won the doubles region title in 2021 — the Royals' first region title since Bush's senior season.
Delaynee graduated and went on to play at Midway College. Bellamee paired with Deerfield as a senior and defended the region doubles title last week, topping Rowan County's Lydia Copher and Natalie Northcutt, 6-0, 6-2.
The Sparks sisters won their first-round state match in 2019 and 2021. Bellamee Sparks is hopeful the Royals will do at least that again next week.
"I have a feeling that we got it," Sparks said of herself and Deerfield. "Win or lose, we're gonna have fun."
Finding a path forward
Sparks got a rare break from sports in December — an unplanned one.
Rose Hill paused its girls basketball season — with roster numbers so low the Royals finished their first two games of the year with just four players on the floor — to regroup, allow for recuperation from some injuries and deal with an unexpected midseason coaching change.
It was a critical moment for Sparks. At the time of the pause — which in one of the more bizarre episodes in recent area sports history began with then-coach Nick Karle attempting to cancel the remainder of the season, according to athletic director Johnny Bush, before Rose Hill reversed that decision and replaced him as coach — she hadn't found a landing spot to play college basketball yet.
Kevin Nibert, who had been relieved as Rose Hill's coach before the 2021 season, swallowed his pride and resentment and returned to lead the Royals program.
A major reason why was that he knew what was at stake for Sparks.
"When they asked me to come back, yeah, it was for Bellamee," Nibert said of the decision. "I didn't want her to go out like that, her senior year. I just tried to make sure we had as many games as we could to get her out there to where people would notice for her college career. ... I did what I did for her because we got that bond."
It was a bond forged for Nibert by six years of coaching Sparks girls — as well as six years of coaching with a Sparks.
Makenlee Sparks was an sophomore and Delaynee was a seventh-grader when Nibert took over the program in 2015. Michelle Sparks, their mother, was an assistant coach.
Bellamee came on board the next season as a seventh-grader, having proven the year before in a practice setting she could hang.
"Bellamee started practicing with us when she was in sixth grade when I first started," Nibert said. "Back then, she was holding her own in sixth grade against the varsity people. and then when she came on in the seventh grade, she was ready to go."
Bellamee Sparks was the Royals' second-leading scorer — to Delaynee — by the time she was an eighth-grader, with 10.1 points per game. She surpassed big sis with 12.7 ppg as a freshman and as a senior had her averages up to 25.0 points and 12.0 rebounds per game.
Sparks finished her high school career with 1,878 points and 940 rebounds. After reaching out to KCU coach Lisa Conn to get back in touch after a visit she took to the Grayson campus with Karle as a junior, she found a path forward with the Knights.
"Her continued passion for the game and wanting to play in college is what sold me on her," Conn said of Sparks. "She is very athletic and has a lot of potential. She just needed a continued opportunity to play."
The connection between Nibert's Royals and the Sparks family came a bit full circle as well when Makenlee joined the coaching staff upon Nibert's return in December.
"Crazy that I got to experience it with my sisters," Bellamee said. "They're all very supportive of me. When Kevin came back, he needed someone to help him, and my sister, we were like, 'It's perfect for you!'
"She's working a full-time job and a part-time job and still went out of her way to come help our team."
Sparks is grateful that both Nibert and her sister came back to the basketball program to help the Royals get to the finish line of the season.
"No words can really say how thankful I am for him," she said of Nibert.
Wrapping up tennis career
Her college future secured, Sparks turned her attention back to the tennis court.
She has qualified for her third state tournament in that sport and with a grin credited all of them to her teammates.
"It's hard to motivate myself to play tennis, but I'm glad I did it," she said, "because if I didn't, we wouldn't have gotten some recognition for Rose Hill. That's a big thing about it. and playing with people I like."
That doesn't mean her competitive nature doesn't come out. In addition to displaying it while finding success in the region tournament, it's also come out in trying to get the better of her coach.
Bush has announced a standing reward of $100 for any Rose Hill player who can beat him in one game, he and Sparks said. To even the odds a bit for those opposing perhaps the best northeastern Kentucky player of his generation, Bush allows the Royals to play him two-on-one, and Sparks said Bush even plays left-handed.
No one has collected.
"Never even come close to it," Sparks said.
It has, however, been a useful conditioning exercise.
"They are just required to run if they lose," Bush said. "It's a fun way to get them in shape, and luckily I've never had to pay any money yet."
Sparks, Deerfield and the Royals seek a different payoff next week.
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