Former Engineer star having stand out season at Berea College
By Blain Click
CV&T Sports Reporter
Former Estill County basketball standout Andrew Doty is having a fantastic freshman season playing basketball for the Berea College Mountaineers of the USA South Conference in NAIA. Andrew, along with his twin brother Lane, were recruited by Berea College after three stand out varsity seasons for the Engineers that included a first ever regional championship banner for Estill County High School his senior year.
The 6-foot 6 inch forward has now been named the USA South Conference rookie of the week on four separate occasions and has some impressive statistics in his first year on the Berea College roster. Currently, he is averaging 11.1 points per game and is third on the team in scoring despite being a freshman. He now plays out on the floor a bit more than he did in high school and has improved his shooting and all-round offensive game. His 37 percent 3-point field goal percentage leads the entire team and his 74.2 percent free throw percentage is second on the team as well. He is second in rebounding and first in blocked shots on a very young Berea College roster that has hovered around the 500 mark most of the season. As of February 10th, the Mountaineers had an 11 and 12 record and were 6 and 10 in the conference with their top three players all being freshmen and sophomores all from the 14th region.
Andrew was a vital piece in the historic Engineer run where he was not only a standout defender but also led the entire state in field goal percentage for his junior and senior year and was runner up in field goal percentage his sophomore year. While at Estill, Andrew was chosen all region for one year and all district for two years as he averaged 11 points a game his senior year, second only to the all-time Engineer scoring leader Caleb Bonny.
Andrew is the son of Todd Doty and former Estill County Lady Engineer Donna Kearns, who played forward for Estill County back in the 80s under coach Leighton Worrell. Andrew’s uncle, Chris Kearns, also played for the Engineers and was the seventh man as a sophomore on the fantastic 1992 team that made the regional semifinals with Brian Kiser. Chris went on to play a couple of years at Berea College as well in 1995 and 96.
The success that Andrew has had at the college level comes as little surprise to those who knew him. He, along with the other three members of last year’s senior class, spent many hours in the gym and were extremely dedicated in working on individual skills both in the offseason and outside of normal practice hours. His dedication to improvement was very evident as he continued to get better each game he played despite being only 17 years old when he graduated. Andrew says the biggest adjustment that he has had to make at the college level has been with the workload that comes in the college classroom where the academic demands are difficult to juggle around the basketball schedule which includes a whole lot of travel. He has not yet declared a major but has been contemplating technology and applied design or health studies.
Andrew is a fantastic young man with a great attitude who has represented not only Estill County High School but the community of Irvine well as he continues to thrive at the college level. Everyone is invited to come to Berea to watch a game at the Seabury Center which is a beautiful facility on the campus of Berea College.