Since the 33rd District aligned the way it did in 2007, no team had three-peated as district baseball champs.
The streak lives on as Conner denied Ryle’s bid at a three-peat, knocking off the Raiders 9-6 on Monday at Meinken Field in Covington.
It was a complete team effort from the Cougars as they got hits from eight of the nine batters in the lineup while Brady Bushman pitched a complete game for the victory.
Conner (18-15) pounded out 10 hits and used a six-run third inning to propel them to victory, winning their first district title since 2022. Ryle had defeated them in the last two district championships.
“It means a lot to them,” Cougars coach Mike Hart said. “When we played them in the seed games we won the first game and then we went to extras with them. It let these guys believe, ‘hey, we can do this’. After yesterday and going into this game, I told them they know you can beat them, we know we can beat them. We just had to play our game and come out and show it.”
Ryle (24-11) couldn’t overcome four errors and left seven men on base.
“Just mistakes we don’t normally make,” Raiders coach Joe Aylor said. “It’s hard in a game like this where it comes down to two or three runs and you go back to those mistakes. Just some things we need to clean up.”
Conner’s 18-15 record might now wow the scoreboard watchers, but it gives them their second win over the Raiders this season and also have wins over region title contenders Covington Catholic and Highlands.
“You know how it is, it’s one game. All it takes is someone to get hot and can’t take any of it for granted,” Hart said. “We’ve got some confidence that we can play with anyone in the region now, but we can’t let up and have to continue to play our game.”
Despite Bushman allowing nine hits and three earned runs, he pounded the strike zone with 72 strikes on 101 pitches. The six-spot in the third his team gave him upped his confidence.
“That sparked us. Killed their energy and brought us up as a team,” Bushman said. “It’s a great feeling to beat your rivals and something you dream of doing in the district tournament.”
Bushman was later named MVP of the tournament as the Cougars enter next week’s 9th Region tournament with a lot of confidence.
“We’re winning the whole thing,” Bushman said.
JJ Bagby and Will Higgins were also named to the All-Tournament team. Higgins was Sunday’s hero, breaking a 3-3 tie with Cooper in the semifinals with a three-run homerun in the bottom of the fifth.
“I feel like that helped push us forward and put some energy into us,” Higgins said. “It really drove us in to today.”
Bagby was 2-for-5 with two RBI on Monday, adding to his already team-high RBI total. The Cougars collected four extra-base hits, Max Brunkel, Riley Abousaleh and Higgins with doubles, Case Testerman a triple in the fifth to extend Conner’s lead to 7-2.
“This was the game where everybody had their best stuff today,” Bagby said. “We’ve worked so hard for this all year. This was a game we prepared for all year and knew we were going to play Ryle and we were going to beat Ryle.”
Abousaleh’s double made it 8-2 in the sixth, Grayson Wagner’s sac fly RBI making it 9-2.
The defending region champs didn’t go down easy. Ryle scored three in the sixth thanks to two Conner errors, Anthony Coppola’s one-out RBI single making it 9-5 before Bushman ended the threat with runners on second and third with two strikeouts.
Oli Morris made it 9-6 in the bottom of the seventh with a homerun, his third of the season. Morris and Xaden Hughes led the Raiders at the plate with two hits each, both registering RBI. Landon Louden added two RBI.
“We told them this is where we want to be, we’re in the regional tournament,” Aylor said. “At the end of the day you’re going to have to beat a good team, so we’re going to play one out of the chute. We’ve got a guy we think can beat anybody and we think the rest of our rotation can stack up from there.”
Nathan Muench took the loss for the Raiders, failing to get out of the pivotal third inning as he allowed seven hits and four earned runs in 2.2 innings pitched. The senior had allowed just three earned runs 32.2 innings pitched this season.
“Very pleased with Nathan, he’s been good all year and did everything we asked him to,” Aylor said. “That was the first big spot he’s been in.”
The best news for both teams is they advance to Monday’s 9th Region tournament at Thomas More Stadium in Florence.
They’ll find out their opponents on Wednesday at the tournament draw at Conner, pending the two other district tournaments in the 35th and 36th are able to get their championship games done on Tuesday (impending weather isn’t promising).
All-Tournament Team
Elliot Kloss (Heritage Academy), Gabe Goodrich (Boone County), Evan Rice (Cooper), Dylan McIntyre (Ryle), Oli Morris (Ryle), Will Higgins (Conner), JJ Bagby (Conner) and Tournament MVP Brady Bushman (Conner)
COUGARS 9, RAIDERS 6
CONNER — 006-012-0 — 9-10-3
RYLE — 200-003-1 — 6-9-4
2B — (C) Brunkel, Abousaleh, Higgins (R) Caudill, Hughes
3B — (C) Testerman
HR — (R) Morris
WP — Bushman. LP — Muench.
Records: Conner 18-15, Ryle 24-11