It’s the “classic” weekend that Kentucky’s All “A” teams look forward to every spring. Eight boys’ baseball teams meet up in Richmond at EKU to decide who has the best small school baseball program.
Meanwhile in Owensboro, 16 girls’ softball teams do the same in a different format. But one of these means more if you look at the reality here. Because in baseball, at least three of the All “A” state finalists this weekend – Danville, Owensboro Catholic, and Beechwood – will have a real shot next month when the KHSAA Baseball Tournament takes place. As they’ve shown over the years.
For some reason, and no one has been able to explain this to us, that’s not the story on the girls’ side. This weekend in Owensboro, when they opened with three games Saturday in four-team pool play before Sunday’s semifinals and finals, is pretty much all she wrote. Check out the scores around the state. The differences between the big schools and small schools in softball are stark. Double-digit losses and games ended in three innings are not at all unusual.
David Meier, who has had the Villa Madonna program humming along in the nine seasons he’s coached the Vikings after starting the baseball program there, puts it this way about the difficulty for small schools to compete in softball. “The big schools cut more players than we have on our roster,” which is up from 11 a year ago when the Vikings headed to Owensboro to 12 today for the return trip.
But there’s a caveat here: Of those 12, six are in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades. That’s both the good and bad news about small school softball, Meier says. Young kids get a chance to develop the experience they need at an early age. His daughter, Camdyn, is a senior listed at three positions in her ninth – yeah, ninth – season on the roster.
“She was grandfathered in as a fourth-grader when I started coaching,” Meier says. That wouldn’t be possible now that the rules have changed. But youth is a mark of the two Northern Kentucky teams headed downstate. At 10th Region champ Walton-Verona, first-year coach Natalie Meadows started as a seventh grader for the Bearcats herself.
“We’re really young,” says Meadows who started two eighth graders Saturday in a triple-header when the 9-7 Bearcats won one game against pool partners Lynn Camp (a 7-6 victory) with losses against Russellville (10-0), and Owensboro Catholic (15-1).
“We’ve got two pretty-seasoned pitchers,” Meadows was saying of sophomore Danielle Oldfield (4-1) and senior Audrey Pollard (4-2) but that overall youth makes it tough competition against the state’s best.
Much the same as the Vikings, 9-3 as they headed to Owensboro, who were sitting at No. 3 in the RPI in the Ninth Region among all schools after romping through the All “A” Classic here by an average score of 14-5. But after a week off for spring break, the margin was flipped in a 15-0 loss to a Campbell County program with nearly 600 more girls to choose a team from than the 96 at VMA.
The hope was that the two Viking pitchers, seventh-grader Cam Kratzer (4-1, 3.50 ERA) and senior Joslyn Thornberry (4-2, 4.71) would keep up their All “A” dominance against the VMA pool downstate. But Knott County Central (an 8-1 loss), Carlisle County (15-1 loss), and Lexington Christian (13-0 loss) were just way too much for the young Vikings.
“Neither pitcher is overpowering but they throw strikes,” Meier says. And Kratzer is a threat at the plate with a .455 batting average, behind only his daughter Camdyn’s .528. “I think people are more supportive than surprised,” Kratzer says of her varsity success at a junior-high age.
As to which side of the game is her favorite, hitting or pitching, the grade-schooler says it depends: “I’ve put so much work into both, I like them equally. But it’s whatever we need to win a particular game.”
For Joslyn, who fits softball into a senior schedule that also has her working as a server at LaRosa’s, it’s her first time starting in the circle for VMA since she began playing as a sixth grader.
“I think it’s going to be a major learning experience for us,” she said of the All “A” Classic challenge. “We’re a young team. This should help with our mentality as a team.”
PUTTING NORTHERN KENTUCKY BACK INTO COVCATH BASKETBALL SKED NEXT SEASON: Remember that one of the points of discussion last basketball season was how only seven teams – lowest in-region number for a No. 1 team of any of Kentucky’s 16 regions – on Covington Catholic’s 30-game basketball schedule were from the Ninth Region. Were teams avoiding the big, bad Colonels with their inside pair of 6-foot-8 all-stater Mitchell Rylee and 6-6, 230-pound junior Chandler Starks? Well, with both gone – Rylee off to Miami of Ohio and Starks back home to Cincinnati’s Anderson High to play football – the Colonels will look a lot different next season.
So will their schedule as the number of Northern Kentucky teams playing the Colonels has almost doubled – from seven to 13 for next season. They are: Simon Kenton (new), St. Henry, Holy Cross, Newport Central Catholic, Beechwood, Conner, Holmes, Highlands (new), Lloyd (new), Cooper (new), Campbell County (new), Dixie Heights, and Ryle (new).
And this time, the big shoe will be on the other foot with Holy Cross, Lloyd, and Cooper, among others, having the big guys up front that CovCath once had. Looks like a season that should be all sorts of fun based on the returning talent led by the likes of CovCath explosive guard Evan Ipsaro; Holy Cross swing man Jacob Meyer, the state’s leading scorer. But the big men in CovCath games will be on the other side with the trio of Lloyd sophomore EJ Walker, who might well play at 6-foot-7 next year; Holy Cross 6-foot-10 senior Sam Gibson; and Cooper’s 6-9 Caleb Brooks. Should be fun . . . JUST SAYIN’.
LOTS OF NORTHERN KENTUCKIANS AMONG STATE BASEBALL LEADERS:
Conner’s Gage Testerman is a major presence at the top of the current KHSAA baseball stats going into this past weekend. As listed on the KHSAA website, the senior shortstop is the state’s No. 4 hitter at .587 (37 for 63) while No. 13 in both home runs with six, and hits, with 37. He’s also No. 4 in doubles with 12, No. 6 in slugging percentage (1.063), No. 8 in RBI with 36 and No. 12 in runs scored with 34.
But Testerman is hardly alone. There are plenty of Northern Kentucky names in the state stats right now starting with Beechwood.
*** Brice Estep, the junior Beechwood catcher, is No. 10 in batting average (.554, 31 of 56), second in RBI with 44 and 12th in slugging (.964).
*** Estep isn’t alone. Another Tiger, Cameron Boyd, is No. 3 in home runs with nine and No. 8 in slugging percentage (1.030).
*** With seven home runs, Bishop Brossart’s Evan Moore is ninth in homers and fourth in RBI with 39.
*** NewCath’s Ian Mann is No. 10 in slugging (1.000).
*** Walton-Verona’s Nick Allen is seventh in runs scored with 37.
*** Dayton’s Maveriq Catacora is 10th in stolen bases with 25.
*** On the other side, Conner pitcher Brody Mangold’s 0.21 ERA is No. 8 after allowing just one earned run in his first 33 innings.
*** Beechwood reliever Torin O’Shea is No. 4 in saves with four in his six appearances.
*** In team stats, Beechwood’s .381 average (201 for 527) is good for No. 3 in the state. Conner is No. 14 at .349 (211 for 605).
*** Beechwood’s 202 runs are good for No. 9 in the state.
*** With 211 hits, Conner is No. 13 in the state.
*** In doubles, Conner’s 63 are No. 1 in the state, Beechwood’s 51 are No. 6.
*** Beechwood’s 23 home runs are second-best in the state, Brossart’s 15 are good for No. 11.
*** Beechwood’s 189 RBI are No. 5 in the state, same as Dayton’s fifth-best 115 stolen bases.
*** Conner’s 1.75 ERA (going into Thursday’s 15-8 loss to Cincinnati Moeller) was No. 5 in the state.
*** Calvary Christian’s 196 strikeouts are No. 7 in the state.