The winless streak for Northern Kentucky teams at the KHSAA state softball tournament continues.
Highlands was aiming to be the first team out of the 9th Region to earn a victory in Lexington since 2017 when Notre Dame did, but fell short to Johnson Central on Thursday, 3-1 at John Cropp Stadium on the campus of University of Kentucky.
The opportunities were there despite the offense mustering up one hit on the day, but the Bluebirds left a runner 60-feet from home plate in four different innings.
“If we get a hit there early and go up then that changes some stuff around. Only scoring one run and the middle of your lineup gets shut down, you’re not going to win many games,” Bluebirds coach Milt Horner said.
A miscommunication on a sacrifice bunt helped open the door for a two-run inning for the Eagles in the second.
After Madelyn Vaughn led off the inning with a walk, Keylee Blair followed with what was trying to be a sacrifice bunt, but Highlands missed their rotations on the play and Blair reached safely. A one-out double by Sophie Younce made Highlands pay with a run scored. A groundout by by Carrigan Ratliff followed that also produced a run when Younce and Blair were caught on third base together, the Bluebirds electing to chase down Younce for the third out, but not in time for Blair to score.
“They gave us some opportunities and we were able to take advantage there. When you get here, you can’t get caught up on how you score the runs, you take what you can get,” Eagles coach Phillip Estep said.
And that was enough for senior pitcher Madelyn Vaughn who struck out just two, walking two batters and hitting another.
“She kept the middle of our lineup off-balance. We didn’t hit a whole lot of balls hard. Only struck out a couple of times, but she managed to pitch inside a lot and was able to work things around,” Horner said.
Highlands freshman Kaitlyn Dixon wasn’t too bad herself despite a scare in the bottom of the fourth inning. Dixon took a line drive off the face on a line drive from Blair, needing to exit the game. After Kennedy Baioni got out of a jam in that inning, Dixon would come back on after Baioni ran into trouble in the fifth with two walks issued and a double allowed to load the bases and a run scoring on the second walk. Dixon came back in the fifth inning to get out of the bases loaded jam with a foul out and strikeout.
“It got part of her face but it thankfully didn’t hit her square. She was fine, she’s a tough kid,” Horner said.
Highlands best opportunity came in the top of the sixth with them trailing 3-0. The lone hit of the game was a leadoff single by Bailey Markus, Morgan Pompilio following with a walk to put two runners on and no out.
But two straight groundouts followed, the second an RBI by Michelle Barth to score Markus before Vaughn got Carley Cramer to strike out looking with Pompilio on third.
“She’s a senior pitcher and she’s been here before. That experience helped her. She really had good command and felt like if she could control both edges of the plate we really liked our chances,” Estep said.
Johnson Central was making their fourth straight trip to the state tournament and had won just one game in eight previous appearances at the state tournament.
Highlands season comes to an end with a 27-9-1 record and graduates two seniors; Kennedy Baioni and Cramer.
“They probably represent the most successful senior class we’ve ever had here as a program. Winning back-to-back in the region so that’s really good,” Horner said.
The Bluebirds were making their fourth appearance at the state tournament, having won a game in 2014 and 2016, but have now come up short in consecutive seasons.
“It is a little more disappointing this year. Last year we drew a really good South Warren team. This year I felt like we were loose coming in,” Horner said.
With such little turnover, they’ll once again have the target on their back in the region and should be the team expected to get back to this point next season for the third straight year.
Highlands started four freshman and an eighth grader along with the two seniors and two juniors in Thursday’s game.
“We’ve built a pretty strong foundation that we can go forward with. I’ll be counting on Michelle and Bailey to lead us next year like Kennedy and Carley did this year,” Horner said. “I’m confident they know what it’s like to come down here and know what it takes to get back.”
HIGHLANDS — 000-001-0 — 1-1-0
JOHNSON CENTRAL — 020-010-x — 3-5-1
2B — (JC) Younce, R. DeLong
WP — Vaughn. LP — Dixon.
LOB — Highlands 4, Johnson Central 7
Records: Highlands 27-9-1, Johnson Central 28-9
