This story originally appeared in the May 17 edition of the weekly LINK Reader. To get these stories first, subscribe here.
It’s a rare off day for the Beechwood High School baseball team. With dark clouds above, coach Kevin Gray is deciding if he wants to hold practice outside or inside.
“I prefer outside. But it looks like it’s going to rain, and I think guys are already hitting in the barn,” Gray said. “We’ll figure it out.”
It wasn’t the biggest decision the coach has made. When the Tigers’ inexperience showed, and a lineup with limited pop contributed to a power deficit, Gray made a call.
“We talked about it,” Gray said. “As the season went on, I felt like we had to work on being better at smallball.”
Smallball? At power-hitting Beechwood?
“It works in a lot of situations,” senior Shawn Sowder said. “Just put the ball in play and force the other team to make a play.”
It’s a case of adapting the Tigers’ playing style to fit the team’s makeup.
“We have a lot of good hitters (seven regulars batting .300 or better). We have a few with some power,” Gray said. “But we don’t have a lot of big power guys like we’ve had with Cameron Boyd and Mitchell Berger. This team has to manufacture runs. Part of that is being ready to do a lot of the little things.”
The Tigers went to work on smallball tactics with one big goal in mind. They want to win a fifth consecutive 9th Region championship. The Tigers perfected their new approach during the regular season. The playoff push begins May 18 with the 35th District tournament at Covington Catholic (which the Tigers eventually won with a 14-3 victory over CovCath in the championship).
“With more game experience, we’re playing better with it,” senior Michael Detzel said of the smallball style. “We’re going through the process.”
Coach Gray believes the process is moving Beechwood in the right direction. Detzel, who was leading the regulars with a .359 batting average, is keeping the line moving. As are Keagan Hutton (.354), Carson Welch (.349), Tyler Fryman (.345) and Sowder (.325).
Three players had a team-high two home runs through games of May 7. They were Hutton, Fryman and Sowder. Detzel led with 14 doubles. Five players had two triples. Fryman led with 17 stolen bases. Beechwood had 59 steals in its first 66 attempts.
The starting pitching has been solid, led by junior ace Chase Flaherty and freshman sensation Caleb Arrasmith. Key relievers include Graham Holt, Branton Styles, Drew Tingle and Roland King.
After a slow start, the Tigers won eight straight games. Later, they won seven of eight. Along the way were 11 games scoring at least 10 runs. Included in that stretch was an 11-2 shellacking of Simon Kenton for their 19th win of the season. They received a solo home run from Hutton in the contest. Detzel ripped a double and drove in four runs.
“If you play for four runs in an inning, you get one,” Gray said. “If you play for one run, you get four. We want to string baserunners together. But big hits are still good.”
That’s what they got from Sowder in a 7-6 win over Louisville St. Xavier. Sowder smashed a two-run walk-off home run in the bottom of the seventh inning to win it. Even so, Beechwood totaled just eight home runs with 50 doubles after the first 27 games. The Tigers had 17 homers and 74 doubles last season. They had 36 homers and 92 doubles in 2022. With extra-base hits in shorter supply this year, preparedness is the key.
“We work on getting on base and getting the runner into scoring position,” the coach said. “We’re stealing. We’re bunting the runner over and hit-and-running. Nobody plays smallball better than Covington Catholic. We know what it looks like.”
CovCath is Beechwood’s archrival. Though Beechwood has won four straight regions, CovCath beat the Tigers in the 35th District final the past two years. Both times, the Colonels earned the No. 1 seed. That put No. 2 Beechwood on a potentially tougher path at the region tournament.
It didn’t matter. Beechwood won the region again, continuing a stranglehold that began in 2019. The pandemic wiped out the 2020 season, but the Tigers won the region title in 2021-23, setting up this season’s historic attempt.
Just two baseball teams won four straight 9th Region titles since the KHSAA introduced the 16-region format in 1976. They are Beechwood and Highlands from 2015-18.
A fifth straight Beechwood crown would be historic in the 16-region era. But it wouldn’t be the greatest championship streak by a Northern Kentucky baseball team. That belongs to Newport Central Catholic. The Thoroughbreds won seven region titles in a row from 1948-54.
“In the beginning of the season, we didn’t trust ourselves. Now, we’re expecting to win,” Sowder said. “If we get that fifth straight region, it’d be amazing.”