Dixie Heights baseball coach Chris Maxwell wishes junior pitcher Kyle Flynn would not smile on the mound.
Flynn nevertheless is making the Colonels grin and opponents grimace. He’s 2-1 with a 0.78 earned run average to start the 2025 season, 22 strikeouts, eight walks and only two earned runs in 18 innings pitched, and he has a 3.97 grade-point average.
“He still likes having fun, but when he’s out there, he knows what he’s doing,” Maxwell said. “Sometimes he gets a little smile on his face, but I would rather he didn’t do that. I think he’s serious, but I think when he throws a wicked pitch, he kind of smiles to himself and (thinks) that was pretty awesome-looking. I don’t need that.”
Flynn is not about to give up beaming.
“I’m enjoying the moment pitching,” he said. “It’s just really part of me – just out there with my teammates, having a good time.”
What Flynn, 17, is doing this year is a pleasant continuation of his 2024 season – he finished 8-2 with 52 strikeouts and a 2.33 ERA.
“We were expecting a lot out of him,” Maxwell said. “He’s pretty much our ace this year.”
Flynn’s two wins this year are noteworthy. On March 26, Flynn struck out nine in a 2-0 shutout of Beechwood, and nine Covington Catholic hitters met the same fate on April 2 in a 3-1 home win.
“He pitched well in both of them; I wouldn’t say either one of them is more impressive,” Maxwell said.
The Beechwood win was Dixie’s (4-5) first over the Tigers since 2021 and just the 12th since 1998, and the CovCath victory was the first since 2021.
“It was awesome to beat a team that we don’t regularly beat every year,” Flynn said of the CovCath victory. “That was our first time beating them in a couple of years. It meant a lot.”
Beechwood coach Kevin Gray said Flynn “spotted his fastball really well.”
“And honestly, I don’t think we had a guy reach third base that game,” Gray said. “ I mean, he was really, really good. I talked to him after the game and told him that was one of the best performances that I had seen as an opposing coach.”
Maxwell said Flynn’s fastball is the go-to pitch, but not the only one he throws consistently.
“He’s got a good deuce (curveball), and he mixes it well,” Maxwell said. “He knows the game inside and out.”
Flynn was also an outfielder, shortstop, third baseman, first baseman and designated hitter last year, which Maxwell feels has helped him this season.
“He knows what every player on the field is supposed to be doing,” Maxwell said. “He came into the program as a catcher, and he might still be the best catcher in the program, but he’s that good of a pitcher that we’re not gonna put him back there and have him come up with a sore arm or whatever.”
Dixie boys golf coach and junior varsity baseball coach Matt Wehrle first saw Flynn as a sixth-grader at Turkey Foot Middle School. He called him “a kid with a high personality that loves playing sports of all kinds.”
“It’s that simple,” Wehrle said.
Flynn is part of an athletic bloodline. His older brother Jay, a 2022 Dixie alumnus, played basketball and baseball and now is a redshirt junior infielder at the University of the Cumberlands, his dad Mike coaches Kyle in the summer, and his great uncle is Reynolds Flynn, who guided Holmes to four Ninth Region boys basketball titles.
“It certainly helps in a sense of sports and genes,” Flynn said.
Flynn had a scare in eighth grade – he sprained the right ulnar collateral ligament, which runs on the inside of the elbow to support it when throwing.
“It was just after one pitch,” Flynn said. “It just started hurting really bad, and I didn’t know what it was.”
The best news was that no surgery was needed, and Flynn said the elbow doesn’t bother him now.
Flynn struck out four and walked two in Wednesday’s game against Campbell County. (Those numbers won’t count because the game was canceled after 1 ½ innings with the Camels leading, 1-0.)
Golf is one of Flynn’s hobbies. The Golf Courses of Kenton County in Independence are his home tracks; he said the Willows layout is more challenging than the Pioneer because it’s longer (6,697 yards to the Pioneer’s 5,880) and has narrower fairways.
Flynn used to like former Major League pitcher Trevor Bauer, who was suspended 324 games (later reduced to 194) for violating the league’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy. Cincinnati Reds pitcher Hunter Greene is his favorite active player.
“(Greene) likes to mix up his pitches, same as me,” Flynn said.
Flynn would like to play college baseball – he’s talked to Thomas More. But would he mind joining Jay at Cumberlands?
“That would certainly be cool if Jay could stay another year and we’d be on the same college team,” he said.
