The rise ball Kaitlyn Dixon threw Tuesday looked like a few thousand others.
But it wasn’t.
Highlands senior pitcher struck out Dixie Heights first baseman Madison Skees and reached another milestone – her 1,000th career. She now has 1,004 after fanning six in the Bluebirds’ 14-3, five-inning win at Winkler Field.
You wouldn’t have known Dixon had reached another milestone – a one- or two-second flex was the only emotion she showed.
“I try not to think about big milestones like that too much,” said Dixon, who’s headed for Thomas More University next year. “… I just like to more focus on playing the game in the moment and then celebrate after.”
Dixon has reached milestones aplenty: she is the 24th player in state history to record at least 1,000 strikeouts, she broke former Bluebird Bailey Spencer’s career record last year, and last season’s 295 punch-outs eclipsed the 286 she recorded in 2024. She has 154 strikeouts so far this season, which places her 10th in the state.
Highlands coach Milt Horner is plenty emotional – he’s seen every game Dixon pitched. He thought Dixon could be a special pitcher when she was a fifth-grader in 2019.
“She works as any pitcher I’ve ever seen on her craft,” Horner said. “She spins a ball as well as any pitcher that we’ve seen.”
“… Oh, she’s got a rise ball, she’s got a screwball, she’s got a drop ball, she’s got a curveball; she can spin it in any direction.”
Quick movement
Dixon watched older sister Alyssa Dixon, a 2018 Highlands alumna as a 5-year-old, and it wasn’t long before she was hooked because softball fit her hurry-up, hurry-up personality.
“I just was so into the game, and it moved so much quicker than other sports, and it just looked a lot more exciting to me,” she said.
Dixon struck out her first batter on April 3, 2021, fanning four in a 13-1 four-inning win over Pike County Central. Horner, however, thought she’d be someone special was May 2, 2022, when she earned a save in a 10-7 win at Cooper.
“Kennedy Baioni was having trouble with her elbow,” Horner said. “And she held up against a very good Cooper team.”
Another pleasant memory was April 12, 2024 in Owingsville – she struck out 22 East Jessamine hitters and hit a walk-off single in Highlands’ 2-1 win.
“I do remember that,” Dixon said. “Yeah, that was was really cool because it’s something that pretty much nobody else that I’ve ever met has done, so that was super awesome, and everybody was so excited and everybody was so happy.”
Dixon says Baioni taught her to confident but not cocky.
“But in a way where I just know I worked my hardest to get where I am so I should be happy about what I’m doing,” she said.
Whipping it good
The right-handed Dixon throws a four-seam fastball – but admits she doesn’t throw it much. Instead, she relies on the “whip” in her motion from shoulder to elbow to hip while turning her hand over to generate spin.
“I pull my elbow down as hard as I can; that’s where I get my spin,” she says.
There is a painful memory – Highlands’ 5-3 loss to Holy Cross in last year’s Ninth Region final on Kayla Fledderman’s seventh-inning grand slam.
“I don’t think back on it too much in a big way,” Dixon says. “I think about when we’re – when I’m trying to fuel myself during practices or whatever to get better for the season. But I try not to let last season define our season this year.”
Dixon enjoys reading biographies and memoirs (Tara Westover’s “Educated” is one of her favorites), going to Highlands baseball games with her friends and fishing. (She caught an at-least four-pound catfish when she was 7 or 8.)
More than anything, Dixon is relieved she’s picked a college – Thomas More was the winner over Huntington (Indiana) University and Muskingum (New Concord, Ohio) University.
What has never changed: that softball is fun.
“There’s definitely times where it can get overwhelming or I can get burnt out, especially while I was getting recruited,” Dixon says. “But now that there’s that wait off my shoulders, it’s just being a game that I play with my friends.”