Nine years ago, Ryle and Highlands met in the 9th Region softball championship.
Nine years later, that matchup returns Friday evening at 5:30 p.m. at Thomas More’s “The Hill,” as the two programs square off once again with a berth in the KHSAA state softball tournament on the line.
To reach the title game, Ryle walked off Dixie Heights, while Highlands shut out Notre Dame.
Here’s a look at Thursday’s semifinal action in Crestview Hills:
Ryle 9, Dixie Heights 8
Ryle senior Makenna Hirshey just wasn’t ready for her high school career to end.
For the second time this postseason, Hirshey delivered a walk-off hit in a win-or-go-home game, this time lifting the Lady Raiders to a dramatic 9-8 victory over Dixie Heights in the 9th Region Tournament semifinals.
Her first postseason walk-off came in the 33rd District semifinals against Cooper, when she lined a single into left field to score the winning run in a 2-1 victory.
So when another pressure-packed moment arrived Wednesday night, Hirshey came through again.
Trailing 8-7 entering the bottom of the seventh inning, Ryle immediately put pressure on Dixie Heights. With one out, Leah Broussard tied the game with a sacrifice fly before Brooklyn Roland followed with a single that moved Keegan Murr to third base.
Extra innings seemed inevitable.
Hirshey made sure they never happened.
The senior hit a ground ball to shortstop, allowing Murr to race home with the game-winning run.
“I have to do it for my team,” Hirshey said. “We lost to Dixie twice in the semifinals and three times overall since I’ve played. I look around at all my seniors and this wasn’t the game we wanted to end on.”
With the victory, Ryle erased a stretch of frustrating postseason history against the Colonels and advanced to the 9th Region championship game for the first time since 2018. The Lady Raiders also became the first team from the 33rd District to reach the regional final since Boone County did so in 2021.
“That’s what I told them at one point when we had the lead,” Ryle head coach David Meier said. “Morgan Smith, who calls our pitches and works with our catchers, was the catcher with Hannah Bishop on that 2018 team. I had several people let me know we’re the first team from our district to make the region championship in a while, and I think our district is as tough as any district in the state.”
Meier and the Lady Raiders could finally exhale, but they never had the chance to catch their breath during the game.
Ryle sophomore Kiley Patterson admitted afterward the Lady Raiders are a “momentum” team, and momentum swung wildly throughout the night.
Both teams used their entire pitching staffs searching for consistency in the circle. Ryle started Rayne Patsel, but the sophomore lasted just 2.1 innings while battling illness. Addison Farmer followed with four innings before Keegan Murr recorded the final two outs to earn the win.
“We just keep passing the baton, we all have trust in each other,” Meier said. “Rayne wasn’t feeling the best, but she battled. Then Addison started to run out of gas and Keegan comes in and shuts them down and gives us a chance to win. A great job all the way around.”
Dixie Heights also turned to multiple pitchers, beginning with senior Ava Niemer before handing the ball to eighth grader Sullee Sheehan for the remainder of the game.
“She’s stayed really composed for a seventh and eighth grader,” Dixie Heights head coach Sarah Osborne said. “It’s the last thing I ever want to do, is put a middle schooler on the mound against 18-year-olds, but she does the job and she does it well.”
With so much movement in the circle, the game ultimately came down to whichever lineup could seize momentum at the plate.
Ryle grabbed a 4-2 lead in the third inning, but Dixie Heights answered with one run in the fifth and two more in the sixth to move back in front.
Then came the biggest swing before Hirshey’s walk-off.
In the bottom of the sixth, Patterson stepped to the plate hitless on the night before crushing a three-run home run over the left-field fence to put Ryle ahead 7-5.
“I was 0-for-3, I was just hoping for a base hit,” Patterson said. “I hit it and I thought, ‘Oh, another pop up.’ I threw my bat behind me and was like, ‘Get out, please.’ Then I started crying happy tears.”
Dixie responded with a three-run seventh inning, but Hirshey and Ryle threw the last, knockout punch.
The Colonels’ season came to a close at 16-16.
For Ryle, history finally swung in the Lady Raiders’ favor.
Highlands 6, Notre Dame 0
Highlands beating Notre Dame was a perfect example of what experience looks like.
Behind four seniors who have played in plenty of pressure-packed postseason games, the Bluebirds advanced to their fifth straight 9th Region championship game with a 6-0 victory over Notre Dame in Wednesday’s semifinals.
For seniors Kaitlyn Dixon, Morgan Pompilio, Payton Brown and Cam Markus, postseason losses in previous years never meant the end of their high school careers.
Now, every game carries finality, and that reality has fueled Highlands throughout this postseason run.
“It’s definitely more meaningful this year,” Pompilio said. “When you lose, you’re done. The past years we just said, ‘Next year, we’ll win,’ but this year it’s definitely playing more for myself and the group that we have.”
No doubt was left Wednesday night.
Dixon delivered another dominant outing in the circle, carrying a perfect game into the seventh inning before allowing a one-out single. The senior still finished with a complete-game shutout, no walks and 14 strikeouts.
“This is my last chance,” Dixon said. “I want to go as far as I possibly can. Last year we didn’t perform the way we know we could have. This has been about proving to everybody in the 9th Region, but most of all ourselves.”
Pompilio led Highlands offensively, finishing 2-for-4 with two RBIs, a double, a stolen base and a run scored. Brown also went 2-for-4 with an RBI and a double, while Markus added a hit and scored a run.
While Dixon entered as the region’s established ace, Notre Dame countered with one of the area’s rising pitchers in junior Lucy Dillon, who finished the season with 196 strikeouts and a 1.77 ERA.
“She’s a good pitcher and has done a really nice job,” Highlands head coach Milt Horner said. “She’s kind of come out of nowhere. She got us with some high fastballs and rise balls early. We tried to lay off them, we didn’t do as good of a job as I’d like, but she’s good.”
With Dixon graduating after the season, Dillon may be one of the next standout pitchers to emerge in the region.
“I’m putting money on it,” Notre Dame head coach Mickie Terry said. “Where she came from, she threw five innings last year and we had Abby Turnpaugh, the region’s top pitcher. For Lucy to fill those shoes this year, when nobody really knew who she was, she’s stepped up and pitched a really good game today.”
For now, though, the present still belongs to Highlands.
Behind its defense and Dixon’s dominance in the circle, the Bluebirds steadily chipped away offensively.
Highlands led just 1-0 through three innings after Katherine Heilman executed a squeeze bunt to bring home the game’s first run in the second inning.
The Bluebirds then broke the game open in the fourth.
Bailee Class delivered an RBI single before Pompilio followed with a two-run double to push the lead to 5-0.
“My first at-bat I was a little nervous, trying to get the nerves out,” Pompilio said. “The second at-bat I told myself I needed to get those runs in. I just got a new bat, so I had to use it. I was thinking, ‘Get these runs in and impact the team,’ and then here we are, up 5-0.”
Alli Meyers added an RBI double in the seventh inning, part of Highlands’ 11-hit performance, for the game’s final run.
Notre Dame finally broke through for its first hit in the bottom of the seventh when Brigid Zekl lined a single into right field, but Dixon quickly settled back in to close out the victory and send the Bluebirds back to the championship game.
No 16 Highlands improved to 32-6.
Notre Dame’s season ends at 13-12, but in Mickie Terry’s first year leading the program, the Pandas showed signs of building momentum for the future.
“We’ve got a lot of young girls,” Terry said. “You make a semifinal with a very young team and we’re happy with what we did. We’re proud of the culture starting to change and hopefully get back on the map and maybe see them in the finals next year.”
Notre Dame graduates two seniors in Sydney Sheely and Brigid Zekl.
LADY RAIDERS 9, COLONELS 8
DIXIE HEIGHTS — 002-012-3 — 8-8-1
RYLE — 004-003-2 — 9-10-2
RBI — (R) Ki. Patterson 3, Roland 2, Broussard, Hirshey, Patsel (DH) Buford 2, Litke, Niemer, Schumacher, Waters
2B — (R) Broussard (DH) Schumacher
HR — (R) Ki. Patterson
WP — Murr. LP — Sheehan.Records: Ryle 22-12, Dixie Heights 16-16
BLUEBIRDS 6, PANDAS 0
HIGHLANDS — 010-400-1 — 6-11-0
NOTRE DAME — 000-000-0 — 0-1-0
RBI — (H) Pompilio 2, Brown, B. Class, Keilman, Meyers
2B — (H) Brown, Meyers, Pompilio
WP — Dixon. LP — Dillon.
Records: Highlands 32-6, Notre Dame 13-12