It’s not as much of a problem anymore, but there was a time when Highlands High School softball standout Payton Brown had her first name misspelled. Not all the time, and usually by people outside her inner circle, but just enough to be annoying.
“Oh, it still happens. But, yeah, not as much,” said Brown, who takes the field with her teammates against unbeaten South Warren in Friday’s 3:30 p.m. semifinal of the Softball State Tournament presented by UK HealthCare. The game is at John Cropp Stadium in Lexington.
The 9th Region champion Bluebirds are 35-6 and riding a 19-game winning streak. They have won 28 of their last 29 games. South Warren, champion of the 4th Region, is 43-0 and the No. 1 team in Kentucky in every ranking. The Spartans have a national ranking and seven NCAA Division I college commits.
That doesn’t faze Brown. Now that she’s a big name herself on the diamond and become such a high-level performer, she realizes South Warren has to face her and her teammates. Everybody in the media is talking about Friday’s matchup of titans and Brown is seeing far more “Payton” and much less “Peyton.”
“They get the Brown part right, obviously,” she said. “But the Payton part can still get a little misspelled sometimes.”
When she was younger, it was mystifying. Why were people popping up in her life who were spelling her first name wrong? To her, it seemed pretty obvious that spelling “Payton” is, well, pretty obvious.
“Pay and ton,” she said of the phonetic breakdown. “Pretty simple.”
Back then, it was a cute little-girl trick to help the uninitiated get it right. Today for the college-bound teenager, it’s morphing into a clever and effective mnemonic device that breaks her name down into a pair of distinct, everyday words.
It’s an appropriate name-spelling hack because Brown can make opponents pay a ton if they’re not careful with her at the plate. She’s a bonafide, well-decorated prep slugger ready to take her swings, the vast majority of which result in base hits, many of the extra-base variety.
“She makes pitchers pay attention to her,” said Highlands coach Milt Horner, whose comment would have been accurate after the first four words.
Brown makes pitchers pay.
“I like that,” said the senior catcher. “It works.”
Few work harder than Payton Brown. That’s why she’s batting .395 with a team-high nine home runs, 15 doubles, three triples and 52 RBI. Hard work is why she has just four passed balls all season when some catchers can pile up that many in a game.
“She was our starting shortstop for two years before she became our starting catcher when she was a junior,” Horner said. “Those are two very difficult positions. You can’t do that without working very hard every day. She started as an outfielder in the seventh grade. She’s been at first and third. She can play every position but pitcher.”
Brown has lettered all six years she has played softball at Highlands. She’s won team honors just like she did again Monday during awards night when coach Horner spoke words of praise about his stellar backstop, the other three seniors and the rest of the team.
Crucially for the Bluebirds, Brown’s story not only involves letters, but it also involves numbers. Lots of numbers. Lots of history-making numbers at Highlands where she is the softball program record holder in so many categories that coach Horner has spent hours merely updating her ledgers over the years. Every time she plays, she updates several school records all at once.
Take, for instance, games played. But don’t try taking Brown out of a game because she won’t budge. She is Highlands’ all-time leader with 232 of a possible 233. She has played in 221 consecutive games with a Highlands record 617 at-bats. The last time she didn’t get into a game was as a seventh grader. It’s a powerful statement on her durability and work ethic but Brown sees more.
“I love playing softball,” the clean-up hitter said. “I just love it. It’s so much fun and you get to have teammates. You can’t set records without good teammates.”
Brown is Highlands’ career leader in hits with 259. She leads with 67 doubles, 26 triples and 35 home runs. She is the program’s all-time leader with 208 runs, 241 RBI, 107 walks and 13 sacrifice flies. Brown ranks second in slugging percentage, third in stolen bases and sixth in singles. She’s top-10 in batting average at .422 and on-base percentage at .518.
“She’s great up there at the plate and she settles me down when I pitch,” said senior ace Kaitlyn Dixon, who also holds her share of Highlands records. “The girl can field and she can hit.”
Brown is, by any measure, the greatest hitter in Highlands softball history.
“Hard work pays off,” she said.
That’s Brown showing her true colors — even if her favorite one is Highlands blue. And she’s not done. She’s heading to Northern Kentucky University to play softball and major in exercise science.
“She’s been working incredibly hard and she’s had a lot of fun, too,” Horner said.
Fun is written all over her face, even when it’s contorting. Look at the pictures of Brown after scoring the winning run in the eighth inning of Highlands’ 3-2 win over North Hardin in the state tournament quarterfinals.
“That’s kind of the way I get when I get excited and I can’t help it,” said Brown, a local Division I first-team selection. “That face I was making was in all the pictures from every angle. But that’s me.”
She’d love to be making happy faces again Friday against big bad South Warren. All of Brown’s hard work has built up to this defining moment. The best hitter in Highlands history has her team playing in the biggest game in program history. The Bluebirds are two wins away from their first-ever state championship. The final is Saturday at 7 p.m.
“We are fully going into this game with no fear in the world,” Brown said. “We’ve got the pitching with Kaitlyn. We’ve got the hitting and the coaching. We know Kaitlyn is going to pitch well, so we have to hit. We just have to hit.”
