‘We just made history.’ Trinity captures school’s first state baseball title.
In sports, there’s one sure way to break a supposed curse: field a team whose greatness can’t be denied.
Ranked as the No. 1 high school baseball team all season, the Louisville Trinity Shamrocks made history Saturday with their 10-0 run-rule win in five innings over McCracken County to earn the school’s first KHSAA Baseball State Tournament championship at Lexington Legends Ballpark.
“It shows that we’re not only a football school, we’re also a baseball school, now,” said Trinity senior Daylen Lile, a University of Louisville commit who was just named the state’s Mr. Baseball. “It just shows all our hard work and dedication.”
Trinity has won 27 football titles, more than any other school, and claimed multiple state championships in eight other sports, but a baseball crown had eluded the Rocks in 11 previous tournament appearances, including two runs to the finals.
“When you go to our basketball gym, you’ll see a lot of banners up there. Football has 30 million,” joked senior pitcher Colin Murphy, who held the vaunted McCracken County offense scoreless and allowed only two hits to earn most valuable player honors. “When you look at the baseball, there’s not anything, just a bunch of regions. But now they can put up a 2021 in there.”
The night before, No. 4 McCracken County scored 15 runs on 18 hits against No. 2 Danville. Murphy challenged the Mustangs hitters with fastballs up and inside and tried to make them chase curveballs away, he said.
“Our coach had a good game plan on how to pitch to them and how not to allow them to have damage,” Murphy said. “My job was just to execute.”
The championship comes in Coach Richard Arnold’s seventh season with the Shamrocks and on their third trip with him to the state tournament. Arnold’s other two state teams saw their run ended by McCracken County — in the first round in 2017 and in the semifinals in 2019.
“Well, it means the pressure’s off me now, because everybody writes first-ever state championship (instead of) no state championships in baseball,” Arnold said. “There was some kind of curse, and now it’s gone. Whatever it was, these kids deserve all the credit.”
Trinity broke a scoreless tie in the third inning by plating four runs and chasing McCracken County freshman starting pitcher Ross Aldridge. Back-to-back one-out singles by Robert Reed and Ethan Hodge were followed by a walk to the dangerous Lile. Matthew Klein knocked in the first run with a sacrifice fly to center field, but the Rocks weren’t done. Three straight RBI singles by Korbyn Dickerson, Brady Willis and Austin Taylor ran the score to 4-0 and ended Aldridge’s day.
In the fifth, Trinity struck big again after Thomas Nettles led off the inning with a double. A sacrifice bunt intended to get Nettles to third ended up scoring him instead as relief pitcher Cooper Ford committed an error on the throw to first. Another bunt brought another error, this time by first baseman Brandon Dodd, and another unearned run scored to make it 6-0. After Lile walked and Klein flew out to center field, Dickerson doubled to left field to score two more. A bases-loaded walk brought in the fifth run of the inning to make the score 9-0.
Dickerson, a junior Louisville commit, led the team by going 3-for-4 with four RBI and two runs scored. His two-out fly ball to short center field in the fifth inning stunningly dropped in the middle of three McCracken County defenders to score the Rocks’ 10th run and set up the mercy rule victory.
“It’s amazing,” Dickerson said. “We just made history.”
It marked the second straight loss in the state finals for McCracken County, which fell 4-2 to Tates Creek in the 2019 finals. McCracken County has never missed a state baseball tournament since its founding in 2013 from the merger of Heath, Lone Oak and Reidland.
“This was a really bad day to have a bad day,” McCracken County Coach Zach Hobbs said. “I thought our preparation was excellent today. I thought we were focused. We were loose. Baseball is cruel sometimes, and today was a day that it was cruel to us. Congratulations to Trinity. Hopefully, we’ll get our shot at one of these again.”
Trinity (41-2) became only the second team in state history to reach 41 wins in a season tying the mark of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s 2003 state champions.
“I’m in a different world right now,” Murphy said. “It doesn’t feel real yet. It probably won’t for a couple of years, but once it hits, it’s going to be sweet.”
All-tournament team
Ty Foree, Collins; Micah Cowen, Lafayette; Logan Bennett, Whitley County; Jarrett Napier, Hazard; Ethan Wood and Preston Barnes, Danville; Austin Long and Jackson Shoulders, Lyon County; Jack Bennett, Ben Higdon and Brandon Dodd, McCracken County; Daylen Lile, Korbyn Dickerson, and Colin Murphy (MVP), Trinity.
Highlights
