Lexington Catholic thriving under leadership of former UK standout and major leaguer
First-year Lexington Catholic baseball coach Scott Downs has learned that no district win comes easy in the 43rd.
“I learned that from game one,” Downs admitted after his No. 24 Knights held off a rally by No. 16 Paul Laurence Dunbar at the Dawg Pound on Wednesday night — a 12-8 thriller that saw LexCath jump to a 9-0 lead in the first two innings only to almost give it all away by the fourth.
“But you know what? At the end of the day, that’s what you want,” Downs said. “You want to see what you have. … And this team is a bunch of grinders.”
Now, with six district games under its belt, Lexington Catholic tops the 43rd standings with a 5-1 record and only rain makeup games against Tates Creek and defending district and 11th Region champion Lafayette still to be scheduled. That’s a far cry from the team’s 3-5 mark a year ago in a season that ended with a first-round postseason exit.
“Winning is a lot better. Winning is a lot better,” said Griffin Cameron, a University of Kentucky commit. “This team, the coaching staff, everything’s been great this year.”
High school and UK legend at the helm
If Downs’ name seems familiar, it’s because he was a standout University of Kentucky pitcher who had a 14-year major league career playing for several teams after being selected as a third-round pick by the Chicago Cubs in 1997.
As a high school player, Downs earned Mr. Baseball honors in 1994 playing for the state champions that year, Pleasure Ridge Park.
After his playing career, Downs became an assistant coach for his alma mater and helped PRP to the 2017 state crown.
But ever since his UK days, Lexington has been home. He’d been commuting to Louisville to help coach PRP for the last five seasons.
“When this job came calling and that drive started to get a little bit old, you know what? It was time to get back and give back to this great group of kids,” Downs said. “We’ve got a great coaching staff and we’re having a blast. And I’m having a blast with them.”
This week’s victories
The Knights swept their regular-season series with Dunbar this week by getting Wednesday’s victory and a walk-off 2-1 win at home the night before. On Tuesday, Zach Grigalis smashed a two-out, RBI double in the seventh inning, scoring Cameron who led off the frame with a single.
Cameron struggled a bit early in the season for reasons Downs ascribed to the junior center fielder, maybe, putting too much pressure on himself. But since, his leadoff man has settled in, averaging .364 with team highs in hits (24), runs (20), home runs (three), RBI (12) and extra base hits (eight).
“He’s making plays, and he’s doing what we expect him to do,” Downs said. “He’s getting on base. He’s driving guys, and he’s doing all the things that coming into the season we thought were going to happen.”
Cameron went 4-for-5 Wednesday night with three runs scored. He hit the first pitch of the game for a single in LexCath’s eight-run first inning. His next time up that same inning, he singled and scored again on Baylor Woodall’s double. When Dunbar closed to within 9-8 in the fourth inning, Cameron tripled with one out in the top of the fifth to jump start another three-run rally.
“As a team, we had to stay in the game. After the third inning, we sort of just fell out and lost focus,” Cameron said. “We came back and we battled. … It was huge. It helped our pitcher and the rest of the team get momentum back.”
Although the defense was shaky behind him with a whopping eight errors, senior left-hander Matthew Poe pitched 6⅔ innings with eight strikeouts for his third win of the season.
“We get up eight and then we coast for a little bit, we make some defensive errors and let them back in the game,” Downs said. “But baseball is baseball, you know. Things happen like that. But it’s what happens after that. And what happened after that is we stayed in the game, picked up some runs late and our pitcher threw the heck out of the ball. That’s what our team has been doing all year is grinding.”
Seven batters had at least one hit Wednesday night. Eight different players scored. Six had runs batted in led by Drew Bowles and Woodall with three each.
“Baylor (Woodall)‘s playing well. Max (DeGraff) is playing well,” Downs said just to name a few. “Top to bottom, we’ve got guys that are doing the little things and that’s what we’ve preached from day one.”
Overall, LexCath has a 12-8 record and was ranked as the No. 24 team in the state in the latest PrepBaseballReport.com Power Rankings.
This past weekend, the Knights played in the Kentucky 2A Championship tournament where they had an 8-1 lead on No. 3 Paducah Tilghman before falling to the eventual event champions by a score of 11-10.
While a big lead slipped against the Blue Tornado, LexCath made sure to hang on against Dunbar.
“These eight (district) games are the important games of the season,” Downs said. “The rest of it’s just, they’re just numbers. It’s work for all the guys, but we’re doing what we need to do to take care of business.”
This story was originally published April 28, 2022 at 7:50 AM.
