Lexington Catholic survives thriller against Harrison County in state softball tournament
Lucy Nash scored Lexington Catholic’s first and last runs of the game to bookend a wild softball state quarterfinal matchup Friday at the University of Kentucky’s John Cropp Stadium.
The Knights would need both runs and then some as Lexington Catholic outlasted Harrison County 8-7 to advance to Saturday’s semifinals of the Clark’s Pump-N-Shop Softball State Tournament presented by UK HealthCare.
Nash’s triple to right field in the top of the sixth inning ended up being the difference in a game that saw Harrison County rally from 7-1 down in the fifth to twice make it a one-run game in the late innings. The speedy Nash scored on an error as the Harrison County cutoff throw missed its mark. The run gave LexCath a critical 8-6 cushion.
“She just picked me up. She didn’t even question, ‘Why am I going home on this?’ She just kept on going,” LexCath Coach Emery Emmert said of Nash’s triple.
That’s not exactly how Nash remembered it.
“Oh my gosh, I was thinking, ‘Is he crazy?,’ but I trust him,” said Nash, who beat the throw home standing up. “It feels great. You work hard all season and this is what you’re working for.”
Emmert recalled his words to his team after Harrison County closed a 7-1 gap to 7-6 in the fifth.
“I told them that they needed to want it. ‘The moment’s not too big for you. Everybody here needs to want the moment to be theirs. So, let’s do this,’” Emmert said.
Nash’s other moment came early as her speed played a factor in the game’s first run. She scored from second base on a slow grounder Harrison County turned into an out at first. Nash slid in safely under the tag on the subsequent throw home in a bang-bang play. That staked LexCath to a 2-0 lead.
“Lucy has been huge for us all year,” Emmert said. “She hits behind Abby (Hammond) and that’s the hardest job on the planet. But she’s hitting .400 and she’s super fast. Sometimes, some of the talent we have kind of overshadows her, but she’s been a rock for us.”
LexCath added a run in the third and four more in the top of the fifth, highlighted by a two-run single by Maggie Coleman. Coleman also had an RBI single in the first.
But Harrison County found a groove against Hammond in the bottom of the fourth. Harrison loaded the bases with no outs on an error and consecutive singles by Marissa Taylor and Julie Persinger.
Isabella Persinger plated the first two runs of a five-run inning with a single to left. Owyn McCoy followed with an RBI single and Emma Hamm’s grounder to second skipped under the fielder’s glove for an error and two more runs to cut Harrison’s deficit to 7-6. Hammond got a strike out and a pop out to end the inning, but the game was on.
“My teammates really chatter behind me and they encourage me every step of the way. That kind of helps me when I’m out there struggling a little bit,” Hammond said. “I was trying to stay calm and take deep breaths and that really helped me through it.”
After Nash’s run in the top of the sixth, Harrison scored again in the bottom half thanks to a walk and a Julie Persinger double that set up Kara Hines’ sacrifice fly to foul territory in right. Harrison had the tying run at third base with two outs, but Hammond got a grounder to third to end the inning. She worked a 1-2-3 seventh for her 29th win of the season.
“So far in two games, we’ve had to fight, fight, fight,” said Emmert, who told his team they needed to fight like the third kangaroo on Noah’s Ark as they trailed late in their come-from-behind first round victory over Boyle County.
The Knights have since adopted a small inflatable kangaroo as the team mascot.
“We had that tough inning and then (Hammond) got the last couple of outs there,” Emmert added. “She was throwing about four miles an hour faster there that last inning. She saw the finish line and she kicked it in. It was pretty awesome.”
A day after earning high school softball’s Kentucky Gatorade Player of the Year, Hammond struck out eight, walked one and gave up four earned runs against the Fillies (31-12), ranked No. 24 at regular season’s end. At the plate, Hammond went 2-for-4 with her courtesy runner scoring in the fifth. The freshman deflected credit for the statewide Gatorade honor after the game.
“It’s a real tribute to my teammates and my coaches because they’ve helped me,” Hammond said. “ I would not be able to do it without them. It’s exciting, but we’ve got bigger things to do out here at John Cropp.”
Harrison County’s Julie Persinger went 2-for-4 with a double and a run scored while Hines knocked in two runs on a hit and Bella Persinger, Hamm and McCoy each also had an RBI for the Fillies.
No. 10 Lexington Catholic (29-6) has little time to prepare for its next opponent with the semifinals scheduled to begin with its game against No. 3 McCracken County at 11 a.m. Saturday.
“We’re just going to come out and do what we do. It’s another sleepless night for me,” Emmert said. “Softball coaches don’t sleep whether we win or lose, so I’ve at least got one more sleepless night this season.”
Friday’s other state quarterfinals
McCracken County 14, Louisville Holy Cross 1 (5 innings): The No. 3 Mustangs’ powerful offense proved to be too much for the Cougars in the early going as McCracken capitalized on three errors and seven walks to go with 15 hits in a mercy-rule win that was interrupted by rain for more than two hours.
McCracken (34-2) scored four runs with two outs in the first inning, got a three-run homer from Kentucky commit Ally Hutchins in the second inning and tagged on three more runs in both the third and the fourth inning against Holy Cross starter Riley Wilkins.
Karliegh Grace Walker had a two-run homer in the third for the Mustangs, who also got four runs on three hits from Ellie Shoulders and two runs on two hits from Ariel Fox. Isabella Story had three RBI, Zoe Smithson added two RBI.
Holy Cross (22-15) scored its lone run in the third inning on an RBI single by Aubrey Faust, scoring Jillian Jeffries.
Hutchins and Annie White each pitched two innings with Anna Kate Hawes closing the game for the Mustangs in the circle in the fifth. Hutchins struck out five and walked two.
South Warren 10, Henderson County 9: Elly Bennett’s two-run double over the right fielder’s head with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning provided the Spartans with a spectacular walk-off win after a stunning seven-run sixth inning seemed to put the Colonels in control.
Trailing 9-8 going into their last at-bat, Olivia Skaggs led off with a single, but Henderson pitcher Anna Kemp took down the next two batters on a strikeout and a fly out. Selynna Metcalfe kept the inning alive with a single and put the tying run at second base with her winning run at first.
That set up Bennett’s blast to right on a 2-2 count moments later that provided enough air time for Metcalfe to end the game with her slide to the plate.
Things looked bleak for South Warren after Henderson’s at-bat in the sixth inning. The Colonels (33-3) scored seven unearned runs — all with two outs — to turn a 5-2 deficit into a 9-5 lead. Kemp singled in the first run, followed by JaMaya Byrum reaching on an error to score another. Then Anna Willett hit a two-run single to give Henderson the lead 6-5. An RBI triple by Taylor Troutman and RBI singles by Julianna Hibbs and Kendal Hargrove followed for a 9-5 lead.
But South Warren responded with three runs in the bottom of the sixth to close within a run at 9-8 thanks to four walks by Henderson pitching and a Carrie Enlow RBI single to center.
Walker went 3-for-3 with two RBI and a run scored while Enlow also had three hits and two RBI for South Warren. The Spartans (38-2) won their 30th straight game.
Ballard 7, Daviess County 0: Brace Brooke Gray struck out 11 and threw a one-hit shutout against the team that knocked Ballard out of last season’s state tournament.
Ballard established an early 2-0 lead thanks to a triple by Mikayla Milby that was followed Alyssa Simmons’ two-run home run over the fence in left-center two batters later.
The Bruins tagged on five more runs in the fourth inning as Macy McCoy led off with a single, stole second and scored on Imari Golden’s double. Though Daviess notched the second out of the inning on the following at-bat, Ballard strung together six more singles around a walk to extend the rally. Lillian Koch, Rylee Carter and Milby all had RBI singles in the run.
Last year’s first-round defeat to Daviess County was the last loss suffered by undefeated No. 1 Ballard (37-0). Gray, a junior, has pitched 29 of those wins and her 361 strikeouts on the year rank second in the state.
Jessie Daniels had the Panthers lone hit in the seventh inning. Daviess County (31-6) overwhelmed Ballard 13-2 a season ago on its way to a runner-up finish in the state tournament to Butler.
Saturday’s semifinals
11 a.m.: Lexington Catholic vs. McCracken County
5 p.m.: South Warren vs. Ballard
Sunday’s finals
3 p.m.: Semifinals winners
This story was originally published June 10, 2022 at 4:18 PM.
