‘Instant classic.’ Sayre earns first 11th Region baseball title in a thriller
In a game that had almost everything, Sayre did one thing it’s never done — win an 11th Region baseball championship.
Spartans senior reliever Lucas Saatman delivered a called strike three against Lexington Catholic pinch hitter Trip Winton with the bases loaded to cap an 8-5 victory in 10 innings of a tumultuous tournament finals for No. 5 Sayre against the two-time defending region champs at Kentucky Proud Park on Wednesday.
“That’s an instant classic,” said Sayre coach Kevin Clary, who, coincidentally, took the Knights to a region and state title in 2009 and has spent the last 11 seasons building the Spartans into a consistent winner. “Both teams played their guts out, and it was just a great competitive game. We were very fortunate to come out on top.”
Sayre senior center fielder Charlie Slabaugh figured prominently in the Spartans’ two biggest scoring plays of the night — first tying the game in the sixth inning and then putting his team ahead in the 10th.
Trailing 5-3 in the sixth with one out and Jaxon Herrera aboard via a fielder’s choice, Slabaugh laced a hard ground ball down the first base line that careened around the right field corner and forced LexCath’s Charlie Vittitow to chase after it for a moment.
Despite clipping the Knights’ first baseman in his path to second base and taking a head-over-heels tumble, Slabaugh barely lost stride and rounded second as Herrera scored. An errant relay throw to third allowed Slabaugh to continue on with the tying run Little-League-homer style.
The Columbia baseball commit ran directly into a raucous swarm of teammates at the fence line where Sayre’s student section celebrated Slabaugh’s incredible effort and the Spartans’ unbelievable change of fortune.
“I don’t know if I remember it too well,” the tournament most valuable player said, shrugging with a smile. “It’s a little blurry. But that was huge.”
The Knights threatened in the ninth
Lexington Catholic had perhaps its best chance to win the game in the bottom of the ninth inning after a one-out single by Kentucky commit Owen Jenkins and a walk to pinch hitter Eli Gann. A pair of steals put them at second and third base.
But Herrera, Sayre’s shortstop, was able to hold Jenkins at third as he fielded a sharp grounder by Brady Wasik and got the put-out at first for the second out.
Though Sayre reliever Camden Stout then walked Baird Woodall to load the bases, he struck out John Crandall to end the inning.
“It was crazy. I was just trying to trust my stuff and know that I’m good enough to get this guy out and that’s what I did,” said Stout, a junior who got the win for 5⅓ innings’ work behind Sayre starter Jaxson Howard.
Sayre makes its next shot count
Sayre carried the momentum from Stout’s strikeout into the 10th inning.
Leadoff man Lachlan Heinrich got hit by a pitch and moved up as LexCath failed to force him at second on Saatman’s attempted sacrifice bunt. Both reached safely. Herrera followed with a hit to load the bases for Slabaugh with none out.
The left-hander slapped a hit through the left side of Lexington Catholic’s drawn-in infield to score Heinrich with the go-ahead run.
“I was going in there aggressive,” Slabaugh said. “And with the infield in, a lot of ground-ball holes are wider, right? So, just slap it the other way and hope something good happens.”
A sacrifice fly by Gary Gibson and the Knights’ second error of the game let two more runs in for the 8-5 edge leading into Lexington Catholic’s final at-bat.
But the No. 11 Knights did not go down quietly.
Vittitow drew a one-out walk, and a single by Jack White put runners at first and third.
But moments later, Vittitow got tagged out on an attempted steal of home as Sayre catcher Robbie Jenkins quickly recovered a wild pitch and scrambled back to the plate.
A walk to Bennie Lawrence and an intentional walk to Jenkins loaded the bases for LexCath as Sayre’s Stout gave way to Saatman on the mound.
Winton, the Lexington Catholic pinch hitter, pulled both of Saatman’s first two pitches deep into foul territory down the right-field line before the Spartans’ closer caught him looking for the final out.
“It was a wild game. But that’s baseball,” LexCath coach Scott Downs said. “They had their chances and took advantage of it, and we had our chances and didn’t.”
‘Momentum wins these types of games’
Both Lexington Catholic starter Jack Reeves and Sayre’s Howard had their nights end early as their teams exchanged the lead over the first three innings. LexCath led 2-1 after the first and gave a 3-2 edge back to the Spartans briefly in the third before retaking it in the bottom half, 4-3. Woodall’s second RBI of the game put LexCath up 5-3 in the fifth inning.
Slaubaugh led the Spartans with three hits, two runs scored and two RBI. Herrera scored three times and Brody Beall knocked in a pair of runs for Sayre.
“Momentum wins these types of games,” Slabaugh said. “We just had the momentum plays in the key moments … and the ball rolled our way today.”
Sayre and Lexington Catholic each reached Wednesday’s championship via heart-stopping semifinals victories over Madison Central and Frederick Douglass on Tuesday, respectively.
Sayre’s 6-5 win over the Indians ended with a perfect relay throw from Gibson to Reed Beatty to Robbie Jenkins that cut down Madison Central’s potential tying run on a bang-bang play at the plate. Lexington Catholic walked off their 3-2 win over Douglass on a two-out RBI single by their nine-hole hitter, Jack White.
Looking back and looking ahead
Lexington Catholic (22-8) struggled with injuries early in the season and was just 8-7 on April 23 before reeling off 14 straight wins.
“We grew a lot from early on,” Downs said. “Our seniors took charge. Our freshmen stepped up. From where we were at spring break and not having an identity of what kind of team we were going to be to where we are now — I’m just proud of these kids.”
Sayre (30-6-1) will make the school’s first appearance in the KHSAA State Baseball Tournament next Thursday when it faces No. 8 Taylor County, the 5th Region champion, back at Kentucky Proud Park. The game time has not been set.
The Spartans have had tremendous success under Clary in recent years, winning four of the last five 42nd District titles and the All “A” Classic small-school state championship in 2023. But during that run, Sayre had not made it past the region semifinals until now.
“This is my 11th year there, and we’ve always set our goals high and their expectations high,” Clary said. “And we felt like we had a group that could do it if they bought in, put the team first.
“And they did it.”
Baseball State Tournament
At Kentucky Proud Park in Lexington
Game times TBA
Thursday, June 5 first round
Trinity (Louisville) (34-3) vs. Meade County (22-10)
Taylor County (28-6) vs. Sayre (30-6-1)
Boyle County (28-8) vs. 16th Region champion
Harrison County (32-5) vs. Wolfe County (23-11)
Friday, June 6 first round
McCracken County (29-8) vs. Lyon County (21-7)
South Warren (30-8) vs. Highlands (27-7-1)
Johnson Central (29-7) vs. Spencer County (27-8)
Pleasure Ridge Park (26-6) vs. Corbin (20-17)
Saturday, June 7 quarterfinals
Trinity-Meade County winner vs. Taylor County-Sayre winner
Boyle County-16th Region winner vs. Harrison County-Wolfe County winner
McCracken County-Lyon County winner vs. South Warren-Highlands winner
Johnson Central-Spencer County winner vs. Pleasure Ridge Park-Corbin winner
Friday, June 13
Semifinals
Saturday, June 14
Championship game
This story was originally published May 29, 2025 at 11:04 AM.
