Henry Clay baseball turning campus exile into an advantage at Legends Field
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- Henry Clay will spend three seasons away from its campus playing at Legends Field.
- The Blue Devils improved to 10-5 overall after an 11-1 mercy-rule win over Douglass.
- Senior right-hander J.T. Ritchie threw a complete game for his third win of the season.
Henry Clay has made itself right at home at Legends Field, Lexington’s minor league ballpark, where the Blue Devils will spend three seasons away from their Fortune Drive campus as their new school takes shape.
Henry Clay’s 11-1 mercy-rule win in six innings over No. 13 Frederick Douglass there Wednesday completed a regular season sweep of its 42nd District rivals and improved the Blue Devils’ record to 10-5 overall with five of those wins on the Legends’ turf diamond. Henry Clay won 6-4 at The Farm on Tuesday.
Starting district play 2-0 is huge, Henry Clay coach Jordan Tarrence said.
“We’re one of the toughest districts in the state, year in and year out, and where you end up in the seeding makes a huge difference,” Tarrence said. “There are no easy wins in this district. So people are going to look at the score and think it might have been an easy win, but it wasn’t. That’s a good team. … We did a good job of not chasing pitches out of the zone, and they made a couple mistakes. And when they made mistakes, we made them pay for it.”
Senior right-hander J.T. Ritchie went the distance for his third win of the season in his first stint on the mound at Legends Field.
“Pitching at a minor league stadium is pretty cool,” Ritchie said. “You know, it’s a big park, so pound the zone and just let your fielders work, because it bounces true.”
Ritchie got staked to a 2-0 lead in the first inning as Douglass starter Chase Harris struggled to find the strike zone. Both Blue Devils runs scored without a hit.
A nervy second inning for Ritchie gave half the advantage back on Aaron Duerson’s RBI single, but Ritchie stranded two Broncos with a strikeout of the next batter.
Henry Clay pulled away from there. Alex Elmadolar, Blake Miniard and Luke Jackson went single, RBI double, RBI single, consecutively, with two outs for a 4-1 lead in the fourth.
Then, Henry Morgan’s inside-the-park home run to center field highlighted a stunning six-run fifth inning. With a run already in on a wild pitch after a walk, a hit batsman and another walk, Miniard’s chopper to short resulted in a dropped ball as he was tagged at first. Another two runs scored.
A walk to Jackson set up Morgan’s liner to short center that skipped under the Douglass center fielder’s dive. The ball rolled all the way to the wall, giving Morgan plenty of time to wind his way home.
“On a normal high school field, you dive and miss that and the ball rolls maybe 30 feet,” Tarrence said. “Here, you dive and miss it, and the ball rolls 70 feet.”
Thus, another advantage for Henry Clay playing on turf, a surface that Miniard, the Blue Devils’ leading hitter with a .400 average and 15 RBI, said he prefers.
“It’s been a blessing. The field plays great. The Legends have been great to us and everything like that,” Miniard said. “With travel ball, we’ve always kind of mainly played on turf. So, it’s actually been kind of nice.
“Yesterday at Douglass was the first dirt field that I’ve played on the whole season. That was more weird than what it has been on turf.”
Juggling a busy schedule at the ballpark
There are some logistical issues for Henry Clay at Legends Field. The Blue Devils share the facility both with the professional Atlantic League team and Transylvania University, which has called it home since 2020. Coincidentally, Henry Clay’s softball team is playing its home games at Transy.
On Wednesday, the Legends played a 10:30 a.m. exhibition that was followed by Transy’s practice and then Henry Clay’s 7 p.m. game.
Legends general manager Justin Ferrarella said all parties have handled the situation well.
“It’s been really good. Henry Clay, in general, has been awesome,” he said. “And it’s why the ballpark was built, right? I tell everybody, it was built 26 years ago for all Fayette County baseball players to play at least one game in four years here, right? To see it come true for Henry Clay has been really awesome.”
Hosting Henry Clay is just part of the Legends’ mission to re-establish the ballpark as a vital part of the local baseball community. The Legends have opened the door to making it a regular home of the 11th Region baseball tournament once more and have requested to be part of the KHSAA state tournament schedule, as well.
The Blue Devils have some storage space at the park, but Tarrence said he and his coaches keep a lot of equipment themselves because they sometimes practice on their football field or other facilities.
“Originally, two years ago, when they said this (the loss of their home field) was going to happen, I thought we were going to be playing 36 away games,” Tarrence said. “And so considering what could have been, this is the best possible outcome.”
Milestones: Tarrence’s 300th win and a no-hitter
Tarrence took some ribbing in the offseason after the Blue Devils’ exit in last year’s 42nd District semifinals left him stuck at 299 career wins.
His team made up for it with an 11-5 victory over Tates Creek at Legends Field in the March 18 season opener. The Legends’ giant video board carried a tribute to Tarrence with messages from former players, his old high school coach and even former Kentucky coach Keith Madison.
“I was proud of the guys for taking care of it in Game One,” Tarrence said. “And the ceremony they did, I was really shocked. I appreciate what they did for me.”
Two weeks later, sophomore pitcher Brayden Brand threw a no-hitter in an 8-0 win at home against Montgomery County. Brand was only supposed to throw for four innings that night as a tune-up for starting Henry Clay’s first spring break game.
“He threw four, and we looked up, and he’d only thrown 36 pitches or something crazy like that,” Tarrence said. “So we let him keep going. ... After the sixth inning, I was like, ‘You know what? We can find somebody else to pitch the first game in Florida.’”
Ready to contend the rest of the way
Henry Clay (10-5, 2-0) entered the season ranked No. 25 in the PrepBaseballReport.com Power Rankings, but slipped out of the poll after back-to-back road losses last month.
The sweep of No. 13 Douglass (10-6, 1-3) should dissuade anyone from thinking Henry Clay can’t hang in a district that also has No. 8 Sayre, a tough Scott County team and an improving squad at Bryan Station.
“I think it definitely makes a statement for the district and stuff like that,” Miniard said. “It lets people know where we’re at, and that we’re here to compete.”
Being 2-0 in the district is important, Tarrence said, but he likes how his team is playing, regardless of the wins and losses.
“We’re prepared. We haven’t played a single bad team yet. We’ve played a lot of close games. We’ve been in tough situations,” he said. “I think the fact that we’ve played so many good teams and competitive games is going to help us way more than our record.”
