No. 6 Lexington Catholic baseball shaping into a contender again
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Lexington Catholic holds an 18-5 overall record and sits 5-0 in district play.
- The Knights are ranked No. 6 and are riding a 10-game win streak.
- Catcher Brady Wasik, the Knights' top offensive player, is a Centre football commit.
With two and a half weeks left in high school baseball’s regular season, Lexington Catholic coach Scott Downs believes this edition of the Knights is developing into his kind of team.
Maybe there are no big-time college prospects (yet) like he’s had over the past few seasons when Lexington Catholic claimed the 2023 and 2024 11th Region titles on the way to state quarterfinals appearances.
The Knights’ best offensive player this season, senior catcher Brady Wasik, is a Centre College football commit.
But the Knights rank as the No. 6 team in the state, according to the latest PrepBaseballReport.com Power Rankings and are riding a 10-game win streak since losing two in a row in Florida on spring break.
Ranked No. 9 for most of the year, the Knights jumped three spots after beating No. 21 Bullitt East 12-6 last week in Mount Washington.
“There’s not a lead (that’s) safe, there’s not an at-bat that they want to give away and there’s not one guy on the mound that wants me to take the ball from him,” Downs said. “So when you get that combination of guys that want to be here, want to be on the mound, want to be at bat, want to be in the field, they’re fun to watch.”
Lexington Catholic’s 3-2 win at 43rd District rival Lexington Christian on Tuesday, the first of the schools’ two-game set, improved the Knights’ record to 18-5 overall and 5-0 in the district, all but clinching the top seed in next month’s district tournament.
All three of the Knights’ runs came with two outs in the top of the first inning against LCA ace Joseph Seigler.
Back-to-back triples to right-center by sophomore John Crandall and Wasik were followed by a walk to Jake Scott and a perfectly executed double steal to bring Wasik’s courtesy runner home. An error brought in Scott to cap the rally.
“It was awesome seeing all that happen. We’ve got some of the best bats, I think, in the whole state,” said junior lefthander Eamon Hughes, who pitched 42/3 innings for the win, allowing two runs on five hits with seven strikeouts. “When you’ve got three runs when you go out there, it’s a huge confidence boost.”
Seigler settled down from there and kept the Eagles (12-10, 3-2) in the game.
“We started out hot, but got a little sloppy with the bats,” Wasik said. “Pitching kept us in the game for sure. Defense kept us in the game for sure. It’s an all-around good team win.”
LCA rallied in the bottom of the fifth inning as a single and an error put two runners on with no one out. Hughes nearly escaped the jam, but Conrad Hart and Seigler each notched two-out RBI singles to cut LexCath’s lead to 3-2.
Reliever Nate Daukas then came on and walked Jamey Patterson to load the bases.
LCA’s Nathan Groves worked himself into a full count, but his sharp grounder to shortstop was fielded cleanly by LexCath sophomore Baird Woodall, whose throw won the race to first base by a step. The next inning, Woodall tagged out LCA’s Daven Hood trying to steal second on a perfect one-hop pickoff throw from Wasik.
“Baird’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous what he can do in the field and at the plate,” Hughes said. “And Nate Daukas is awesome. He can come into clutch situations and shove. We had a good day.”
Downs laughed when asked about that tight situation in the fifth. “It adds a little bit of gray hair,” he said.
But the situation showed how mentally tough Daukas and the rest of the team are this season.
“Last year, (Daukas) does that, and he doesn’t get out of that situation,” Downs said. “But he’s grown and learned, so now he knows I’m confident to put him out there in any situation, and he’s proven that he’s worthy to be out there in those situations.”
Lexington Catholic still has two games against Paul Laurence Dunbar (12-11, 2-5) next week to settle its district seeding.
And the Knights are scheduled to face four ranked teams before the season is out, three on the road — at No. 14 Boyd County on Saturday, at No. 24 Douglass on May 8, and at Scott County on May 11 — and No. 1 Trinity at home on May 12 as the final tuneup before the postseason. LexCath has already beaten Boyd. Scott County defeated the Knights 5-1 on March 27.
Downs doesn’t take any stock in high school baseball rankings, and he tries not to pay attention if his players mention them. It’s what happens on the field that matters.
“If we’re playing defense, we’re pitching and we’re hitting, we can compete with anybody in the state,” he said. “And I can believe that as much as I want. But they have to believe it, and I think they’re starting to believe it because they’re getting some confidence.”
