11th Region softball: Lexington Catholic and Madison Central to meet in championship game

Every day is a new day for Caitlyn Kelley and Lexington Catholic softball.

Following a tough, sixth-inning strikeout in the Knights’ tight win against Frederick Douglass in Monday’s 11th Region quarterfinals, Kelley and head coach Emery Emmert discussed a better approach should she find herself down in the count in a clutch moment again. That opportunity, it turns out, would present itself in the top of the sixth inning during Tuesday’s 4-2 semifinals victory against reigning region champion Great Crossing.

“(Monday) she took an outside strike for strike three,” Emmert said. “And I said, ‘In that situation, that’s exactly the pitch that you want to go opposite field with.’”

The Knights (26-2) had tied the game 1-1 in the top of the fourth on a Lydia Kennedy RBI that brought Aevea Mosley-Franklin home but hadn’t managed to break through and string together any additional runs. In the top of the sixth, however, LexCath’s offense had found its stride, the Knights having settled in. Kelley stepped up to the plate with two outs in the inning and the bases loaded — Kennedy on first, and UK commits Ava Emmert on second and Abby Hammond on third.

“Just keep grinding,” Emmert said of his message to the team. “We were putting a lot of balls in play. We had better at bats as the game went on. And it felt like if we kept doing that, we were gonna have our moment.”

Ball one.

“I was really nervous. I was very anxious,” Kelley said. “But right before I stepped in the box, I just took a deep breath and kind of collected myself and then got in there and was confident. And that’s really what helped me, was the confidence.”

Ball two.

“She’d made very good contact in her first couple of at-bats,” Hammond said. “And I was very confident that she was going to put a ball in play, hard.”

Ball three.

“My team had my back and I was just ready to hop on it,” Kelley said.

Strike one.

“I had it in my mind that if I got a little down on the count, if a ball came oppo I’d hit it where it was pitched,” Kelley said. “And so I had that plan and I had that in my mindset and right as it was coming, I knew I was gonna hit it and make contact.”

Kelley smacked a line-drive double to right field, sending both Hammond and Emmert home and gifting the Knights the lead they’d been chasing.

“It definitely got us more hype,” Kelley said. “I feel like after that, we knew that we just had to stay up and keep the momentum going and that’s really what we did. It was amazing. So exciting.”

The semifinal was a rematch of the 2023 11th Region championship game, during which the Warhawks defeated Lexington Catholic 3-2 in eight innings and punched their ticket to the state tournament. Emmert and the coaching staff chose not to rehash last season’s disappointing end with the players, but Hammond said that “collectively, it was just a known thing throughout.”

“That was definitely some motivation,” Hammond said. “But I think just coming out and playing as hard as we can every single day is one of the things we take pride in.”

Hammond, who was intentionally walked in each of her four at-bats against the Warhawks, recorded nine strikeouts and allowed two runs on three hits. Great Crossing head coach Heath Sutton gave props to Hammond for her adjustments made throughout the game, and said the Warhawks (25-9) had to make their own adjustments.

“I know I was getting booed when I was walking her,” Sutton said. “But that doesn’t come from a place of dislike, that comes from a place of respect. I respect her as a player. She’s already a threat in the circle and I didn’t want to double down and have her as a threat at the plate.”

The Warhawks scored first on an Alivia Matusik RBI single to center field that sent Ryann Livingston home. It was precisely the start Sutton wanted to see from his team. Great Crossing played the entire game with grit and confidence, led by junior Brenna Parker in the circle. Parker struck out 10 batters and allowed four runs on seven hits. When Lexington Catholic took the lead in the sixth, and added another run in the seventh courtesy of an Emmert RBI, Sutton didn’t have to say anything to his team — “(Parker’s) a true team player. The dugout gets down, she gets ‘em up.”

Heads held high, the Warhawks answered the call. “They come in, knew they still had a shot,” Sutton said.

Great Crossing’s Kendall Meade opened the bottom of the seventh with a double, and, after a Hammond strikeout, pinch runner Brooklyn Walls reached third on a ground single from Parker. With Warhawks on first and third, LexCath took a moment to huddle around the circle.

“Coach Em came out to us and he said, ‘We’ve talked about living in the now, we’re living in the now,’” Hammond said. “Because one of the things we focus on is leaving whatever mistakes or whatever things have happened in the past behind us. Because nothing really matters except for what’s happening in that moment.”

Kennedy Wagoner sent Walls home with a groundout RBI, cutting into the Knights’ lead. But the Lexington Catholic defense clamped down and earned the final out.

“You got up there and you saw the way they were attacking you, then learn from it,” Emmert said. “Play for the now. Playing for the future, and it worked out. They showed a lot of courage.”

A powerful fifth inning

Madison Central had a great showing from its defense during Tuesday’s 6-1 semifinals win against Lafayette on the Generals’ home field. The team just needed a moment to shake “a little jitters with them,” Madison Central head coach Randy Hall said, after Lafayette’s Kavery Myrick answered Madison Central right fielder Lina Guerra’s second-inning home run with a solo homer of her own in the bottom of the third.

The Indians (24-5) proceeded to score four runs in the top of the fifth, completely swinging the momentum in their favor with RBIs from Reille Parks, Olivia Metcalfe, Brooklyn Guilbault and pitcher Cassidy Gentry.

“I liked how they hung in there,” Hall said. “You know, you got the one run early, but once they scored and tied it up, we didn’t hang our heads or anything like that. And we came back and finally put up some runs on the board to help our pitcher.”

Gentry, who struck out two batters and allowed just one run — Myrick’s homer — on three hits in the win, said the players shifted their mindset when stepping to the plate, and that made all the difference.

“I think we just realized that we had to wait on the ball,” Gentry said. “And we couldn’t get out ahead and we just had to make hard contact instead of being in front of it.”

Lyla Hould started the game in the circle for the Generals (20-16) and allowed three runs on five hits, including the first run batted in by Parks, before she was relieved by Rylan Music in the middle of the fifth inning. Music allowed two runs on three hits before she was relieved by Abigail Winkler, who allowed one run on two hits for the remainder of the game.

“After they’d seen the same pitcher there, they were starting to get adjusted a little bit and I think that’s why (Lafayette) made the change,” Hall said. “And I think that speed kind of matched our eye a little bit better. So once we started being able to put a little pressure and get some key hits it at the opportune time, then we started scoring a few rounds.”

The Indians scored their sixth and final run in the top of the seventh with an RBI by Guerra.

At 6 p.m. Wednesday at Lafayette, Madison Central will make its first 11th Region championship appearance since 2012, and it will have the chance to knock off Lexington Catholic, which defeated the Indians in the first round of the tournament in both 2022 and 2023.