Henry Clay rallies for 42nd District baseball crown; Lexington Catholic repeats in 43rd

The four times Henry Clay has hosted the 42nd District baseball tournament, the Blue Devils have won it.

That might be enough to prompt their district rivals to man the bulldozers themselves when the southernmost corner of Henry Clay’s campus gets razed to make room for the new school in 2025.

For now, though, Henry Clay gets to celebrate a come-from-behind 8-4 victory Tuesday over Scott County in the district finals.

“It’s the last time we get to host the district tournament here on this field and we win it —that’s pretty cool,” said Henry Clay coach Jordan Tarrence, who has been in charge of those four district titles and two more since he took over the program in 2010.

Walden Cole, Isaiah Stephan, Mason Draper, Ian Rone and Isaac Rone all had RBI in a five-run fourth inning that turned a 4-1 deficit into a 6-4 lead over the Cardinals.

“The biggest thing was: Find a way to get a big hit and don’t swing at bad pitches,” Tarrence said. “And we executed.”

Cole delivered the “big hit” in the fourth with an RBI double after Alex Elmadolar’s leadoff walk. Giancarlo Gonzalez’s single was followed by RBI bunt plays by Stephan and Draper — which sandwiched around Luke Bailey getting hit by a pitch. Ian Rone and Isaac Rone followed with RBI singles to push Henry Clay to the 6-4 lead.

The rally followed an error-filled couple of innings that helped Scott County go up 4-0 after three frames.

Isaac Rone admitted he and his teammates might have been a little too keyed up after eliminating three-time defending district champion Sayre 4-1 on Monday night.

“We were too hyped after last night, but we settled in and handled our business,” Isaac Rone said.

A walk and an error led to Scott County’s run in the second inning. Luke Valencia scored on Austin Wands’ sacrifice bunt. Scott County’s three runs in the third were set up by a pair of errors, a walk and a lone Cardinals hit. Paul Garner scored after his steal of third produced a Henry Clay error on the play. Colt Fields stole home for another run moments later. James Wilson scored on a passed ball.

“We told them, ‘We’ve played as bad as we can possibly play, and that’s over with,’” Tarrence said. “We played pretty clean the rest of the way. They didn’t score again.”

An RBI single by Stephan and a sacrifice bunt by Luke Bailey in the fifth inning gave Henry Clay its final margin. Elmadolar and Cole scored on those respective plays.

None of Scott County’s runs were charged to Gonzalez, Henry Clay’s starter. Rogers Kobes pitched two innings of scoreless relief to get the win. Jayden Parsons pitched the sixth. Turner Sparks pitched the seventh.

“I’ll put our pitching staff up against anybody’s because we’re not relying on one or two people,” Tarrence said. “We’ve got a whole bunch of guys who can get the job done.”

Both Henry Clay (24-13) and Scott County (20-16) advance to next week’s 11th Region Tournament. As a district champion, Henry Clay will get to host its first-round game. The semis and finals will be played at Bryan Station. The draw for the winners and runners-up in the 41st-44th districts is scheduled Friday.

Henry Clay began the season by losing six of its first nine games. No worries now.

“We started off slow, but we got hot and we’re just playing our baseball now,” Isaac Rone said. “It’s so fun.”

Lexington Catholic repeats in the 43rd District

The bottom half of Lexington Catholic’s batting order proved instrumental as the No. 15 Knights (23-11) rallied to defeat Tates Creek 6-2 to claim their second straight 43rd District championship.

Back-to-back doubles by Burkley Bounds and Brady Wasik in the fourth inning helped LexCath tie the game. Bounds scored on Wasik’s shot to center. Wasik then scored on a sacrifice bunt by Bennie Lawrence to make it 2-2. Bounds, Brady Wasik and Lawrence bat sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively.

“The bottom of the order jump-started us,” LexCath coach Scott Downs said. “Any time we had a runner at third and less than two outs, we did our job.”

In the fourth, a Max Daugherty single and an error that put Owen Jenkins on base helped give LexCath a 4-2 lead. Both scored on wild pitches later in the inning.

Brady Wasik tripled with one out in the sixth and scored on Lawrence’s single. Lawrence scored the final run on a passed ball three batters later.

“I asked people in the dugout, ‘Why is he so much better than me?” joked LexCath senior second baseman Jackson Wasik about his sophomore younger brother. “It’s insane. I’m very proud of him.”

Pierre Kauffmann pitched a complete game for the win. He allowed two runs on five hits, striking out six and walking two.

Tates Creek (15-16) got an RBI single in the second inning by Thomas Seigler and an RBI double in the third inning by DJ Carter.

Both LexCath and Tates Creek advance to next week’s 11th Region Tournament.

Scott County ousted No. 10 Douglass

Despite blowing a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning with two outs on Monday, Scott County was able to eliminate Frederick Douglass, the 11th Region’s highest-ranked team, with a 4-3 win in eight innings.

Luke Valencia made the No. 10 Broncos pay for a leadoff walk to Tyler Robinson by hitting a two-out RBI double to put the Cardinals back in front in the top of the eighth inning.

“It was huge. I felt good off the bat and I was like ‘please go, please go,’ but I’m fine with a double. We scored the run,” Valencia said.

Moments earlier, Douglass’s Kentucky commit Leighton Harris smashed a two-run home run on a 1-2 count with two outs to tie the game 3-3 in the bottom of the seventh, nullifying 6 ⅔ of exceptional pitching by Scott County’s Jack Willhite.

Robinson came on in relief in the seventh and struck out two after a leadoff walk in the eighth for the win.

Knights survived scare from LCA

Lexington Catholic’s path to the 43rd District championship nearly took a disastrous turn in its semifinal game against Lexington Christian on Monday.

The 8-19 Eagles benefited from five LexCath errors over innings two and three to help them take a stunning 4-0 lead on the 15th-ranked Knights. Sam Pearson had a pair of RBI. Jaxon Herrera scored twice and Tyler King and Tony Dutton crossed home as well.

The Knights chipped away at the margin with a run each in the third, fourth and fifth innings before their brand of small ball produced a four-run sixth that put the game away.

Bennie Lawrence, Jackson Wasik and Max Daugherty each reached safely and knocked in runs with consecutive bunts that pushed LexCath in front 6-4 in an eventual 7-4 win.

Jackson Wasik’s bunt hugged the third-base line so perfectly he was able to advance to second as LCA tried to wait for it to go foul.

“We knew the bunt was going to work and those are the safest bets to get the runs in,’ Jackson Wasik said. “We did what we had to do and we won the game.”

They won their softball district 17 years in a row. Now, there’s a changing of the guard.