Villa Madonna’s “Improbable 11”

BY MARC HARDIN | LINK nky CONTRIBUTOR

McLagan, a third baseman, was joined on the preseason roster by shortstop Emma Adams, center fielder Chloe Cotton, first baseman Catherine Gibbs, pitcher Cam Kratzer and catcher Rosemary Rice. That’s it.

At the time, there were almost as many Villa Madonna coaches as players. Including Fields, a 36-year coaching veteran in three sports at six high schools, there were five softball coaches.

“My four assistants poured everything they had into this team,” said Fields, formerly the softball coach at Cooper High School. “Those four did yeoman’s work.”

As the calendar flipped from February to March, Fields, his daughter Peyton, Peyton’s former

Cooper teammate Hayley Van Dusen, Jen Meyers and Mike Greer had a lot to give and hardly anybody to give it to. Having the smallest coach-to-player ratio in program history wasn’t exactly what Fields had in mind when he took the job.

Something had to be done, and it had to be done fast. The season was slated to begin March 27.

“We started looking for players. We got a few. We eventually got five,” said McLagan, the lone upperclassman on a team that wound up with no juniors, four sophomores, four freshmen, one eighth-grader and a seventh-grader.

The coach was obviously pleased the roster nearly doubled in size for the opener.

“We wound up getting five really good girls,” Fields said. “None of them had played softball before. One of them had never even seen a softball game. The numbers changed the way I coached. We couldn’t go all out in things like sliding drills in practice because I didn’t want anybody to get hurt in a fluke accident and lose a girl. When we had three straight days of practice or games, we gave them a day off.”

Rounding out the “Improbable 11” were Olley Gray, Hallee Greer, Elena Martinez, Grace Reynolds and Madyson Ross. The coaches taught Greer how to play second base. Gray, Reynolds and Ross rotated around Cotton in the outfield. Martinez picked up the game after receiving a crash course.

“Olley Gray is very young,” said McLagan, who is heading to Mercer University with academic scholarships. “I thought one of the best things we had was the big sister-little sister idea. Olley was my little sister on the team, and I wanted to help her so much.”

Villa Madonna took on Dayton in the season-opening 9th Region All “A” Classic Tournament with the semblance of a team. Then the season threw Fields a curveball. Villa Madonna beat Dayton, 9-5. In game three, Villa Madonna beat Newport, 32-11.

That’s not a misprint.

“We had a rag-tag team with a bunch of girls who were very inexperienced, and we scored in double figures (14 times),” Fields said of his holdovers and quick-learning newcomers. “We were fourth in the state in hitting with a .434 batting average.”

That’s also not a misprint.

“What we did was amazing,” McLagan said. “We became really close, and we became successful. I never dreamed we’d make the regional tournament again.”

Fields and his dreamers led the team to a 13-12 record, 7-3 against 34th District competition. The Vikings got better as the season moved along, winning six of their final eight regular-season games. They put together a district tournament win over Lloyd High School and earned a berth in the 9th Region tournament for the third straight season before getting eliminated in the first round by eventual champion Highlands High School for the second year in a row.

Six Vikings hit .438 or better on the season. Kratzer ranked 23rd in the state with a .575 batting average and went 9-8 in the circle with a 3.65 ERA. Adams ranked 40th statewide at .543. Rice hit .521. McLagan hit .482. Reynolds hit .438 her first year playing the game. The Vikings led the state with 11.4 runs per contest. They ranked eighth with 161 stolen bases, led by Adams’ 28.

“Hitting is all about having confidence. I really believe a lot of it is mental,” Fields said. “Part of that is having fun, no matter what. I’m a rah-rah guy. And this was as enjoyable a year as I’ve had in all my years of coaching.”

Beechwood, Highlands claim regional baseball, softball titles

Familiar teams are headed back to Lexington.

For the fourth straight season, Beechwood High School won the 9th Region baseball title, while Highlands High School won a second consecutive 9th Region softball title.

The Tigers’ path was not an easy one. They knocked off Ryle High School 6-4 to open the tournament, with Ben Meier recording a double, triple and three runs scored while Matthew Kappes and Chase Flaherty combined forces on the mound to earn the victory.

They followed up the victory over Ryle with an improbable, come-from-behind victory over Dixie Heights, 4-2. Trailing 2-0 and down to their last at-bat, the Tigers exploded for four runs. They were down to their last strike when Landon Johnson smacked a two-run double to give them a 3-2 lead.

In the championship game, they held off Highlands High School, 6-5. Building a 6-1 lead through 3.5 innings of play, Highlands started to mount its comeback, getting within a run in the final inning when Torrin O’Shea came in to close the door in relief.

Beechwood opened the state tournament with Apollo High School on June 1.

The Bluebirds used some extra softball to get the title back. After disposing of Villa Madonna 18-0 in the quarterfinals, they needed extra innings to defeat Cooper and Dixie Heights high schools.

Trailing 1-0 in the eighth inning against Cooper, Carley Cramer hit a sacrifice fly RBI to knot the game up at 1-1. Then in the 10th inning, Michelle Barth delivered the game-winning single, scoring Peyton Brown, who led the inning off with a double.

Barth wasn’t done with her heroics just yet. On the next day, her two-run double in the eighth inning helped Highlands prevail over Dixie Heights for the second straight year in the championship game, 4-2.

Highlands opened its state tournament with Johnson Central High School on June 1.

Ponchak resigns as Highlands boys soccer coach

After one season leading the Highlands High School boys soccer team, Brandon Ponchak has resigned to go back to the college ranks.

Ponchak accepted a position with the Jacksonville State University women’s soccer team to be an assistant. The Gamecocks have a new head coach in Sean Fraser after finishing 3-13-2 overall and 1-7-2 in conference play last year.

Prior to his stint at Highlands, Ponchak was an assistant with the Northern Kentucky University men’s program.

Ponchak wants people to know the family is not leaving Northern Kentucky. Dixie Heights High School promoted his wife, Kellie, to head coach of the girls soccer team.

Highlands finished 14-5-3 in Ponchak’s lone season leading the team. The Bluebirds won their seventh straight 36th District Tournament championship, beating rival Newport Central Catholic for the 14th time in a row. Highlands then knocked off Beechwood in the 9th Region quarterfinals before losing in the semifinals to eventual region champion and state semifinalist Ryle High School.

Highlands graduated 16 seniors from last year’s squad. The Bluebirds do return the likes of senior goalkeeper Jack Wilson along with senior midfielders Chad Gesenhues and Jack Haggard.

The Bluebirds last won the region in 2019. They’ve finished state runner-up to Louisville’s St. Xavier High School twice, in 2008 and 2018.

Johnson named boys basketball coach at Holy Cross High School

Former Holmes High School basketball standout Ricardo Johnson has been named the next boys basketball coach at Holy Cross High School.

Johnson, a member of the 2009 state champion Bulldog basketball team, is back in the 35th District.

Johnson replaces Casey Sorrell, who resigned after two seasons to focus on health issues with his newborn daughter.

This will be Johnson’s first varsity head coaching job, having six years of coaching experience at the college level as a graduate assistant at Xavier University under Chris Mack, director of basketball operations at the University of Tennessee-Martin and volunteer assistant at Panola Junior College in Carthage, Texas.

He becomes the 17th coach in Holy Cross history. He takes on a team that graduates a talented six-senior class, including one of the most decorated in 9th Region history in Jacob Meyer, the region’s all-time leading scorer. The Indians went 21-8 this past season, which included a run to the All “A” state championship, finishing runner-up.

Pretty much everywhere Johnson has been, his teams have been successful. In Holmes’ 2009 title run, Johnson was named Sweet 16 MVP and went on to play at Ohio University, where he was a part of the winningest class in Bobcat history.

Johnson worked in logistics at Whitehorse Freight and coached at the AAU level recently. No matter where life has taken him, basketball has been a key part of it, whether playing, coaching or running around to watch his five nephews play the game.

Johnson plans to hit the ground running with the team, as June is a busy month for high school programs leading into the mandatory two-week dead period that begins on June 25.