Lady Titans Get Mauled By Lady Lions

Arpan Dixit
Herald Staff
sports@harrodsburgherald.com

After coming off an exciting 46th district championship, with Lyric Houston hitting a walk-off home run to win the championship last Friday, the Lady Titans fell to the Garrard County Lady Lions (25-9) during the first round of the 12th region tournament. Held at Boyle County High School on Monday, May 29, the finals score was 20-1 in five innings.

Freshman Kynleigh Miller took the loss for the Lady Titans, pitching two innings, surrendering 15 runs on 15 hits, three walks and one strikeout. Head coach Rob Tharp talked about how frustrating it was not being able to muster up any sort of offense throughout the night.

“I was disappointed in our hitting, but we have to a give a lot of credit to Garrard County,” said Tharp. “They hit everything we threw at them so it was very disappointing to end our season the way we did.”

“I felt like we laid down and didn’t play to our full potential today,” said Tharp. Freshman Lindsay Shope came in to relieve Miller, but was unsuccessful as Garrard County continued the onslaught no matter who was in the circle.

Miller led the Lady Titans with two hits, one of them being a double. Junior McKenzie Reister had the lone RBI on the day for the Titans, doubling home Miller in the fourth inning.

“I’m not going to make any excuses,” said Tharp. “We just didn’t hit our spots pitching, and when we missed, they made us pay for it. Again, credit to Garrard County, they hit the ball as well as you could hit it over a course of a ball game.”

These group of seniors, five of them in all, have set milestones and have certainly built a foundation for the young players the Lady Titans have on their roster. Houston, Kelsey Shope, Kennedy Bryant, Morgan Reed and  were the seniors that ended a district drought this season. The seniors beat district and state powerhouse, East Jessamine, for the first time in four years and captured the 46th district title in walk-off fashion. The Lady Titans ended the season with a record of 21-12, going 10-5 in region play and 8-0 in district play.

This was the first time the Lady Titans ended the season undefeated in district play in over a decade and Tharp knows this season is a building block for the future.

“It was a nice moment for us to win the district championship the way we did,” said Tharp. “To win the district tournament and sweep our district opponents was very good for us going forward, because I do have a young group. We are losing four really outstanding senior starters that are key to this team, but we got a good foundation coming back so hopefully we can build from that.”

For full story, pick up a copy of this week’s Harrodsburg Herald.