By Dan Weber
NKyTribune reporter
They were top-ranked and unbeaten in Ninth Region baseball.
Two of their losses had come against powers Louisville Trinity (3-0) and Cincinnati Moeller (4-1).
They were even a bit “arrogant,” their coach Joseph Aylor said of his Ryle Raiders Thursday as they opened the Doc Morris Invitational at two-time defending region champ Beechwood.
They were coming out of “the toughest district in Northern Kentucky, the deepest district in Northern Kentucky,” Aylor said of the challenge of playing in Boone County’s 33rd.
But there was one problem. They weren’t in Boone County. They were in Fort Mitchell.
And while Aylor’s first priority, he says, is getting it right in district competition for postseason seeding purposes, Beechwood has no such limitation. As Coach Kevin Gray says of his two-time defending regional champs, they keep tabs on everybody.
The Tigers not only want to beat you in the early season, they want to set the table for later on when they catch you in the regional. Especially against a Ryle team ranked No. 1 in the region.
Not sure if it was Shakespeare’s King Lear who said it, or some wise guy on The Wire, but here was the setup for this one, and we’ll paraphrase: “If you want to be the king, you’d better take the king down when you get your shot.”
Don’t miss.
Ryle missed, giving up eight runs in the first inning to a Beechwood team that will be most recently remembered for scoring eight runs in the last inning in a come-from-behind win in the All “A” Classic regional finals against St. Henry.
“I think we’re capable of that,” said Cameron Boyd, the defending home run champ in the state of Kentucky from a season ago on a day when he hit his fourth home run in the last four games. Capable of averaging 9.7 runs a game.
“When we’re like that, we’re scary good,” Boyd said.
“But it was 6-6 after the first inning,” Aylor said with a grin. Do the math and that’s a 14-6 Beechwood romp in what had been billed as the top matchup of the season thus far between the No. 1 and No. 3 teams in Northern Kentucky.
“We weren’t throwing strikes and then we were forced to throw a ball over the middle of the plate to Cameron Boyd, one of the best hitters in the state of Kentucky,” Aylor said, with predictable results. Last seen, that ball was transiting from the sun to the shade of the Beechwood gym over the 350-foot mark and Boyd had his three-run home run and Beechwood had an 11-0 lead after three innings.
“It’s a tough place to play,” Aylor said of the one-of-a-kind field that fits in between the school and the football field, “a unique place to play.” And a “great high school baseball field,” even if Aylor kidded that “Kevin set it up this way,” with the short left and left-center field up against the school building.
And then there was this for Ryle. Unbeaten in the region, “the target’s on us,” Aylor said of his 10-4 Raiders. “Kentucky teams are coming after us.” He wasn’t wrong.
“We were ready for this,” Gray said of his Beechwood team that improved to 9-3 with just one loss in the region. “We keep up with them.”
“That’s a tough game for them,” Gray said since Ryle couldn’t throw either of its top two starters.
“And we never play well in the first game of the Doc Morris Invitational,” Aylor said of their district focus.
“That’s a tough team to play,” Gray said, “I told our guys ‘You beat a really good team.’”
And they did so with a good early three innings from starter Chase Flaherty, in only his second start after returning from an injury in the state championship football game.
The game could not have started in more opposite directions with Beechwood batting 11 in the first inning while Ryle sent up the minimum nine through the first three innings.
“We lost a top 90-plus (MPH) arm in the state (in injured Mitchell Berger) and the top catcher in the state (in Brice Estep),” Boyd said, and yet, here they are.
And here is Boyd, one of the state’s best all-around shooters coming off basketball season and just now getting his spring game up to speed.
“I’ve kinda’ settled myself in,” he said, carrying over his basketball shooting skills to baseball.
“My focus is on the ball,” Boyd said, “watching it all the way in,” and out, as he did on this day.
And while Gray will take the nearly 10 runs a game his offense is producing, “We did strike out nine times today,” he said. But the defense did turn three double plays in the first five innings.
And Torin O’Shea once again was the stopper the Tigers needed the final 2 2/3 innings after Ryle’s six-run outburst.
For Ryle, leadoff man Tate Cordrey had three singles while Caleb Mann’s home run in the sixth produced three runs.
For Beechwood, Boyd had three hits with four RBI, Michael Detzel two hits with a double, and Shawn Sowder had two hits and two RBI.
BOX SCORE
RYLE 0 0 0 4 2 0 0 – 6 7 1
BEECHWOOD 8 0 3 3 0 0 X – 14 12 1