Not this time, Beechwood’s Sowder tells Louisville St. X in final swing walkoff win for Northern Kentucky

By Dan Weber NKyTribune sports reporter They tell you never to write the lede – that’s what we call it and how we spell it in the news business – until the game, especially if it’s baseball, is over. Yogi Berra had his own version of this that will live on forever.

But sometimes you can’t help it. Like Wednesday night in Ft. Mitchell when Louisville St. Xavier, winner of eight state championships – more than any other team and as many as all Northern Kentucky teams have won all time – had come from behind in the top of the last inning on Beechwood to take a 6-5 lead. “Louisville St. X does it to another Northern Kentucky team,” I was mentally turning over in my head with two outs, one on and senior Shawn Sowder up for one last shot. But Beechwood had hit only one serious shot into the outfield night in the entire game. So a St. X program that became the first non-Northern Kentucky team to win a state title after Blue Foster’s Newport team won the first two in 1940 and 1941, a St. X program that beat three Northern Kentucky teams in that span from 2014-2018 when five Northern Kentucky teams made the finals and all lost, was getting the last laugh again. In a game where both teams would go deep into their rotations which is always dangerous for the smaller school that has fewer arms to choose from, sophomore Branton Stiles battled in just his second start into the sixth inning to keep Beechwood in it.

And then Sowder, hitting from the left side, launched one into the shadows past the outfield lights. Would it reach the fence? Maybe even go over? Or “would it bounce over for a ground rule double,” Beechwood Coach Kevin Gray was worrying from his third-base coaching spot and hold lead runner Keegan Hutton at third. “And we’d need another hit,” Gray said. They would not. The ball just kept carrying into the shadows. “I was just hoping not to make the last out,” said Sowder, who had only one home run this season. “I’m not the guy with the most power. I just wanted to hit it hard into a gap.” And then, halfway between first and second, he realized it had gone out. And Beechwood had won, 7-6. And he could walk home from there. Which he did. “I kind of soaked the moment in,” Sowder said with a grin. “I do know that once it starts getting into night here, the wind from the outfield just dies down.” Nothing going to blow the ball back.

With everybody celebrating, Sowder was asked the best thing anyone said to him. That was easy. “Coach Gray said he was proud of me.” “I am proud of him,” Gray said, “he’s been through the wars with us the last four years.” “Sorry about ruining your story,” said Louisville St. X head coach Andy Porta, who led the Tigers to those last three state titles. “But not sorry about scheduling, or even losing to, Beechwood. “I’ll play anybody any time,” Porta said of a schedule that has 17 opponents from 100 miles or more outside Louisville – like Cleveland St. Ignatius and Lakewood (Ohio) St. Edwards, or Chicago Brother Rice and Knoxville Farragut. The better they are, the better for his young team of six sophomores and a freshman after losing two of his top players to injuries. Porta figures. “I’m not going to schedule anybody we can run-rule.” After these two teams played a crazy 14-inning 1-0 game last year in Louisville, won by a best-in-the-region Beechwood team populated by graduated stars no longer here, they look to make this an annual deal. “They treated us great and we’d love to have them come back every other year,” Porta said.

And even if he stays .500 with a young team with a 14-14 record against this schedule, Porta says playing teams like Beechwood “only makes us better when tournament time comes. We’ll be a good team by then.” Which only echoes Sowder and Gray. “This gives us a lot of momentum going into the big Northern Kentucky schools (in the tournament),” Sowder said after his team from a school of 250 boys beat a St. X with 1,076 boys. “They make us better,” Gray says of the series. “They’re one of the best programs ever in Kentucky. They make us ready to play the CovCath’s and Ryle’s. They also made them 16-8. And in a season not maybe up to the standards of all the regional champs that came before them, put some pep in Beechwood’s step. SCORING SUMMARY ST. XAVIER 1 1 0 1 0 1 2 — 6 6 2 BEECHWOOD 0 0 0 0 5 0 2 — 7 6 0 WP: Hutton 1-1 LP: Ford 0-2 LEADING HITTERS: St. Xavier: Johnson 2-2; Sinkhorn 2-2, double, RBI; Clevenger double: Beechwood: Welch 2-3; Sowder, HR, 2 RBI.  Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter (formerly X) @dweber3440.