By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Of all the KHSAA sports, baseball is the most perplexing for Northern Kentucky. Hard to explain, really.
Maybe the toughest of all the team sports to reconcile with what should be or could be with what is.
For the 60th time in 61 seasons, Northern Kentucky finished without a state champion in 2024. Covington Holmes won it in 1963 on the strong arm of lefthander Gary Sargent’s three state tournament wins. And then in the next six decades, only Covington Catholic managed to win it all — in 2002.
And that was it.
But it wasn’t for lack of tradition. Like football, with Highlands on top from the get-go, baseball had Newport and then Newport Catholic winning from Day 1, combining for six state titles from 1940, when KHSAA baseball began, through 1956.
In football, of course, Highlands’ 23 state titles were only enhanced by the 29 combined from CovCath, NewCath and Beechwood through the years. But football continued on with its winning ways, even though neither state finalist won last fall. But baseball did not.
We’re not exactly sure why. As the lone area in the state adjacent to major league baseball – and the first professional franchise ever in the Cincinnati Reds – Northern Kentucky always seemed like it was baseball country, as it should have been. And a strong Knothole Baseball program, with Cincinnati as Knothole Baseball’s home, would have seemed to guarantee that.
But it hasn’t. Knothole Baseball isn’t the same across-the-board program it used to be. Not sure why. But check out any field this summer and see how many kids are playing.
One issue that worked against high school programs here through the years was the lack of quality facilities compared to downstate programs. So many fields were required to be multi-use for softball, youth and adult programs as well as baseball that seldom did you see grass infields or fenced-in outfields.
Not so anymore. The high school facilities here are terrific. Meinken Field in Covington and Ludlow’s Lemker Field at St. Elizabeth Ball Park are just two of many these days, Simon Kenton, Beechwood and CovCath’s come to mind.
But something is missing when it comes to teams here going downstate with some success. After a 14-4 state tournament record in the 1940s and an 11-6 record in the 1950s, Northern Kentucky teams won just seven games in the 1960s (losing nine), three games in the 1970s, then none in the 1980s and 1990s (with only one team making the semifinals, CovCath in 1985). That’s no downstate wins in 20 years.
And then in the 21st Century, things started to improve with a 4-4 record from 2000-2009 and jumped up big-time thanks to redistricting that allows three Northern Kentucky teams to make it downstate with Simon Kenton always having a chance in the Eighth Region (along with Walton-Verona) and Campbell County (and Bishop Brossart) in the 10th.
Lexington gets to send just one team. Louisville sends two but Northern Kentucky potentially could get three and the numbers paid off with a 21-15 mark for Northern Kentucky’s multiple programs going downstate, including five straight championship game finalists from 2014 through 2018. That’s where the multiple opportunities paid off with Simon Kenton getting there twice, Highlands twice and Campbell County once representing all three regions here.
No state titles but Northern Kentucky was getting closer. Although this decade, with a 3-7 record and no one surviving the quarterfinals, Northern Kentucky seems to be dropping back a bit.
Beechwood’s four-season dominance, as much as that reflects well on Kevin Gray‘s overachieving Ft. Mitchell school’s ability to compete with – and beat – the larger schools up here, it doesn’t help so much going downstate when you’re talking about winning it all in an unclassified setting where you’re running up against the likes of large Louisville schools St. Xavier and Trinity and McCracken County.
Now one-loss baseball tournaments don’t completely measure the totality of programs. Ryle Coach Joe Aylor, whose Raiders went 1-1 last week downstate, says it’s the spread-out nature of talent here where you see it much more concentrated in the top programs and other regions.
And a case can be made for what Aylor says: that there are plenty of good teams and talent here, it’s just not all in one program. As for individual talent, it would be hard to argue against the thought that the state’s top two overall prospects – certainly the top two underclassmen – are CovCath junior shortstop Jackson Reardon and Ryle sophomore outfielder AJ Curry.
But from watching the last several years of state tourney play, some observations: Northern Kentucky teams don’t seem to have that ace pitcher that they see downstate. And they don’t seem to handle off-speed pitching all that well. Although who does in high school, it’s just that you see it more downstate.
As proof of that, Pleasure Ridge Park won the KHSAA baseball title Saturday over McCracken County thanks to a junk-balling pitcher for a team that has just one player going to college for baseball (and that’s Asbury). But that lack of college-bound didn’t limit PRP from winning its seventh state baseball championship all-time.
And all Northern Kentucky baseball people can do is look at that and wonder how they can get in on the downstate act.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.