By Matthew Dietz
NKyTribune sports reporter
Kaylee Hitt remembers watching the Vanderbilt University women’s bowling team take home the 2018 national championship and immediately realizing what her goal was for the next step in her life.
“That’s when I decided that’s where I want to go,” Hitt said about the Commodores winning their second title in five trips to the NCAA bowling finals.
In May, Hitt’s dream of attending the prestigious university in Nashville, Tenn., became a reality. The recent Campbell County High School graduate will be one of three freshmen joining the Vanderbilt women’s bowling team for the 2021-22 season.
“In the fall, I actually reached out to Vanderbilt and told them I was interested, and that’s where we started the process,” Hitt said.
She knew that was the place that she wanted to be, even as she talked to numerous other NCAA Division I schools, including Duquesne, Louisiana Tech and Tulane.
Hint enjoyed a successful high school bowling career at Campbell County. As a freshman, she qualified for the state tournament in singles and brought home the state runner-up trophy.
She won Region 5 girls singles championships in 2019 and 2020 and was region runner-up this year. At her final state tournament in March, she posted the third highest score in the singles qualifying rounds to make the stepladder finals and ended up placing third.
Over the last four years, Campbell County’s team won one state championship and three Region 5 titles with Hitt in the lineup. After finishing as the state runner-up in 2019, the Camels became the first Northern Kentucky girls team to win all four games in the 16-team state tournament bracket in 2020.
“It always felt better to win as a team than it did individually,” Hitt said. “You have your part and it all just has to come together, and when we won our state championship in 2020, that was probably one of the biggest moments of my career.”
Hitt comes from a bowling family that remains very active in the sport. In addition to being head coach of the Campbell County girl’s bowling team, her father, Josh, owns a bowling equipment shop that was started by his father, who passed away in 2019.
“I had the privilege that my family owns a pro shop, so I had a lot more resources, and I knew a lot more people in the industry that I got to learn from,” she said.
Aside from her high school team, Hitt also competed in several national tournaments, including the annual Junior Gold Championships, that gave her the opportunity to travel around the country and challenge some of the best young bowlers.
“I think my first national tournament was in 2016 and since then I have competed against some of the best girls in the nation, actually,” Hitt said. “I believe four of our girls on our (Vanderbilt) team are national champions, as far as Junior Gold, which is our bowling national tournament singles-wise.”
Hitt is an outstanding student, accumulating a weighted 5.2 GPA in high school courses at Campbell County. He was named Kentucky’s student-athlete of year in girls bowling following her senior season.
At Vanderbilt, she plans to pursue a joint-major in economics and history. Her ultimate goal is to become an attorney. She knows that Vanderbilt puts academics first and is planning on having a tutor when she arrives on campus for the fall semester.
“Considering how prestigious Vanderbilt is, I know it is going to be hard, but a lot of the girls on the team have been very welcoming and are giving me some tips,” Hitt said.