The Owensboro Catholic baseball team is hoping to ride their hot streak into the weekend, as they are trying to win their first All “A” Classic state tournament since 2008. The Aces (15-6) currently sport a nine-game win streak that will be put on the line Saturday when they play Kentucky Country Day (12-2) in the quarterfinals of the small-school tournament.
The string of wins began when Catholic returned from a spring break tournament in Florida, and head coach Derek Hibbs said it’s been a full team effort since then.
“We’ve got three or four players, especially at the top of the lineup and the top of the rotation, that have been really competitive since we’ve gotten back from Florida,” Hibbs said. “But up and down the lineup, we’ve got guys that are stepping up.”
The Aces rolled through Edmonson County, Trinity and McLean County in the 3rd Region All “A” tournament before blanking Monroe County 9-0 in the sectional game earlier this week. Most recently, they used late-inning dramatics to earn a walk-off win over Owensboro.
Hibbs said the key has been staying fundamentally sound and mentally tough.
“Errors are going to happen, you just play too many games,” he said. “We’ve minimized those. We’ve done a good job of not letting anything really hurt is in certain games to where it takes us to a loss.”
The Aces have won the All “A” title three times (2005, 2007, 2008), but have only made the quarterfinals once since their last championship. Catholic will play host to the entire tournament this weekend, with all games at Independence Bank Field at Chautauqua Park. Four quarterfinal games will be played Saturday, with the semifinals and championship on Sunday.
Hibbs expects plenty of talent from every team that is making the trip.
“I think all eight teams that come here are going to be high-quality opponents,” he said. “Even though they’re smaller schools, several of them should end up at the big state tournament.”
Kentucky Country Day has only lost two games and has outscored opponents 140-54, though six of their dominant wins did come against teams that are a combined 16-46 this season.
Hibbs said with baseball, though, records don’t mean much. It all comes down to what happens on the field.
“We’re going to have to play well to win,” he said. “We’ve proven earlier in the season, we’ve played bad and lost to opponents that aren’t as good as teams we’ve beaten. We’re capable of losing to anybody or beating anybody based off of our performance.”
