Highlands Softball makes major progress

G. Michael Graham Photo. Members of the Highlands softball team watch during Tuesday's game against Newport. Entering today's season finale, Highlands owns a 16-10 record.

By G. MICHAEL GRAHAM

Fort Thomas Matters Sports Reporter

The Highlands Bluebirds softball team has made some great progress this season.

The Bluebirds own a 16-10 record entering Friday’s season finale at Walton-Verona. Game time is 5:30 p.m.

Highlands has not won that man games since winning 18 in 2008. The Bluebirds will also be favored to win their second 36th District championship in three years.

“The turnaround has been all them,” said Rob Coffey, first-year Highlands head coach. “It’s the attitude and aggressiveness. It’s been neat to see them take on a winning attitude rather than just participating. They’re young. But they know they can compete.”

The Bluebirds took a huge step Tuesday in putting away a nice opponent in Newport (11-7). The Bluebirds run-ruled the Lady Wildcats in six innings, 15-5 and Lloyd Memorial in four innings, 16-0 on Thursday.

Highlands has run-ruled several opponents this year. Three of the run-rulings came against district opponents. The Bluebirds finished 5-0 against district opponents with two 4-3 wins over Newport Central Catholic.

“We’ve been struggling with putting the throttle down when we had teams down,” Coffey said. “We’d have a big error or stop hitting to sink our ship. We talked in the middle of the game that we need to take one of these teams and finish them off. Newport is also young like this. We finally put a team away.”

This team has turned things in the right direction without any seniors. The Bluebirds have three juniors in Ashley Grosser, K.C. Broering and Kendall Turner and three sophomores in Emily Johncox, Payton Leighty and Whitney Quillen.

But Grosser said the team chemistry has been great. The Bluebirds have had a number of contributions from freshmen as well. Freshman Shelby Graybill ranks among the state’s hitting leaders.

“We’re really starting to come together as a team,” Grosser said. “If something like an error happens, we know to get each other up because the more fun we have, the better we play.”

The Bluebirds have lit up the scoreboard this year averaging about seven runs a contest. They’ve scored 10 or more runs in seven games this year.

“We were making solid contact in the center of your bat against this good pitcher,” said Brennah Dutcher, Highlands freshman infielder. “It’s not about swinging as hard as you can. If you do that, (the ball will go far) on its own with the speed.”

Coffey lists the Bluebirds as a darkhorse in terms of the 9th Region behind Ryle, Conner and Notre Dame. Highlands is 0-7 against those teams this year. In the loss to Notre Dame on Monday, the game was close until the sixth inning when the Pandas pulled away for an 8-1 win.

“We obviously aren’t going to take anybody lightly,” Coffey said. “We want to win the district. In the region, we have found that we can play with anybody. If the time is right and we polish up our defense and we hit a bit, we can pull off a win with anybody. We believe we can compete in region. We have to go out and prove it.”

Highlands plays at 4:30 p.m. in the district semifinals on Tuesday at Northern Kentucky University. The Bluebirds take on the winner of either Dayton or Bellevue.