By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Kyle Niederman put his football coaching career on hold six years ago when he took a job in school administration, but he’ll be back on the sidelines next season.
Niederman was named the new head football coach at Lloyd on Tuesday. He’s just finishing his first year as the high school’s vice principal and he was an administrator in the Newport school system for five years before that.
Kyle Niederman
“You never close the book on anything,” he said of his return to coaching. “Certainly, when I first took the administration route at Newport, I was not thinking about being a head coach at that time. But this opportunity came up … and the timing worked out perfectly. The truth of the matter is I greatly missed the opportunity to positively influence young men’s lives, and it all came together.”
Niederman played football for Boone County High School and Thomas More College. He was an assistant coach at Boone County, Bellevue and Ryle before he went into school administration at Newport in 2013. He will replace Eric Turner, who compiled a 44-27 record as Lloyd’s head coach over the last six seasons. Turner resigned to become head coach at Scott.
“I’m following a guy I know very well and I know left the program in great condition,” Niederman said. “That being said, it’s so much easier to follow along with that and do a lot of things they were doing that were successful. We’ve got a nice run of talent right now. They may be a hair young in the big picture of things for next year, but we’ve got some great kids and nice players.”
Niederman said he already met with the Lloyd players to begin making plans for pre-season practice this summer. He’s also putting together a new coaching staff since some of last year’s assistants decided not to return.
“I know how time consuming it is and how demanding it can be, but that’s minimal compared to the rewards and positives that can come from the situation,” he said of his first few days as a head coach.
Lloyd had a 6-6 record in Class 2A state playoff games over the last six years. The Juggernauts made it to the regional finals in the 2015 playoffs. Next year, they’ll be in a district with Holy Cross, Newport and Beechwood, a long-time Class 1A state power that was moved up to Class 2A in statewide redistricting.
“We’re going to do everything we can to compete with them and we’ll see what happens,” Niederman said.
CovCath baseball team continues string of 20-win seasons
On the second-last day of the regular season, Covington Catholic’s baseball team picked up its 20th win to carry on a winning tradition that began when most of the players’ parents were children.
CovCath defeated Simon Kenton, 5-1, in a home game on Thursday to advance its record to 20-15. The Colonels have now won 20 or more games for 33 consecutive seasons under coach Bill Krumpelbeck, who jumped to third on the state’s list of winningest coaches with a career record of 1,020-439 in 43 years with the program.
After getting off to a 9-10 start this season, CovCath has won 11 of its last 16 games. One of those wins came in a record-setting 29-16 slugfest against Brossart on May 9. That was the most runs scored by a CovCath team in one game, according to statistics posted on the khsaa.org website.
The Colonels, who have a 6-5 record in games decided by one run this season, will wrap up the regular season with a home game against Ryle at 5 p.m. Friday and then play Holy Cross in a 35th District tournament game at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Meinken Field in Covington.
If CovCath wins Saturday’s game, the team will advance to the 9th Region tournament for the 15th consecutive season. The Colonels lost to Highlands, 3-2, in the regional championship game last year.
Notre Dame reclaims team title in 9th Region girls tennis
Notre Dame’s streak of 23 consecutive 9th Region team championships in girls tennis was broken last year, but the Pandas reclaimed the title this week even though none of them made it to the regional finals.
Notre Dame scored 11 points in the first three rounds to clinch the top spot in the team standings. Ryle is in second place with nine points, but the Raiders can only add one more point in the regional finals set for 4 p.m. Friday at Lloyd High School.
The singles finalists are the same as last year with defending champion Ellie Zureick of Cooper facing Sara Watanabe of Covington Latin. Both of them won their first three matches in straight sets. The defending doubles champions are Ryle seniors Elizabeth Hamilton and Hailemae Laurino, who have not lost a single game in their first three matches. They’ll face Grace Eberhard and Aly Ellerman of Conner in Friday’s finals.
The 9th Region boys tennis tournament has quarterfinal matches scheduled on Friday at Covington Catholic. Singles will begin at 3:30 p.m. with doubles at 4:45 p.m.
In the 8th Region girls tennis tournament, Simon Kenton doubles partners Kelli Capps and Cassie Saner earned a state tournament berth by making it to the semifinals.
