OK, they haven’t played the state tournaments or finished the state tournaments in baseball, softball or tennis or the state track meets, all of which finish up this week in Lexington. And next you get football starting workouts in the summer before all the fall sports get under way in late August.
And yet here we are, maybe because this is Kentucky, talking basketball. But sometimes the things that matter about a sport happen in the offseason. As they may have for Ninth Region boys’ basketball where the reasonable take would that the defending champion Newport Wildcats, with four starters back, should be the going-away favorites for next season.
Which is where that Lee Corso line – “Not so fast, my friend” – has never worked better. We say that because perennial favorite Covington Catholic, despite the loss of all-state guard Evan Ipsaro, may have improved more than anybody with three transfers.
Cadem Miller, CovCath transfer
First of all, there’s 6-foot-9, 205-pound Caden Miller, an All-State Arkansas player from Bentonville High, a school of 3,143 students that finished third in Arkansas’ Class 6A, who will take his senior talents to Park Hills, Son of former Bengal Caleb Mller, who played at the University of Arkansas and is now the executive director of the Jeff Ruby Foundation, has an impressive skill set having averaged a double-double the last two seasons.
Miller has a 36-inch vertical leap and looks equally at home on the perimeter as he is down on the blocks. He has offers from Missouri, Mississippi State, Oregon State and DePaul and the reputation as a shot-blocker.
But he’s not alone. Two players who had a ton of varsity experience at Beechwood as freshmen – Cash Harney and Logan Wermuth — are also headed to CovCath. Two-sport guy Harney stepped in as starting quarterback the first five games last fall with Clay Hayden’s injury including a tough one at CovCath, where he completed 50 of 76 passes with two interceptions and seven touchdowns. He’ll compete with junior Evan Pitzer for the starter’s role in football and will give the Colonels a point guard to play along with returning starter Athens McGillis, also a sophomore-to-be. In 15 games, Harney averaged 15.0 points a game and 2.8 rebounds while Wermuth played in 31 games with a 4.3 scoring average along with 2.3 rebounds.
• SPEAKING OF IPSARO: By the way, we caught up with Evan at a CovCath tournament baseball game and asked him why the two-time all-stater wasn’t playing in the Kentucky-Indiana All-Star Games in June. “I’m on vacation,” he said with a big grin. The All-Star series finishes up June 10 in Indianapolis and Evan reports in at Miami of Ohio June 11 so there’s that.
• STRONG SEASONS, TOUGH FINISHES, FOR NKU BASEBALL, SOFTBALL: Record-setting seasons for the two NKU spring sports with the men winning a Division I record for NKU 30 games (against 27 losses) while the women ended up in the NCAA tournament for the first time, although mismatched against powerful D-1 programs.
NKU’s Noah Fisher
One big accomplishment for the NKU men was that senior shortstop Noah Fisher was named Horizon League Player of the Year in a well-earned honor for the power-hitting shortstop from Michigan. Maybe that will move him up on the MLB scouts’ draft prospect list. He certainly deserves to. If only he could have pitched as NKU lost 11 of 15 games in May, including two of three in the Horizon tourney while allowing an average of 9.5 runs a game down the stretch.
Fisher, ranked among the top 25 college shortstops, finished the regular season as No. 11 in the nation in walks per game as teams pitched around him, 17th in total walks, 15th in on-base percentage, 32nd in RBI, 36th in slugging percentage while leading the Horizon in slugging percentage (.732), runs scored (64), home runs (18), RBI (66), hit by pitch (12) and walks (52).
Fisher was joined on the All-Horizon first team by second-baseman John Odom, out of Beechwood HS, outfielder Colton Kucera and pitcher Clay Brock. First baseman Liam McFadden-Ackman was named to the second team along with outfielder Treyvin Moss and pitcher Kaden Echeman. Manny Voorhees was an at-large selection.
• NKU SOFTBALL, picked to finish sixth in the Horizon, rallied for a 13-9 league mark good for third and earned NKU’s Kathryn Gleason Co-Coach-of-the-Year honors even before the Norse’s first-ever league championship with a tournament win sent them their first-ever D-1 NCAA Softball Tournament bid.
For the year, NKU finished 23-32 with a first-ever Power Five win (over Michigan State) and concluded the season with two losses in the NCAA Tournament at Knoxvlle – 12-0 to No. 4 overall seed Tennessee and 9-1 to Louisville.
NKU catcher Maddie Lacer earned Horizon Defensive Player of the Year honors, while Ella LeMonier and Lauryn Hicks joined her as first-team All-Horizon selections. Named All-Freshman Team were Jena Rhoads and Brielle DiMemmo.
• NORTHERN KENTUCKY TRACKSTERS HAVE THE NUMBERS: Some big numbers from Northern Kentucky high schools for this week’s state championships at UK’s track in Lexington. Here they are.
Bishop Brossart track takes a Class A top 43 qualifiers to state this week.
In Class A, which goes off on Thursday, Bishop Brossart’s 43 qualifiers is equaled only by Bethlehem’s 43. St. Henry and Newport Central Catholic are tied for third with 35 each, one behind Lexington Christian’s 36. Other Northern Kentucky Class A numbers: Beechwood will have 30, Walton-Verona 27, Villa Madonna 22, Holy Cross 21, Newport 17, Bellevue 12, Dayton nine and Ludlow two among the 1,153 athletes.
In Class AA on Friday, Highlands’ 44 qualifiers ties Calloway County for No. 1 in AA. Scott will send 37, Holmes 22 among the 1,172 Class AA athletes.
In Class AAA on Saturday, Ryle’s 43 qualifiers are No. 2 between Louisville schools Eastern (44) and Manual (42). Campbell County’s 37 are No. 4. Other Northern Kentucky qualifiers are Notre Dame Academy and Dixie Heights with 35 each although NDA’s are just for the girls’ competition. Simon Kenton (25), Cooper (23), Conner (20), Boone County (11) and CovCath (nine, all boys) finish out the numbers for the 1,311 Class AAA tracksters.
• JUST WONDERING: Maybe because Beechwood was the Ninth Region Baseball Tournament host, this shouldn’t be a big deal. But really, how did the Tigers’ Cameron Boyd not make the All-Regional Tourney team? Sure, he didn’t have much luck on many of his shots to the outfield but he did hit the only home run out of Thomas More Stadium all week — in the championship game, hit one of six triples, had two RBI, a base on balls, a hit-by-pitch, scored two runs and flawlessly handled all 10 balls hit his way in right field. We know that to assure all 15 selectees are present for the awards, they apparently have to be notified early so maybe the championship game homer didn’t count for that much. But still, the state’s leading home run hitter (12), leader in hits (63), No. 4 in RBI (50), No. 6 in runs (53) and No. 14 in batting average (.516) should have had a place on the 15-man team. Although Cameron could have cared less about an individual honor afterward, just thrilled that his Beechwood team won for the fourth straight time — especially for the guys in 2020 who didn’t get a chance because of Covid canceling the season, he added.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com and follow him on twitter at @dweber3440.
