HIGH SCHOOL-KENTUCKY

Weather has slowed Ryle's rhythm

Richard Skinner
rskinner@nky.com
Softball.

It didn't take first-year Ryle softball coach Craig Milburn to figure out he had an ace pitcher, but he was hoping to use the first few weeks to figure out the rest of the team before it heads into a tough portion of its schedule, only Mother Nature didn't cooperate much.

Ryle is off to a 4-1 start to the season thanks in large part to standout pitching from senior Ali Crupper, but it last played a game on April 1 and won't play again until this weekend when it plays in the Jaguar Classic at East Jessamine High School.

The Lady Raiders were supposed to play a home game on Thursday against Turpin, but Turpin had to cancel because one of its conference games that was postponed earlier in the season had to be rescheduled for that day.

Milburn came to Ryle after serving the last 34 years in various roles at Zephyhills (Fla.) High School, including athletic director, baseball coach and as softball coach from 2005-13 and said he isn't used to these type of weather problems.

"It's been hard to get into a rhythm," Milburn said. "I think we have a chance to be pretty good, because Ali is going to keep us in almost every game, but it's hard for me to judge that, because I've only seen four local teams."

Ryle posted wins over Highlands, Scott, Cooper and Lloyd by a combined score of 32-3 before losing to Loveland.

"Our hitting is what I thought would take off at the beginning of the year and it hasn't quite done that," Milburn said. "We've been really struggling getting the bunt down. We've been bunting bad pitches. If we can just manufacture a few runs, I think we can win a lot of games, but I just haven't seen enough of the competition to know. I put together what I think is a pretty tough schedule and we'll find out where we need to improve against what should be good competition."

Ryle is very young as three sophomores, three freshmen and an eighth-grader start and the team will be without leadoff batter Jayda Collins, a freshman third baseman, for a couple of weeks due to injury.

FREEDOM MAY HOST MORE SOFTBALL GAMES: After the Florence Freedom successfully hosted three varsity high school softball games last Tuesday at its UC Health Care Stadium, Florence Freedom general manager Josh Anderson said the team would be interested in hosting more softball games at the facility.

The Freedom host several regular-season high school baseball games each week, hosted the Ninth Region All 'A' Classic semifinals last night and are hosting the championship game tonight and will host the Kentucky High School Athletic Association Ninth Region Tournament May 26-28.

Anderson said the only issue he heard about was the portable outfield fence used to configure the field properly for softball blew over numerous times because of high winds that day.

"We'd like to come up with a better solution, but the wind was pretty extreme that day," said Anderson. "Everything seemed to go well otherwise and we're always looking for more things to hold in our stadium and that would include more softball games."

CONNER'S SIMS COMMITS: Conner standout junior pitcher Elizabeth Sims committed to Birmingham Southern College last week.

Sims, who was 21-11 with a 2.64 ERA, 208 strikeouts in 201 innings last season, helped Conner finish as Ninth Region runner-up each of the last four seasons.

NINTH REGION ALL 'A' SCHEDULE UPDATE: Because of Monday's rain first-round games in the Ninth Region All 'A' Classic softball tournament were postponed to Tuesday with Tuesday's quarterfinal games being moved to today's open date.

Here is the updated schedule: Today's Upper Bracket Quarterfinal Games (at Newport Vets 1) – Lloyd/Beechwood winner vs. Heritage Academy, 5 p.m.; Ludlow/NewCath winner vs. Dayton, 6:30 p.m. Today's Lower Bracket Quarterfinal Games (at Newport Vets 2) – Holy Cross/Villa Madonna winner vs. Bellevue, 5 p.m.; Newport/Covington Latin winner vs. St. Henry, 6:30 p.m. Thursday's Semifinals (at Northern Kentucky University) – Upper Bracket winners, 5 p.m.; Lower Bracket winners, 6:30 p.m. Friday's Championship (at Northern Kentucky University) – Semifinal winners, 5:30 p.m.

The Eighth Region is holding first-round games on Friday at home sites and then the semifinals and championship are Saturday at Eminence.

The 10th Region is completing quarterfinal games at home sites this week and holding the semifinals and championship games on Saturday at Paris.

NOTEWORTHY: There is no area softball team ranked in the Kentucky Softball Coaches Association Top 25 poll that was released on Tuesday. Notre Dame earned the most votes of any area team, but is tied for 37th among the vote-getting teams. Ryle is tied for 43rd and no other area team is listed. … Both of last year's Ninth Region championship game opponents – Notre Dame and Conner – are 4-0 against Ninth Region teams this season. Notre Dame, which beat Conner in last year's championship game has outscored its four region foes by a combined score of 53-1, while Conner's four wins were by a combined score of 41-4. Notre Dame is 8-1 overall with its lone loss coming to Powell (Tenn.)., Conner is 4-2 with its losses coming to Christian Academy-Louisville and Woodford, both of which earned votes in the KSCA state poll. Conner plays at Notre Dame on May 3. … Bishop Brossart is 8-4 overall, but is 3-0 against 10th Region opponents with the three wins coming by a combined 50-4, while Campbell County is 2-0 against 10th Region teams. … Walton-Verona is 4-3, but each of its three losses was by one run (7-6 to Carroll County, 2-1 to Henry County and 5-4 to Boone County).