Campbell County baseball team wins regional title with pitching
· Yahoo Sports
After winning their first regional championship in four years, the Campbell County High School baseball team made sure to include their bus driver, Yvonne, in a team picture with her holding the trophy.
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Yvonne has driven them to every road game for several years. In the past two weeks, she has taken them about three miles each way to Bishop Brossart’s athletic complex for five tournament games.
That has become a second home for the Camels, who will now get the ride of a lifetime as they make a long trip to Lexington this coming weekend.
Campbell County defeated Montgomery County 2-0 in the Kentucky High School Athletic Association 10th Region final May 31. The Camels (25-13) won their first title since 2022 and fifth in the last 10 seasons. The Indians finished 30-8.
Campbell will play LaRue County in the first round of the state tournament June 5 at Lexington Legends Field. Campbell’s 10 seniors will lead the group playing at state for the first time.
“Best feeling ever. The best, by far,” said senior Lucas Anthrop. “Going to state is insane. It's going to be so fun. I've been friends with these kids since we've all been super little, so all making it this far in a sport and having this much fun, it's a great feeling.”
Junior Gavin Kramer has an older brother, Brady, who has played at state.
“Just a dream come true,” he said. “I grew up watching my brothers play. And (Brady) got to play, I think twice, two years in a row. So it's just going to be great.”
The Camels didn’t allow a run in three games in the regional tournament, or in two games in last week’s 37th District tournament, also at Brossart’s complex. Montgomery County had only been shut out once previously, against Henry Clay at the Lexington Legends minor-league ballpark in downtown Lexington. They had averaged over nine runs per game.
They avenged a 5-2 loss to Montgomery in last year’s regional semis. The Camels led 2-0 early, like they did in this game. Campbell County scored twice in the first inning and made it enough. Not without a lot of drama.
“I was so nervous because last year we had two runs on them for a while,” Kramer said. “We were up 2-0 and they came back won, and we just put them away this time.”
The mound hero in this game was senior Lucas Anthrop. He threw six shutout innings. He allowed only two hits, but walked six and hit a batter.
He stranded eight runners on base. He left a runner at third in the first inning. He left two runners on in the second. In the third inning, the first two Montgomery batters got on but he retired the next three.
In the fifth inning, the Indians had runners on first and second with two outs, and catcher Cam Tiemeier threw out a runner stealing third to end the inning. In the sixth, Anthrop allowed a leadoff single but retired the next three.
Anthrop struck out seven and threw 118 pitches. He improved to 5-1 in his eighth start, lowering his ERA to 2.86, and is second on the team in strikeouts with 57 in 40 innings. Anthrop threw a shutout in the first round of the postseason, a 15-0 win over Calvary Christian that was ended by the mercy rule after three innings.
“I had a bunch of full counts, a bunch of people on base, but just my teammates chirping from the field and helping me out a lot,” he said. “They helped a lot, for sure. It's awesome. I wouldn't want to do it for a better team. Everyone's awesome.”
Anthrop was the third-leading scorer on the basketball team which lost in the regional semifinals this year.
“Lucas has been a very clutch player,” said head coach Scott Schweitzer. “Lucas has answered the call, and in the regional tournament in basketball, he lit it up. He’s had career days in basketball. So that tells me the kid’s got it in his veins, and he showed it today.”
Sophomore Dennis “Trip” Mercurio came on in the seventh for the save. With one out, he allowed singles to the top two hitters in the order. He induced a grounder to second baseman Finley Schultz, who made a tough snare the ball and throw to first as runners moved to second and third.
The last batter, Brody Roland, hit a deep fly ball to right field that senior Jeb Kessinger snared for the final out.
Mercurio threw a two-hit shutout against Bracken County in the regional quarterfinals, only needing 69 pitches. He matched the zeroes from senior Tyler Schumacher, who threw shutouts in both the district finals and regional semifinals.
The Camels improved a lot on defense during the season. The team had four one-run losses on the road early in the year that Kramer said shaky defense had a lot to do with. He said Schweitzer made defense a priority after that.
“The pitchers just totally dominated the entire region in my book, and we played good defense and threw strikes,” Schweitzer said. “There were some small strike zones. It’s postseason baseball, things get tight and our guys answered the call, and that's huge. So, looking forward to next week and making a good run again.”
Campbell scored both of its runs in the first off Montgomery County junior ace Evan Copher. He had thrown two innings in the regional semifinal win over Scott, but had less than 25 pitches, allowing him to take the mound in the final.
Maybe because of that, he wasn’t in top form to start, giving up three hits in the first inning. Jackson Bittner led off with a single. Copher struck out the next two batters. But Gavin Kramer, facing a 1-2 count, doubled down the line in right field to drive in Bittner.
The next batter, Tiemeier, singled to left. Kramer admittedly ran through Schweitzer’s stop sign and headed home. The throw beat him but the catcher couldn’t field the ball cleanly, and it was 2-0.
Copher walked the next two batters but retired Kessinger with the bases loaded to end the inning. Copher didn’t allow a hit the rest of the way, walking one batter with another reaching on an error.
He had pitched against the Camels in last year’s regional semifinals.
“Evan's good,” Schweitzer said. “As a sophomore, he took it to us in the semis, and these guys haven't forgotten that. So I'm super proud of all of them.”
And he’s proud that Yvonne will get to drive them to Lexington.
“We couldn’t ask for a better bus driver,” Anthrop said. “She always has a lot of fun, lets us have a lot of fun, and she's been there for multiple years, so it's really nice to go celebrate with her too.”
Schweitzer loves his team’s camaraderie.
”They're such good friends. They hang out together, they spend time together. They're constantly having fun with each other, picking on each other. You watch them run to our bus driver, and Yvonne's driven us the last seven or eight years. They run to her because they have so many memories there, and they have so much fun. They’re always there for each other. The way that I heard them talk all day today, just picking each other up, ‘You've got this.’ It’s a really cool experience to watch these guys experience success.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: KHSAA 10th Region baseball championship game