Time wasn’t on favored CovCath’s side vs. a young Beechwood team just learning how to win big again

By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter

It was just a matter of time.

After four innings in Tuesday’s 35th District baseball championship game between host Covington Catholic and Beechwood’s four-time defending regional champions but with a much younger crew this season, it was 1-1.

Beechwood’s Tyler Fruman congratulates Chase Flaherty after the first of Flaherty’s two home runs. (Photo by Dan Weber/NKyTribune)

But CovCath had already left nine Colonels on base.

Just a matter of time.

“I kept telling them we’re flirting with disaster,” Beechwood Coach Kevin Gray said of his dugout talk to his Tigers.

Junior second baseman Chase Flaherty had other ideas. He wanted to make time the way CovCath wasn’t going to.

“We had to take advantage of that,” Flaherty said of 30-win CovCath’s inability to get their baserunners home. So Flaherty did. Again. And again.

His deep fly ball in the second inning got some wind under it and carried the fence in right center, just past the 340-foot mark, putting Beechwood on the board. But then when Flaherty got another chance with the bases loaded in the fifth, he crushed one over the 380-foot mark in deep center.

“That looked like 400 feet to me,” Gray said. It also looked like 5-1 and with the Colonels’ inability to score, it looked like this one was close to being over. Only it wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

CovCath’s Joseph Magary with an attempted bunt that goes off the end of the bat. (Photo by Dan Weber/NKyTribune)

Not by nine more Beechwood runs. That’s right. A CovCath team with a 1.64 ERA that had allowed only four of its 35 opponents to score as many as five runs, would give up 14 as Coach Bill Krumpelbeck trotted out six pitchers in all, four in the final two innings.

“The last time we played them, (starter) Eli Wagner had 11 K’s,” Gray said. That’s why in the last two days, he’d gotten his guys ready for a tall lefty with a batting practice pitcher brought in just for that prep work.

But it wasn’t just Beechwood’s hitting, although the Tigers, now 22-13, managed seven hits the final three innings. Those were, in addition to the six walks, and an error, a hit batter and a passed ball as well. That’s how you score 14 runs against a team that had yet to give up six.

But this is hardly the end for CovCath, Gray said of the state’s third-winningest team. Only Pleasure Ridge Park, at 32-3, and Louisville Trinity, at 31-4, have more wins than the now 30-5 Colonels.

Gray should know. Twice in the last four years, his Tigers have lost the district championship to CovCath only to go on to win the regional. No wonder he wouldn’t be surprised to see a rematch next week in the Ninth Region finals.

CovCath Coach Bill Krumpelbeck goes over ground rules with Beechwood Coach Kevin Gray and the umpiring crew. (Photo by Dan Weber/NKyTribune)

As for Flaherty, when asked if this was his first multi-homer game, he smiled and noted that the second-inning homer was his “first home run of the season,” so yes, this was, indeed, his first multi-homer game.

“I was just focused on putting it in play,” he said of the 3-2 fast ball. “I just squared it up.”

“We came into this game just trying to get one run an inning,” said Flaherty, who is 7-0 as a starting pitcher. And then they had four more. And the 14-3 rout was on.

But that wasn’t the approach that got them there. This was.

From his third-base coaching box, Gray kept up a steady stream of a one-word encouragement: “Refuse . . . refuse . . . refuse to strike out,” he called to his hitters, “make ’em make a play.”

In an earlier 5-3 win over Beechwood, CovCath had fouled off 29 pitches. That’s what you do, Gray said. And what Beechwood did.

In a youth movement that Gray hopes is just starting to take off, the Tigers opened with freshman Caleb Arrasmith on the mound for three innings, then brought in sophomore Branton Stiles to hold the line when CovCath threatened in the fourth.

All he wanted to do “was get the job done,” Stiles said, “get balls on the ground.” As he did twice with the bases loaded. “A huge out for us,” Gray said of the first one.

Beechwood’s Sawyer Carlisle beats the ball back to CovCath’s Luke Pieper on this pickoff attempt. (Photo by Dan Weber/NKyTribune)

But it didn’t end there. Stiles would finish the game out with terrific support from junior shortstop Matthew Cottongim and freshman center fielder Tyler Fryman , both all-tournament selections.
Leadoff hitter Fryman would score three times and DH Keegan Hutton , a junior, would drive in four runs with his two hits.

“Today was a total team effort,” Gray said, “our confidence is sky-high right now.”

But don’t count out CovCath, based on this one game. “For them to have a record like that is incredible,” Gray said. Now it’s off to Thomas More Stadium for four games Memorial Day with the region’s district winners facing the losers after Thursday morning’s 10 a.m. draw at Newport Central Catholic.

35TH DISTRICT ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM: Aidan Ross , Covington Latin; Brandon Riley , Holmes; Jimmy Holtz , Holy Cross; Bradley Zekl and Jackson Reardon , Covington Catholic; and Matthew Cottongim and Tyler Fryman , Beechwood. Beechwood’s Chase Flaherty was named MVP.

SCORING SUMMARY
BEECHWOOD 0 1 0 0 4 5 4 – 14 11 0
COVCATH 1 0 0 0 0 2 – 3 6 3
WP: Stiles (2-2) LP: Wagner 7-1
LEADING HITTERS: Beechwood: Flaherty, 2 HRs, 5 RBI; Fryman 2-4, 3 runs scored; Hutton 2-4, 4 RBI; CovCath: Reardon 2-4; Suwinski 2-4.

Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.

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