The Christian County Lady Colonels continued their dominance of the 8th District with a 16-0 win over University Heights Academy in Wednesday’s championship at the Lady Blazers’ home field.
The district title was the 20th straight for the Lady Colonels, whose streak was interrupted only by a pandemic in 2020 that shut down all spring sports.
Lady Colonels coach Sheri Hancock, who was a part of Christian County’s state championship teams under Hall of Fame coach Jim Perrin in the mid-1980s, said she tries to make sure her players understand the program’s tradition.
“It’s important for me and it’s important for the kids to carry on the tradition because I’m a big believer in tradition,” she said. “We just needed to just go out there and make sure that everybody understands.”
Avery Adcock hit a two-run home run as part of a 14-run first inning. It was the third homer of the district tournament for the University of Missouri signee. It was also her 50th hit of the season – her fourth straight season reaching the 50-hit mark.
Christian County took advantage of 11 walks and was hit by a pitch seven times. As the overwhelming favorite coming into the district tournament, Hancock just wanted to see her team take care of business.
“If we had a good game, celebrate it that night, but you have to come back and play the next night. Coming into the district tournament, I just wanted to put the other teams away. I didn’t want them to linger but still be respectful,” she said.
Aly Grant had Christian County’s other hit in the contest, a double. Jordan Turner retired nine of the ten batters she faced in the circle, striking out six.
While Christian County continued to assert its authority atop the district, UHA is striving to attain the same status.
Lady Blazer coach Ashlie Ezell knows it all boils down to a numbers game.
“We have to take it all the way back to the basics every year. Numbers are our worst enemy here,” Ezell said of UHA, which has the second smallest enrollment in the region, ahead of only Heritage Christian Academy, but works to share athletes across several other sports.
“We didn’t know if we were going to have a team this year,” Ezell said of her team, which played only 11 regular-season games. However, she feels that the program is moving in the right direction as the 8th District undergoes a facelift in the coming years with the combination of Christian County and Hopkinsville into a single high school, reverting the district back to a four-team stable.
“We do have someone who is actually stepping in next year to try to get a middle school program going here,” Ezell said. “We need that just to have something to build on. With Little League being gone for several years, it’s hurt several years’ worth of kids that never really had the opportunity.”
Both Christian County (21-13) and UHA (5-8) move on to next week’s region tournament at Webster County. For UHA, it’s a second straight trip to the region tourney as the Lady Blazers look for the program’s first win in 11 tourney appearances.
“I told our team tonight the numbers on the scoreboard don’t look great, but you made it here. Two other teams could have been here other than us, but they stuck it out, and they were the ones in this position. And I’m proud of them,” Ezell said.
For Christian County, they are looking to flip the script that has seen them bow out of the region tourney in four of their last five appearances.
“I thought we were playing really right after the Caldwell County game (on May 8), and then with weather and some cancellations, we’ve had a break,” Hancock said. “But then Saturday, we turned around and played some really good games. We’re going to do some live hitting in the next few days to get ready for the regional tournament.”
The region tournament begins on Monday in Dixon.
