South Warren softball wins first ever state championship, finishes season 45-0
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Saturday night at John Cropp Stadium, two teams that had never played before and two teams that had never won a KHSAA State Softball championship met up on the diamond.
The South Warren Lady Spartans and the Bullitt East Chargers battled with only one team finishing the season on top, raising that trophy.
Courtney Norwood and Mackenzie Mingus were the two pitchers in the circle.
Mingus, a senior looking to go out with a bang, started strong with a few strikeouts.
Meanwhile, Norwood, a junior and commit to the University of Kentucky, was holding her own. Through three she had two strikeouts, zero hits and zero runs.
“I had so much adrenaline coming in. Like, it’s our last game, I want it to be the best game, and I knew our defense was going to get a lot of action because the other team was a great hitting team, and the defense came through and I really relied on them a lot,” Norwood said.
The bottom of the third would be when the Lady Spartans struck gold.
A single, a walk and another walk would load the bases, and with two outs senior Kinleigh Russell had the clutch gene.
Her hit plated two to start off the scoring.
“Yeah, I just was trying to, you know, take it pitch by pitch and look for a pitch I could drive, so I’m just super grateful that I could get the rally going for our team,” Russell said.
An inning later, South nearly left the bases juiced, but Parker Willoughby put pressure on the Charger defense with a fly ball, and it was dropped.
All the ducks on the pond swam home, making it 5-0 in favor of the home team.
That would be a safe score for a few innings, and the team did add on a few more runs in the sixth, but the play that sealed the deal would be a fastball by Norwood with two outs in the seventh.
It’s called strike three, and South Warren wins 8-0, becoming state champions in softball for the first time in program history.
“It’s the best feeling in the world. Like, one of those that you just dream for, and here it is,” head coach Kelly Reynolds said. “It’s been a great year, great season, and I’m just so proud of the girls and all the work that they put in. It’s just awesome.”
“It feels amazing. I think it shows our culture and how our older girls have stood up and have made that role of a senior and just showed that we can do it and no one can stop us,” senior Layla Ogden said.
“We didn’t win this game tonight. We won it in the weight room in August, in September and October, just grinding those winter nights when we didn’t really feel like it and we were really sore,” senior McLaine Hudson said. “Obviously, that hard work is going to prepare you for games like this, and we came out on top.”
“You know, I’ve been with this team for three years now, and we’ve been trying for a long time, and these are my best friends and I’m so glad that we went out this way,” senior Hadley Borders said.
“I’m speechless. There are no words to describe this moment, and I’m just so proud of my teammates and all of us for being state champions,” Willoughby said.
The Lady Spartans finish with a perfect 45-0 record.
The 45 wins are the most KHSAA has ever seen in fast pitch softball, and the unbeaten record marks the first since 2022.
Congrats to South Warren on a remarkable year, one the program will forever remember!
