Colonels’ state championship victory is a first for our area

Winning a state championship… It’s something dreams are made of!

Don Estep is publisher of the News Journal.

The Whitley County Colonels baseball team made history Saturday evening in Lexington by winning the State Baseball Championship.

The accomplishment is huge! This is a feat that no other team from the 13th Region, and most of southeastern Kentucky, had ever done. A big congratulations to all who made it possible.

The Colonels are a group of young men who would not be denied. They made clutch hits, had great pitching, excellent fielding and won in a storybook fashion.

Give credit to great coaching that sent the runner on third base home with what turned out was the winning run. Only in your dream would you win a game by stealing home. The Colonels did it!

I have followed local sports all my life and I have seen some great accomplishments. I was there in 1985 broadcasting when the Lady Colonels of Whitley County won the state championship. This was one of the most unique situations I was ever in while doing play-by-play broadcasting.

Back then the Williamsburg radio station, owned by Paul Estes, had to sign off the air at sundown because of FCC rules. But that didn’t stop Paul from broadcasting the girl’s games to back to his hometown. He also owned the cable company and you can guess about everybody in the Williamsburg area got it.

Paul called me and asked if I would do the play-by-play. What an honor. I, along with Jerry Hodges, broadcast the games on the cable system. I not only had the pleasure of doing the games, but Paul picked me up every night of the game and drove us to Bowling Green. What a thrill it was as the Lady Colonels beat Louisville Atherton 38-37 in the final game for the championship.

In Whitley County we have had a boys state champion in basketball. Corbin won it in 1936. No, I’m not that old to have broadcast that game, but I did broadcast the 1982 Laurel County championship and the Clay County 1987 championship basketball games. And I have broadcast the state championship football games by the Corbin Redhounds.

All of these were huge thrills. But to win the state in baseball is something nobody else can lay claim to. Like in basketball, in baseball you must beat every qualifying team in the state. This victory ranks as one of the biggest wins ever in this area.

Again, congratulations to the Whitley County Colonels baseball team. You have a made all of us proud!