Tuesday night coverage: Corbin baseball wins district, W’burg softball falls to SL

Both the softball and baseball 50th District championship games were contested Tuesday evening at South Laurel High School in London.

In softball action, the Williamsburg Lady Jackets met up with the host Lady Cardinals. The Jackets were coming off of a thrilling 7-0 victory over Corbin on Monday, but things did not go their way in the district title game.

The Lady Cards were dominant, winning 10-0 in five innings. Both teams will now move on to this year’s 13th Region tournament, being held next week at Knox Central High School. Be sure to look in the June 1 edition of the News Journal for coverage from the region tourney.

In baseball, the Corbin Redhounds were able to end South Laurel’s reign in the 50th District, defeating the Cardinals 4-0 to become district champs in 2016.

After the game, Corbin’s four seniors talked about what this victory meant to them.

“It feels great,” said Peyton Buford. “They’ve owned this district ever since they’ve been in it. This is only the second time that Corbin has won it since South has been here, but with the way Michael [May] was pitching, the way were playing behind him and the way we were hitting the ball, there was no way that we could’ve been stopped tonight.”

May, who pitched a complete game and had a stellar performance on the mound for the Hounds, said, “This is a good feeling, but it’s a team thing. Everybody on this team has worked so hard, and now we’ve finally got what we were wanting. We’re not done yet, though.”

Connor Hicks said, “This is kind of a monkey off of our backs, honestly. Throughout the year we’ve had our ups and downs, but our goals have never changed, and our confidence has never wavered.”

Finally, John Gilbert said, “It feels great to finally be able to win district after four years. I love this feeling, especially after South has beaten us so many times. Now we have to take care of business and win region.”

As for how Corbin Head Coach Cody Philpot is feeling, he said, “I don’t know if it’s totally sunk in yet. When you look at the history, this is our first district championship since 2010. It’s only the second one since South came in in 2006, so this is huge for our kids. They’ve put the work in, have never given up, and it was good to see it finally pay off for them. I’m proud of them.”

Corbin will continue their quest for a region title next week when they begin play in the 13th Region championship tournament at Lynn Camp High School. Look for coverage in the June 1 edition.

Also Tuesday, the Lynn Camp Wildcats hosted Barbourville in the first round of this year’s 51st District baseball tournament. The winner of that game will go on to play Knox Central in the district championship Thursday evening at LCHS.