Jim Mashek

FSU-BOUND McLAINE HUDSON FUELS SPARTANS’ PROLIFIC OFFENSE; COURTNEY NORWOOD, LAYLA OGDEN ARE 1-2 ‘TAG TEAM’ IN THE CIRCLE

Kelly Reynolds, South Warren High School’s wildly successful fastpitch softball head coach, does a lot of juggling when the springtime weather rolls around.

Reynolds is a guidance counselor at South Warren, and the mother of two children, Emily and Ethan Reynolds. Ethan is a WKU freshman outfielder who shined in both football and baseball during his high school years, while Emily is a former Campbellsville University softball standout, currently enrolled in graduate school with an eye cast toward a law enforcement career.

Reynolds has established a premier softball program at South Warren, one that made national headlines last week when the Spartans traveled to Huntsville, Alabama, and then the Florida-Alabama Gulf Coast, where South played in NINE GAMES in just SEVEN DAYS. The Spartans extended their winning streak to 21 games, concluded by a true road win over Orange Beach, Alabama, one of the nation’s top-ranked teams.

Junior right-hander Courtney Norwood, a 6-foot-1 South Warren pitcher, limited Orange Beach to five hits and one earned run in an impressive 6-1 victory in the resort city.

“We always look at the Spring Break trip as ‘Nothing to lose, everything to gain,'” said South Warren’s McLaine Hudson, an all-state shortstop in her sixth year of varsity softball. “It was a fun week …”

South Warren improved to 22-0 overall on Wednesday, taking a 15-0 victory over the defending KHSAA state champion, Louisville’s Assumption High School. The Spartans will open 14th District play on Thursday, when they play host to a vastly improved Bowling Green High School squad.

They’ve been the hunted, as opposed to the hunter, for years now in this area of the Commonwealth.

“In any sport, especially softball and baseball, so much of it is a mental game,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds has built a winning softball culture at South Warren, going back to her playing days, as a pitcher and outfielder, at both Warren Central High School and Middle Tennessee State University. The Spartans’ athletic teams support each other, a good example of that being last May, in Lexington. That’s when South Warren’s softball season came to a sudden halt with a 3-1 loss to a talented Daviess County squad in first-round play of the KHSAA’s state tournament at UK’s John Cropp Stadium.

It was a tough way for the Spartans, who have had state championship ambitions for more than a decade, to call it a year, but South Warren’s baseball team was opening state tournament play the next day at UK’s Kentucky Proud Park. Nearly all of the Spartans’ softball players were in attendance when Chris Gage’s South Warren baseball squad slipped past Highlands High School, 6-5, to reach the state quarterfinals.

Kelly Reynolds believes in positive reinforcement, accountability and good sportsmanship, and that’s something that’s clearly evident when her softball team takes the field.

The Spartans are still looking for their first KHSAA state championship, and they’ve taken aim at a third consecutive state tournament appearance over the first four weeks of the season. (Greenwood slipped past the Spartans, 2-1, in the 4th Region championship game in 2023.)

“Last year, I think we got too caught up in the stats, and the competition,” Reynolds said. “We needed to focus on ourselves, what we needed to do, to improve as a team (for 2026 and beyond) … These girls have put in the work.”

Reynolds has taken the Spartans to the state tournament in three of the past four softball seasons, with semifinal appearances in both 2022 and ’24. South Warren is still trying to climb that final mountain, that state championship, however, and the Spartans’ players have vivid memories of their last defeat, the aforementioned loss to Daviess County in Lexington last May.

“It was definitely a tough loss,” senior South Warren pitcher/first baseman Layla Ogden said earlier this week in the Spartans’ dugout. “I think we learned you can’t take anything for granted … and you can’t think ahead, either.”

McLaine Hudson, the Spartans’ star senior shortstop, said the team’s underclassmen immediately began thinking about the 2026 season, about how to get from Point A to Point B.

Six of the Spartans’ players are back for their final season at South Warren — Ogden, Hudson, catcher/infielder Kinleigh Russell, third baseman Parker Willoughby, outfielder Hadley Borders and outfielder Kaylee Wilson. Last year’s South Warren catcher, Hayden Holloway, transferred to Florida’s IMG Academy for her senior year, before she enrolls on a softball scholarship at Florida Atlantic University.

With the rangy Holloway’s departure, South Warren now has a seasoned, scrappy defender behind the plate, in Russell, who’s signed with Oklahoma State University.

Hudson committed to the University of Kentucky during the 2024-25 academic year, but over the summer, she shifted that commitment to Florida State University, which offers a preferred climate for baseball and softball players alike. Willoughby, meanwhile, has signed with Ohio State University, in the Big Ten, while Borders is bound for the University of Missouri and the SEC.

Even if the Spartans are a lot more concerned about the here and now.

“We have a point to prove, and a statement to make,” Borders said, “and that’s what we’re doing.”

Layla Ogden, meanwhile, is following in her father’s footsteps by choosing to stay home at WKU. Matt Ogden played football for the Hilltoppers in the ’90s.

Russell, Hudson and Ogden were all playing softball by the time they enrolled in kindergarten. It’s pretty much become a year-round sport, too, with travel teams in the summer and fall ball after Labor Day. Russell moved from second base, where she teamed with Hudson as a skilled double-play duo, to behind the plate, where she’s equal parts skilled and tenacious, after Hayden Holloway moved onto IMG Academy in the fall.

Kelly Reynolds, and her South Warren players, remember that bus ride back to Bowling Green last year, after Daviess County eliminated the Spartans from the state tournament.

“We didn’t want our kids to hang their heads; (losing) is part of life,” Reynolds said. “As soon as we got back in town, we started planning for the (2026) season … I think we needed a different mental outlook.”

That outlook has certainly provided its share of results.

The Spartans’ pitching, led by the 1-2 duo of junior right-hander Courtney Norwood and senior right-hander Layla Ogden, has been dominant. South Warren has outscored its 22 opponents to date by a staggering count of 268-22. McLaine Hudson and the Spartans’ offense have compiled a .468 team batting average, with Hudson, the leadoff hitter, putting up otherworldly numbers.

(Hudson already is the KHSAA’s career hits leader.)

Hudson hit two home runs in Wednesday’s victory over Assumption, and in 22 games, she’s had 56 hits in 72 at bats.

That’s a clip of .778, in case you’re wondering.

Hudson has collected 33 extra-base hits, including a team-high 16 home runs, while striking out exactly THREE TIMES. She also leads the Spartans with 22 stolen bases, in 23 attempts.

“Mac is having a phenomenal season,” Reynolds said.

With Russell’s move from second base to catcher, sophomore Keegan Pruitt has moved into the starting role at second base. Parker Willoughby is a take-charge third baseman, while Norwood and Ogden split the duties at both first base and pitcher.

Borders is batting .587 with 10 extra-base hits and 31 RBI, and she’s also a demon on the base paths with 18 stolen bases. Ogden is batting .507 with 18 extra-base hits, including nine home runs, with 42 RBI, while Willoughby is churning along with a .492 batting average with six home runs and a team-high 45 RBI.

In some ways, the Spartans are competing against a standard they’ve set for themselves. But they’re respectful of their opponents, and when the postseason arrives, one bad day at the plate can spoil a team’s championship ambitions.

And in Lexington, those seven innings can FLY BY quickly.

Another secret to South’s success is its feeder programs, which allows prodigies to play varsity ball as seventh and eighth graders. Kalie Kuzma, an eighth grader who plays in the outfield, is batting .366 with 14 RBI. Seventh grader Hallie Shively is also on the varsity roster.

Anna Harl, a sophomore, has moved into the reserve role at catcher, and South teammates Avery Reesy and Emme Goss have both logged innings in the circle.

It’s Courtney Norwood’s pitching numbers, however, that really jump off the page.

The UK-bound right-hander has allowed just 28 hits in a team-high 62 innings pitched. She’s struck out 100 batters, even, with just seven walks. Her ERA is a miniscule 0.55, rivaled only by Layla Ogden’s 0.56 mark.

Reynolds succeeded her predecessor at South Warren, Chris Riggs, as the team’s head coach in 2018. Since then, she has compiled an amazing 264-28 record.

At the same time, Reynolds understands the Commonwealth is packed with top-flight programs, such as Daviess County, Louisville’s Ballard High School, McCracken County and Greenwood. Reynolds wants to challenge her squad, but so far, they’ve clearly been up to the challenge. The Spartans were able to walk off, via the 15-run rule, against the defending state champion Assumption on Wednesday.

Assumption defeated Henderson County, 4-2, in last year’s KHSAA state championship game at UK’s John Cropp Stadium.

“I never wanted to be a ‘trophy hunter’ as a coach,” Kelly Reynolds said. “We want to coach a team that can play the most competitive schedule possible … You have to be able to look at the tree that you’re trying to grow, and that you start with the root, not the fruit.”