Jim Mashek

BGHS CATCHER JAMES YARBROUGH: ‘THE WORK ETHIC … THAT’s THE LEGACY WE’D LIKE TO LEAVE …’

LEXINGTON — They met on the field, briefly, as Sayre School, a private high school in Lexington, and Johnson Central moved into the dugouts at Legends Field on Thursday afternoon.

Bowling Green High School’s top-flight baseball squad fell behind quickly, against hard-throwing left-hander Caden Kern and tradition-rich McCracken County, and the Purples could never make headway in their first-round KHSAA State Tournament game against the Mustangs.

So veteran BGHS coach Nathan Isenberg and his assistant coaches brought the team to the right-field pavilion, just to put a bow on the season, after a 6-0 loss to McCracken County brought the Purples’ season to a close.

BGHS right-hander Logan Johnson kept his team in the game, before being replaced on the mound by teammate Landon Gilbert in the fifth inning. But the Purples’ offense couldn’t solve Kern, and McCracken moved on to face Sayre in Saturday’s quarterfinals. Sayre crushed Johnson Central, 13-4, in the third game of the afternoon before Hopkinsville’s University Heights Academy clobbered Wolfe County, 9-1, in the late game at Legends Field.

None of the four state tournament games played Thursday were particularly close, as McCracken County put the Purples away with three runs in the bottom of the sixth inning.

Bowling Green had just two players reach third base over the course of the game.

“We really didn’t have an answer,” Isenberg said.

The Purples managed just three hits, Jack Cowan’s one-out double to the right-field corner in the top of the fifth, along with singles off the bats of Hudson Nottmeier and Landon Gilbert.

Isenberg met with his team, between innings, late in the game, and seemed to be instructing the Purples to hit the ball hard, into the artificial surface, as opposed to a fly ball that was more than likely to find a McCracken glove in the outfield.

Five fly balls and line drives from the Purples turned into outs, in the last three innings alone.

Which meant the Purples would be closing the door on an outstanding 34-6 season and returning to Bowling Green. Their team bus arrived at the BGHS campus at dusk on Thursday, at which point the Purples would have to go their separate ways.

It was a season to remember, however, particularly for the six Bowling Green seniors — outfielder/pitcher Hudson Nottmeier, pitcher/first baseman Logan Johnson, infielder/pitcher Landon Gilbert, third baseman/pitcher Matt Mosley, pitcher/outfielder Jack Cowan and catcher James Yarbrough, the Purples’ charismatic leader behind the plate.

Yarbrough shared his thoughts on the season in a telephone interview on Friday afternoon.

“We’ve been hit-and-miss with left-handers all year,” Yarbrough said. “He’s really effective. We wanted to hit some balls that would find the gaps, but that didn’t happen, and that’s baseball.

“You find yourself trying to climb out of a hole, with a good pitcher on the mound, and it can be tough on you, mentally.”

Yarbrough and Nottmeier are planning to enroll at the University of Kentucky over the summer, with Nottmeier pursuing a degree in business and finance while Yarbrough begins a pre-med curriculum. Neither BGHS senior will shy away from a challenge, it’s safe to say, and Yarbrough said he’s optimistic about the nucleus the Purples will be returning for the 2027 season.

“The work ethic … that’s the legacy we’d like to leave,” Yarbrough said. “I love my guys. This was a special senior class. We have nothing to hang our heads about … We’ll cherish the moments, for sure.”