Welch – There’s no doubt Brilee Redden is Greenbrier West’s ace. But head coach Stephen Price knows you realistically need two pitchers to win a state championship.
So in the sectional and regional-clinching games, Price has handed the ball to Kyndall Taylor who has rewarded him with a pair of shutouts, the latest coming Wednesday when she fired a three-hit shutout for a 12-0 win over Mount View in game two of the Class A Region 3 championship series.
The win sends the Cavaliers to the state tournament for the first time since 2023 where they’ll meet the winner of Wahama-Sherman on Wednesday, May 26 at Little Creek Park in South Charleston at approximately noon.
Price came away from Wednesday’s win with a feeling similar to the one experienced after beating Richwood – somewhat frustrated with the approach at the plate but pleased with the end result.
“I think we probably lacked a little focus to start the game,” Price said. “They’re teenagers and they took care of business on Monday. I could see overlooking it but we’ve got to have a better approach at the plate. We hit them alright on Monday. Coming into today we were trying to pull everything and you can’t do that. Now we executed later on and laid some bunts down like you’re going to have to in South Charleston. I really liked our defensive effort. We made one boo-boo in the field but we were in the right position and backing people up.”
The shutout effort was West’s fourth of the postseason, keeping its ledger spotless. Redden allowed just one hit in Monday’s win while Taylor confounded the Golden Knights in her own way in a six-inning affair. For Price there wasn’t much thought against rotating his pitchers given what he’s seen from them this season.
“We talked after the Richwood game, Kyndall has thrown really well this year,” Price said. “She had one bad outing and I’ll be honest, it was 32 degrees that night she pitched. I don’t know if anybody was ready to play and I’m not making excuses. But other than that, it’s her eighth or ninth win. She’s done what I’ve asked her to do in hitting spots, throwing strikes and commanding the zone with about three to four different pitches. We play defense behind her and we’ve played pretty good defense behind her. She’s a senior so she’s been around the block.”
Taylor’s effort received all of the support it needed in the first inning.
On the heels of a 4-for-4 performance, Redden opened the game with a double, scoring when Brooklyn Adkins hit a two-out double that plated both Redden and Preslee Treadway.
The offense came to a halt until the fourth when Diana Porter and Maddie Fields notched a pair of RBI hits with Brooke Patterson preceding those runs with one on a wild pitch.
Ahead 6-0, the Lady Cavs pulled out the stops in the top of the sixth, doubling their run total.
Redden and Porter drew a pair of walks to kick it off and with the pair scoring on a fielder’s choice and an error on a bunt. The floodgates opened from there as West sent 11 batters to the plate in the inning, putting the pressure on Mount View to score five runs to keep its season alive.
But Taylor slammed that door shut, striking out the side to cap a state tournament run.
“I forget our pitchers have like six pitches,” Price said. “I’m from the day where it was usually fastball, change up and curve. But Kyndall has a good drop ball and when her drop is on, people hit the top half and put the ball in play but she started throwing the screwball there in the middle of the game and it was coming in on them. They were swinging and missing.”
Price will now lead his team into the state tournament, a familiar stage all around. He was the baseball coach at Van when it lost to Wheeling Central in the 2007 Class A title game and this group of West upperclassmen played key roles as starters on the 2023 state tournament team.
“I was telling somebody the other day I took a team at Van to the baseball state tournament and had a great team, a young team with a bunch of juniors and we gave away a state championship that day,” Price said. “Everyone left there semi happy because they realized they still had another year. We never got another opportunity with that bunch. I’m glad this group of seniors had another chance and this group of juniors.”
