When she was younger, Peyton Plotts loved watching shortstop Katie Reed playing softball for Kentucky.
     “Now it is (UK All-American) Kayla Kowalik. She is awesome,” said Plotts.
     Plotts, a Lexington Tates Creek senior, recently signed to play her college softball at Kentucky for coach Rachel Lawson. She is ranked as the 38th best overall player in her recruiting class by Extra Innings Softball. Plotts hit .512 with 12 doubles, 11 home runs, 41 RBI’s and 38 runs scored last season.
     Plotts, 18, did take one other college visit but UK was her “dream school” and was an easy decision for her to make.
     She says there have been a lot of “great players in Lexington” in recent years but the only Lexington signee for Lawson has been Ella Emmett, a sophomore catcher from Lexington Catholic. However, Lawson’s roster normally has plenty of in-state players each season.
     “I definitely want to be someone girls around Lexington can look up to and kind of help grow the game and be a role model for young players,” Plotts said.
     Plotts grew up a Kentucky fan in Lexington in a sports-minded family — her father was a baseball player and her mom was a volleyball player.
     “Growing up I went to basketball, football, volleyball, baseball and softball games ,” Plotts said. “I played baseball and then when I got to middle school I played softball and volleyball. I just knew softball was my sport and would be the sport where I had the best chance to go to college and play.
     Plotts, a first baseman/outfielder, says she is a “hitter who can hit for power and average” — something Lawson obviously likes to have in any player.
     “I will play wherever she (Lawson) wants to put me. In travel ball I play first base. In high school, it is usually center field,” Plotts said. “Coach Lawson likes my versatility, so it remains to be seen where I will be playing.”
     Plotts certainly knows plenty about her signing class that Lawson says is the “most versatile class in program history.”
     Three of the signees — Emory Donaldson of Louisville Ballard, Ally Hutchins of McCracken County and Cassie Reasner of Alabama — all played on travel ball on Fury Platinum with Plotts.
     Donaldson is ranked 65th by Extra Innings Softball and had 15 homers, 10 triples and 64 hits, all among the state leaders, last season. She hit .504 in 2021 and also stole 22 bases.
     Hutchins hit .583 with 13 homes last season and drove in 60 runs. She had a 2.13 ERA with seven shutouts and three no-hitters on the mound. She had over 100 strikeouts. Reasner was a second-team all-state selection in Alabama and led her team in hitting and stolen bases.
     “Me and Ally played travel ball together for three years. She is always giving 100 percent and is one of the most competitive players I know and one of the best hitters I have played with,” Plotts said.
     “This was the first year I played with Emory. I heard a ton about her and she is going to be that person who always goes 100 percent. She’s really athletic and I love the way she plays the game.”
     Hutchins and Plotts also played with current UK freshman pitcher Taylor Hess.

Peyton Plotts grew up a Kentucky fan in Lexington with parents who both played sports. (Twitter Photo)

     “We always talked about wanting to go to UK and how we would like to play together. So it is pretty cool that it all worked out,” Plotts said. “I am just glad all the pressure is off all of us. We are signed and now it is really going to happen together for us at UK.”
     Plotts finished her travel ball season this month and is now starting workouts to prepare for her high school season.
     “We lost five seniors in key positions off last year’s team and will be very young. We have a seventh-grade pitcher coming up that’s going to be fun to watch,” Plotts said. “Our junior shortstop has committed to Minnesota. I think we are going to be competitive and do our best to have a successful season.”

     Lexington Catholic coach Brandon Salsman has watched North Laurel senior/Kentucky signee Reed Sheppard play a lot during his prep career. He’s not sure it really mattered when he saw Sheppard play because his impression was almost always the same.
     “Awesome is awesome whether it is a junior or senior year,” said Salsman. “His ability to understand the game of basketball is second to none.
     “I have never seen anyone with his basketball IQ. He makes everybody so much better because of the way he can get anywhere he wants on the floor and then he can get the ball anywhere he wants on the floor. He’s just a phenomenal player.”
     North Laurel beat Lexington Catholic 77-65 to open the season when Sheppard had 23 points on 8-for-12 shooting from the field 6-for-7 from the foul line. He also had a team-high eight rebounds.
     Sheppard is averaging 23 points and 8.9 rebounds per game this season while shooting almost 50 percent overall from the field.
     North Laurel is playing in the prestigious City of the Palms Classic in Fort Myers, Fla., this week and will compete in the White, Greer & Maggard Holiday Classic at Lexington Catholic next week.
     “I am just a big fan of Reed Sheppard and he is a great person, too. I enjoy talking to him before, during and after games,” Salsman said. “I will always be a big fan of his. I have grown up a Kentucky fan and it’s going to be very easy to follow him and wish him well at Kentucky.”

     Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart does not do a lot of one-on-one interviews with media outlets but recently he did one with Mark Green of The Lane Report, a statewide business magazine in Kentucky.
     Two of the times that Green asked him about were NIL and alcohol sales at Kroger Field for UK football games.
     Barnhart said he thought it would be several years before he could tell how NIL is going to play out.
     “There will be a molding of the landscape over time. We’re way too young in the game to say we have all the answers of what’s going to happen in the NIL space. Throw in the transfer portal and all of those things that happened all at once, and I don’t think anybody has their hand on the steering wheel yet,” Barnhart told Green.
     “Everyone wants their school to get behind NIL and support it, and we have in a lot of different ways. The collectives have gotten attention because that’s where everyone thinks there are large buckets of money. Those buckets of money are only as effective as the fan base saying we want to put money into this collective.
     “We put links to those out there and encourage people to be involved. Those collectives have our blessing. At the end of the day, the fan base is going to have to say it’s important and they want to be involved in those collectives.”
     Many wonder if it would not help if UK athletics — Barnhart — did more to promote NIL but this again was not exactly a ringing endorsement for fans/businesses to provide funds.
     Many Kentucky fans likely were even less enamored with his response when Green asked him if he had a role in setting the policy for alcohol sales and if that policy might change any time soon.
     “It’s important to make sure we examine all sides equally. Some are very vocal about their desire to have alcohol sales. Less vocal are the folks—many, many of whom stop me to say, ‘We hope you don’t sell alcohol because we won’t feel comfortable bringing our family to games,’” Barnhart said in the interview.
     “You try to find what serves everyone best. There are people who say you have clubs where alcohol is available and for people who desire to have a drink, that is the place they are able to purchase an opportunity to do that. There is a separation for those who don’t want that as part of the fan experience. It will continue to be a conversation at an institutional level and we’ll continue to think our way through it.”
     Kentucky does offer alcohol sales in the club section but tickets normally are not available to the general public.

     Not only was sophomore Emma Grome the SEC Player of the Year and a second-team All-American — she had 1,282 assists in 30 matches along with 229 digs, 44 kills and 34 service aces — but she also had a unique marketing idea to promote volleyball during the season.
     Grome and sophomore Erin Lamb did their own version of “Carpool Karaoke” — a recurring segment on The Late Late Show with James Corden — from a golf cart riding around campus before some matches.
     “It was just a spur of the moment idea. We would take people to class or the dorm or wherever they wanted to go as long as they would sing with us. It was a great way to promote our games,” Grome said.
     Grome wasn’t sure how UK coach Craig Skinner and UK media relations would feel about the idea.
     “Craig loved it and thought it would be a great idea to get people more involved with the team,” Grome said. “We got to talk to fans and be a little goofy. We did some throwback music and a few different things. We would try to switch it up so it was not the same every time.”
     That’s kind of the same thing the Kentucky volleyball players do during matches when they dance on the sideline during breaks in play.
     Grome said she did not know about the UK volleyball dance tradition when she signed with Kentucky.
     “I live in Cincinnati so I came to a lot of games and saw them doing all that stuff and saw how much fun it was,” Grome said. “But I think we just happen to have people with good rhythm, so it works out well.
     “I have not seen a lot of other teams do it. Sometimes people have their own little cheers but I think it is definitely something unique about our team.”
     Could she ever envision John Calipari’s basketball players doing something like that at a game?
     “No, I don’t think so,” Grome said. “But it shows a little bit about our (volleyball) culture and how we like to have fun but stay focused and it brings energy to the team and people love it.”

     If you are a University of Kentucky sports fan, then long-time UK writer Jamie Vaught has another book about UK basketball that I think you will enjoy.
     “Forever Crazy About the Cats: An Improbable Journey of a Kentucky Sportswriter Overcoming Adversity” is a 408-page hardcover book about his career covering UK basketball and football despite his hearing loss since birth.
     “This new book actually was written outside of my comfort zone,” Vaught said. “It wasn’t an easy project to do in discussing my severe hearing impairment, but I was encouraged to do this type of book.”
     He shares stories about Adolph Rupp, Joe Hall, Cawood Ledford, Dan Issel, Fran Church, Mark Stoops, Maci Morris, Oscar Tshiebwe and others.
     Vaught has been a professor at Middlesboro’s Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College (SKCTC). He wrote columns for The Cats’ Pause for 13 years.
     The book is now available online on Amazon.com. It is also expected to be available at selected outlets in Kentucky after Christmas.

  Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week 1:

     “I hope heaven has a pub, and I hope I make it to heaven, and I hope the barstool next to Coach Leach is open,” Kentucky football fan Connie Allen after the death of Mississippi State football coach Mike Leach.

Quote of the Week 2:

     "We were never afraid to be fired, we were never afraid to go for it on fourth down. We were just like brothers. It was so fun being on the sidelines with him. I remember when Bob Stoops hired him away, I was happy that he got that opportunity but I did miss him incredibly the next year,” Hal Mumme on SEC Now with Dari Nowkhah on working with Mike Leach.

Quote of the Week 3:

     “He is the smartest coach I've ever been around. He's one of the truly irreplaceable figures in the history of the game. Records are one thing ... but the legacy that one leaves behind is what I heard from his many friends and coaching colleagues,” SEC Network radio/TV host Paul Finebaum on ESPN on Mike Leach’s career.