The 1929 state baseball tournament runner-up trophy that was awarded to Cadiz High School. [Photo courtesy of Vicki Karrigan and Kim Fortner]
The athletic history of Cadiz High School doesn’t fill many pages of a book, but the first success at the state level of any high school in Trigg County came in the late 1920s when Cadiz High advanced to the state baseball tournament five straight years.
In 1926, Cadiz High advanced out of the first round with a 7-1 win over the home-standing Purples of Bowling Green hosted by the Western Kentucky Teachers’ College, now Western Kentucky University. Legendary WKU Coach E.A. Diddle was in the charge of the four-day tourney.
Cadiz saw their run at the state tournament end with an 8-5 loss to Picadome High School of Lexington.
The 1927 team advanced to the school’s first state tournament in Bowling Green where they avenged the previous season’s loss to Picadome with a 5-3 win.
The Indians then followed that win with a 4-3 victory over the hometown favorite Bowling Green. Cadiz would see their run at the state tournament end in the semifinals with a 6-0 loss to eventual state champion Manual.
Infielder George Ryan and pitcher Delmos Joiner were both named to the 1927 All-State Team. Joiner tragically died less than a month later when he drowned after jumping from a bridge into the Little River at White’s Mill with friends. Joiner was considered one of the best athletes at Cadiz High. One of the largest crowds ever seen a funeral in Cadiz came out of pay their respects to the recent graduate of Cadiz High School.
Cadiz High made a return trip to Bowling Green for the 1928 state tournament. The Indians beat Fountain Run 16-10 in the opener but fell to Manual 8-2 in the second round.
The 1929 state tournament was the ninth annual affair and was again hosted by the Western Kentucky Teachers’ College.
Lester Soloman was the coach of the 1929 Cadiz team. They opened play in the tournament with a 9-3 win over Brownsville. George Ryan struck out 16 batters to help the Indians to the opening round win. People in attendance at the tournament said Ryan was one of the best pitchers to ever throw in the state tournament.
Cadiz advanced to the quarterfinals where they met Tompkinsville, who edged Dawson Springs 12-11 in the opening round after nearly blowing a 12-1 eighth-inning lead.
Tom Magraw was able to pitch well enough for Cadiz to hold off Tompkinsville 13-9. With the win, Cadiz advanced to the semifinals where they faced Male, who upset the tournament favorite Kentucky Military Institute 6-3 in the opening round.
Male was considered the heavy favorite coming into the game, but the early winner was the weather. A morning rain pushed back the start time from 10am to 2pm.
Ryan, who was the pitching hero for the Indians in the earlier games, put his team ahead at the plate with a two-run single in the third inning and another two-run single in the fourth inning.
With Cadiz ahead 5-4 in the sixth inning, the rains began to fall again. Umpire Fred Blackwell took note of the dark clouds and accompanying lightning and called the game after a 30-minute rain delay. Blackwell, who was a catcher in the Major Leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1917-19, was the game’s lone umpire.
The opponent for Cadiz in its first-ever state championship game would be home-standing Bowling Green, who knocked off Manual 5-3 in the other semifinal game.
Cadiz, who had been the underdogs for the entire tournament, found themselves in the same role in the Monday afternoon championship game.
The title game turned into a pitcher’s duel between George Ryan of Cadiz and Johnny Lane of Bowling Green. Both hurlers were sharp, pitching nine scoreless innings and sending the contest into extra innings.
Cadiz looked to dent the scoreboard first in the 14th inning when Lawrence Larkins hit a deep two-out shot over the centerfielder’s head. Edward Lawrence, thinking there was one out, held up and then took off when the fly ball hit the ground. The delay cost Lawrence as he was thrown out at home to keep the game scoreless.
The game ended with one out in the 16th inning when Bowling Green’s Stanley Graves doubled and advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt. Red Garrison blooped a hit just over third base and mere inches off the foul line to score Graves for the only run of the game.
Both starting pitchers went the distance. Ryan allowed ten hits and struck out nine for Cadiz, while Lane scattered seven hits over 16 innings and struck out eight.
Ryan and left fielder T. Lacy Jones were both named to the All-State Team. Despite advancing to the state title game, Cadiz only had two players named while state champion Bowling Green had four, and Male had three players named.
Members of the 1929 Cadiz High School baseball team were Paul Magraw, Herbert Radford, Lawrence Larkins, T. Lacy Jones, Edward White, Thomas Watkins, Smith Broadbent Jr., George Ryan, Lonnie Watkins, Ted Bush, Edward Henderson, and Jack Vinson. The coach was Lester Soloman.
In 1930, Cadiz was again expecting a good season on the diamond. Included on their schedule was a doubleheader rematch with Bowling Green with the Purples sweeping both games.
Male, one of the 1929 tourney favorites that Cadiz beat in the semifinals, failed to reach the 1930 tourney after losing to Manual one game before state.
Cadiz High opened with a 6-2 win over Mayfield in the opening round of the 1930 state tournament in Bowling Green. Mayfield was considered the state tournament favorite after beating Cadiz three out of four times during the regular season.
The big news of the first round came when Howell High out of Christian County upset defending state champion Bowling Green.
In the semifinal round, Lester Soloman’s Indians beat Brownsville 9-1 as the Cadiz pitchers were again strong on the mound.
Cadiz met Manual in the championship game after the Crimsons beat Estill County 6-3 in the semifinals. Cadiz was looking to avenge losses to the Crimsons in the 1927 and 1928 state tourneys.
The Indians jumped ahead with a run in the first inning when Lonnie Watkins singled, was sacrificed to second, and scored on a double by Smith Broadbent Jr. Watkins was 3-for-5 at the plate in the championship game for Cadiz.
Broadbent was pitching his third game in two days for Cadiz and didn’t allow a baserunner until the fifth inning. Manual broke through with two runs in the fifth inning, two more runs in the seventh, and a single run in the eighth inning to claim the 5-1 victory.
Cadiz High is one of the few team sports of any Trigg County High School to advance to five straight state tournaments. Cadiz High also fielded a basketball team, advancing to the 1938 district semifinals where they lost to Lafayette 31-16.
Cadiz High would be consolidated into Trigg County High at the end of the 1937-38 school year.
