Barnhill Breaks the Single Season State Strikeout Record

The Single Season State strikeout record set by Jessica Coan was achieved in 2005 and has stood now for 9 years. Coan’s 497 striekouts have been challenged, but no one has been able to get any closer than 34 away from her record, until 2014 when Kelly Barnhill would come calling!

On Halloween morning 2014, Pope pitcher Kelly Barnhill wasn’t tricking anyone as she was treated to the state’s single season strikeout record when she recorded her 498th strikeout in the 7th inning of Pope’s winner’s bracket game against Brookwood. Barnhill would end the game with 499 strikeouts and would have to sit on the cusp of the 500 strikeout threshold for about 8 more hours before Pope could tee it up with Lassiter in the night cap.

With Barnhill’s 1st strikeout in the Lassiter game, Kelly became the 1st pitcher in state history to strikeout 500 batters in a single season. 18 strikeouts later, Barnhill would sit at 518 strikeouts with the state championship game still to come.

Barnhill would end her season with 534 strikeouts after K’ing 16 Hillgrove batters in the state championship to put her 4 game total at the State Finals in Columbus at 70 strikeouts.

Breaking this record did not come easy as Barnhill had to average over 16 strikeouts a game and over 2 strikeouts per inning to overcome 497 strikeouts.

In her career, Barnhill has struck out 1383 batters which is 4th most in state history. This achievement is miraculous when it is taken into consideration that Barnhill had to sit out ½ of her junior season rehabbing from a minor injury. This injury cost Barnhill approx.. 15 starts equating to roughly 200 or more strikeouts.

At the beginning of the year Barnhill set out to achieve 2 goals: 1. winning the state championship, and 2. breaking the state strikeout record. Congratulations to Kelly for being able to pursue and achieve such lofty achievements.

To go along with her 534 strikeouts, Barnhill posted 29 wins for the 2014 season and she had a 0.56 ERA and a .076 batting average against. Kelly averaged 16.54 K’s per game and 2.2 K’s per inning.