A milestone — 04/26/08

Sat, May 17 2008

— In his 25th — and final — year as varsity baseball coach at Lawrence County High School, Randy Keeton has reached a milestone that only four other area baseball coaches have achieved: 500 wins, including three regional titles and four regional runners-up finishes.
And the best may be yet to come. The 500th win in a game against Morgan County came in the midst of one the school’s best starts in Keeton’s long career.
Winners of 13 of their first 15 games and ranked 12th in the state, the Bulldogs are hoping to improve on last season’s 29 wins and second place finish in the region. In fact, now that he has his 500th win, Keeton says the Bulldogs should aim for 525 wins.
Keeton’s years of coaching span more than 35 years. He coached for five years in the 1970s, including four years at the old Louisa High School. He returned to the high school for four years beginning in 1983, and he has been coaching the Bulldogs continuously since returning for a third stint in 1993.
Keeton credits his success to some great players and an outstanding feeder program beginning with Little League. While no coach can win without good players, Keeton’s teams have always been fundamentally sound and find ways to win. That’s the mark of Coach Keeton.
Now 61, Keeton — a member of the Kentucky High School Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame — plans to retire after the Bulldogs final game this spring. His current group of players — five of whom already signed letters to play college ball — hope to make Randy Keeton’s final year his best one ever. They certainly have the talent to do just that.