For the second straight year, Logan County High School has placed a student-athlete on Tom Leach’s All-Resilient Team, which honors players who have worked their way back from serious injuries or diseases to be an asset to their team.
Kaylin ’KJ’ Page, who will be a senior in 2020-21, is this year’s honoree. Here’s what www.TomLeachKy.com has to say about her:
Kaylin Page, Logan County
No matter the setback, Kaylin keeps coming back stronger than ever. As a seventh-grader, she broke both ankles in basketball season but returned to play for the softball team. The next year, it was a torn knee ligament, then a repeat of that injury and finally a torn ACL on the other knee. Still, she has managed to win the defensive award for her basketball team while winning numerous awards in softball and setting a school record for stolen bases. All the while, she's never made less than a "B" in her classes.
Coming back from those prior major injuries, Page put together an all-star sophomore softball season in 2019. She led a very talented Lady Cougar team in batting average (.533), hits (64), triples (9), total bases (93), stolen bases (13) and at-bats (120). She was 13 for 13 in attempted steals and played in all 32 games.
KJ seemed headed for an outstanding basketball season this year before she suffered another season-ending season before it began. She rehabilitated toward playing softball this spring, but it was a victim of COVID-19.
The All-Resilient Team honors student-athletes from Kentucky high schools who have had to overcome some form of adversity to compete and often excel in sports, within the previous calendar year. Nominees were solicited through athletic directors across the state and honorees were recognized at the annual Kentucky High School Athletic Directors Association awards banquet in Louisville.
Tom Leach is entering his 25th year as the lead broadcaster for University of Kentucky basketball and football. As a journalism student at UK, he visited Logan County for a weekend study of community journalism. The other sports specialist in that group was John Clay, long-time columnist for Lexington Herald-Leader.
Last year, Cougar baseball and football player Dylan Penick was named to the Resilient Team after he came back from a pair of knee surgeries.
In 2018, Franklin-Simpson softball star pitcher Madison Davis was on the list. She is the great-granddaughter of Bill and Nancy Gaines of Auburn. She now plays for Campbellsville University.
Russellville High School’s Dillon Porter was on the 2017 list. He played numerous sports in a Panther uniform while spending years overcoming a full-blown case of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
Area athletes honored along with Page this year are Allen County-Scottsville basketball player Charlie Calvert and Muhlenberg County basketball player Hayden Perkins.