All's well that ends well, of course, and Owensboro Catholic High School is, indeed, back in the KHSAA State Softball Tournament for the 12th consecutive year, and for the 14th time in 15 seasons.

Keeping the uncommonly long streak of state tournament appearances intact, however, proved to be a significant series of challenges.

Four times, Lady Aces head coach George Randolph had heart-to-heart talks with his talented but inconsistent team. Three times, the discussions bore momentary fruit, before the team lapsed, for Catholic, dangerously close to mediocrity.

"There were a lot of factors holding us up a little bit the first half of the season," Randolph said. "We had graduated 13 seniors the previous two seasons, we had a talented group of inexperienced players we were trying to find the right positions for, and it was taking a while for our younger players to understand their roles.

"But there was some frustration regarding the hunger of this team, and it began with the first game of the season."

Back on March 20, the Lady Aces traveled to Central Hardin, were blanked 5-0, and Randolph was immediately concerned.

"We never really got off the bus that day," Randolph said. "Central Hardin won the game and their team was celebrating afterward. It was a big deal for them to beat us like they did.

"We were flat from start to finish."

Catholic bounced back to win four of its next six games against generally strong competition, before losing consecutive games to Navarre (Fla.) High School to close out a spring break junket.

"Navarre was 19-2, but I didn't think they were much better than we were," Randolph recalled. "We lost the second game to them 8-3, and we just didn't seem to have any energy — we weren't playing with the type of heart you have to play with to compete with or beat quality teams.

"We discussed all this, and, again, for a time, we played better."

The Lady Aces, indeed, won five of their next six games before visiting 9th District rival Daviess County on April 18. That night, Catholic was listless at the plate and fell to the Lady Panthers, 4-2.

"We hit three balls out of the infield the whole night," Randolph said. "We weren't ready to play, Daviess County wanted the game badly, and they deserved to win.

"Our players seemed to be worried about individual stuff at that point, instead of focusing on what we needed to do to play better as a team.

"Losing to a district team and all, I was hoping that would be the last time we would need to have one of those long post-game talks, but that didn't turn out to be the case."

Randolph's regular-season frustration reached its zenith on May 1 when Catholic, needing a victory to claim the No. 1 seed outright for the 9th District Tournament, was shut out 1-0 by Apollo sophomore Katelyn Knott -- creating a rare three-way tie for the No. 1 seed.

The loss left Catholic 13-9-1 overall and 4-2 within the district. Suddenly, for the first time in a dozen years, the Lady Aces seemed vulnerable. Something had to change, and quick.

"After the Apollo game I was wondering if we were ever going to be able to put it together, psychologically and mentally," Randolph conceded. "In my mind, there was no question that the talent was there, but we lacked the hunger our opponents had, and the Apollo game was a great example of that.

"I told the team that there was still time, but we couldn't wait any longer if we expected to be the team we were hoping to be. I told the players it was up to them, that we couldn't do it for them.

"Fortunately, after that, everything began coming together -- and we've playing as team ever since."

The results measure how much. Since losing to Apollo, the Lady Aces have gone 16-1-1 against stout competition -- a 1-0 loss to Louisville Mercy and a 2-2 tie with Louisville Ballard being the only blemishes.

In terms of team talks, the fourth time proved to be the charm.

"We've learned a lot about ourselves, and the girls persevered through the tough times and came out the other side a much more cohesive team," Randolph said. "We won a lot of tight games at the end of the regular season and, looking back, I think that's set us up for success in the postseason.

"Since tournament play started, we've never wavered. Even when we've gotten behind or struggled to score for a few innings, we've maintained the belief we would win in the end -- it takes that sort of mentally tough mindset to win championships, and after some false starts we finally put it all together."

Now, the state's No. 9 team (29-10-2) seems as formidable as ever -- bringing into the state tournament a .322 team batting average, 20 home runs, and a pitching staff earned run average of 2.01.

Statistics aside, Randolph is convinced that re-establishing the hunger and will to win that has made Owensboro Catholic the state's most decorated fast-pitch program (a state record five championships), has been the essential element in the turnaround.

"Sometimes, you can lose to teams not as talented as you because they simply want it more," Randolph said, "and that was a hard lesson for our team to learn this year.

"Once they got it together, though, they kept it together. I would say that no team I've had has made a more pronounced jump from mid-season to the end of the season like this one.

"As I told them all along, it was up to them. And, to their credit, the girls are ones who turned it around. They've discovered their own identity as a team, and I couldn't be more proud of them."

Owensboro Catholic has owned the 3rd Region in softball. The numbers don't lie. The Lady Aces just packed their 12th consecutive 3rd Region championship in their trophy case.

Wasn't supposed to happen, but it did.

Owensboro Catholic has always been in the talk for the state softball championship, too. The Lady Aces go into this tournament, starting today at Jack C. Fisher Park, having won a record five fast-pitch state titles since 1998. All have been under coach George Randolph's watch.

The Lady Aces last won the last game of the KHSAA softball season back in 2009.The Lady Aces have gone 0-4 since then in their last two state tournament appearances, an equally remarkable statistic going the other direction.

And, you would need an incredibly strong search engine to find any word of Catholic being a threat in this state tournament.

"As far as us, even though we're ranked in the top 10, we're not getting any mention as being one of the favorites; that's fine with us," Randolph said as the Lady Aces were taking fielding practice earlier this week. "Everybody had pretty well written us off at midseason. We tied Ballard in the last week of the season, they went up to second and we dropped to ninth. So, no, there's no pressure on us."

That is a mighty rare late spring occurrence when the 16 best high school softball teams in the commonwealth gather here to decide who's the best.

How well that mindset works for Catholic over the next couple of days will be interesting to see. It has taken some time for this group to gell, but the Lady Aces seem to have hit a nice stride heading into the double-elimination format. They finished ranked No. 9, but went 15-1-1 down the stretch. Catholic takes a 29-10-2 record into the state tournament.

Randolph is quick to rattle off the teams he thinks should be the favorites, and leading his list is Greenwood (No. 3), Mercy (No. 4) and Christian County (No. 5). Of course, Randolph thinks his team should be in the mix as a potential winner, too.

"The last three weeks of the regular season we played some good ball, we were in some tight ballgames, we came back and won some games, made some big plays in the field and got some clutch hitting," Randolph said. "I think that's helped their confidence and they are comfortable where they are at, and with their roles."

Emily Woodward is a senior who was on Catholic's state title team in 2009. She was also in the two winless state tournaments. Woodward, an infielder, thinks the Lady Aces have taken a dual approach to this tournament.

There isn't pressure on this team because it took so long for it to get rolling. Yet, because the Lady Aces aren't in the discussion as a possible state winner, they feel like they're being slighted.

"We don't have as much pressure because we haven't done as well," Woodward said. "But the fact that teams aren't talking about us makes us feel like we have something to prove to them."

The goal for the Lady Aces here is the same as always when it's state tournament time. No matter the record, Catholic expects to be playing for a championship beyond the regional.

"We go in this thing thinking we're going to win the state," Woodward said. "We don't want to go 0-2. The goal is to win a state championship. We went in there last year thinking we want to win it. We went in there two years ago thinking we want to win it. We're going to go in this year trying to go all the way to the end."

Getting themselves together during the postseason, playing their best softball of the year, has made the Lady Aces believe they can stick around for more than two games.

"Our confidence has improved tremendously," Woodward said. "People didn't even think we would get out of region, now we're going into the state tournament. We're at the highest peak of our season, we're playing the best ball we've played all year.

"I think that's an intimidation factor for the other teams, because we're playing our best ball, and people thought we weren't even going to be in the state. There are teams that aren't in the state that should have been, and we're in the state now, so it's our time to prove ourselves, and try to win a state championship."

In his 17 seasons as head coach of the Owensboro Catholic High School softball team, George Randolph has never shied away from putting together a challenging schedule for the Lady Aces — and he's never stopped believing that playing state- and nationally-ranked teams hasn't been beneficial to the program.

Thus, ninth-ranked Catholic (29-10-2) will enter Thursday's opening-round game against Johnson Central in the Rawlings/KHSAA State Tournament at Jack C. Fisher Park "battle-tested," according to Randolph.

"It's always been my belief that to be the best, you have to play the best," said Randolph, who has led the Lady Aces to a record five fast-pitch state championships and 12 consecutive 3rd Region titles. "You don't get better playing a soft schedule. You get better by competing against quality teams, and, even in defeat, learning new things about the game.

"We've played nationally ranked teams such as Niceville (Fla.). We've been playing them since 2001 and in all that time we've never beat them — we tied them once. But we've gained a lot from playing them, even with the losses we've taken — every time."

In addition to Niceville, Catholic has battled other teams from Florida and throughout the southeast through the years. The Lady Aces have played in big-time Tennessee tournaments in Nashville and Murfreesboro, have played in elite events throughout Kentucky, have played the best from southern Indiana, and annually host one of the commonwealth's top tournaments — the Sports Warehouse Catholic Classic.

It's all by design for Randolph and his highly seasoned staff, who want Catholic's players to be the best they can when it counts -- in the postseason.

"We want our players to believe they've seen every scenario possible by the end of the regular season — pitching, hitting and defense," Randolph said. "I've always felt that's made us more prepared at tournament time, because the girls come away believing they can compete against the best teams out there — that can be a really big edge, psychologically.

"It's a matter of gaining confidence and learning what it takes to compete with, and beat, the best. It can be a tough adjustment for a player coming up from the freshmen or (junior varsity) team, but it's an adjustment that has to be made. Some make it better, and quicker, than others -- but at some point you have to make that leap."

Understanding his schedule is more rugged than most, Randolph is philosophical when it comes to his team's won-lost record.

"I've never been one to worry about how many wins or losses we have, as long as we're getting better as a team in the process," he said. "Now, that doesn't mean I don't want to win every game, because I do. But you have to be realistic and understand sometimes the other team just plays better than you -- I'm OK with that."

Randolph said he got the idea for competitive scheduling in the 1990s, when for a couple of years he drove the bus for Catholic's baseball team on its spring break junket to Gulf Shores, Ala.

"I learned a lot from those experiences," he said. "The baseball team would be playing its fourth or fifth game, and their opponent would be two weeks away from postseason play. When you can compete with teams like that, it has to be helpful to you in the long run.

"So, we started taking our softball team south and you could tell right away we were gaining from the experience. We'd come back to Kentucky feeling like we were ready for anybody."

What was true then remains so.

"Playing great teams helps you understand you have to be ready to play, and play with passion, every time you step on the field," Randolph said. "The state tournament will be full of great teams, so hopefully playing another tough schedule will pay off for us this week.

"It definitely won't hurt."

While it has taken a team effort, with the emphasis on team, for Owensboro Catholic High School's softball program to transform itself from mediocre at mid-season to magical in the postseason, no individuals on the Lady Aces' roster has contributed in the myriad ways Brittany Murphy has.

She is undoubtedly a primary reason No. 9 Catholic (29-10-2) is one of the hottest teams in the commonwealth as it prepares for 15th Region champion Johnson Central in the opening round of the Rawlings/KHSAA State Softball Tournament at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Jack C. Fisher Park.

A 5-foot-5 junior right-hander, Murphy evolved into the team's ace pitcher and starred at shortstop on days she wasn't delivering on-the-corner fastballs, curves, rise balls and change-ups.

In short, Murphy has become a star.

"I'm really proud of Brittany on several levels," OCHS head coach George Randolph said. "We knew she was a talented pitcher, but we needed her to step forward and have that bulldog mentality it takes to become a stopper. She's done that, and it's made a lot of difference in her competitiveness and her success as a pitcher."

The numbers speak for themselves, as Murphy has carved out a 16-5 record, with 93 strikeouts and a team-best earned run average of 1.55.

She won all three of Catholic's 3rd Region Tournament games, including a relief appearance in the Lady Aces' 13-7 semifinal conquest of upset-minded Muhlenberg County.

"I've gained more confidence as the season's gone along," the soft-spoken Murphy said. "I've learned to make the best pitch I can make and then rely on the great defense I've got behind me. You just take it pitch by pitch and do the best you can do — that's really all you can do as a pitcher."

Her production, of course, hasn't been limited to the pitcher's circle.

Murphy has been one of the team's most potent hitters in the postseason, and has been solid all season — batting .300 with four homers, 25 RBIs (tied with catcher Brooke Payne for most on the team), to go with seven doubles and a triple. At shortstop, she has exhibited terrific range and a strong, accurate arm.

She cracked a solo homer to ignite a six-run fifth inning against Muhlenberg County, then came back with a two-run homer in the seventh inning to help put the finishing touches on Catholic's 6-1 victory over Apollo in the regional championship game.

"I just love to play, whether it's pitching or playing the field," she said. "Every time I take the field I just try to help our team win."

Murphy has done just that — in more ways than one.