GLASGOW – In a banner day for Barren County High School’s athletic department, the school hosted three simultaneous NCAA Division I signing ceremonies Thursday morning.

Barren County’s Jameson Corbin, Chesney McPherson and Katie Murphy all inked national letters of intent in front of family, teammates, fellow students, coaches and teachers in a packed auditorium.

It was an impressive turnout to celebrate three impressive student-athletes.

Corbin will head to Eastern Kentucky to play men’s golf following a breakthrough senior season, McPherson will be a dual-sport athlete at Kentucky as a runner in both cross country and track and field, and Murphy will stick closest to home as she finally made official a long-time commitment to Western Kentucky’s softball program.

Corbin earned his spot in the D1 ranks starting with a stellar summer before his senior year at Barren County.

“Some would say this has been a breakout year for me, for sure,” Corbin said. “At the lowest times, I knew I just had to keep grinding. I had to try and keep getting better each and every day and sure enough the results started pouring in whenever I just started to grind a little bit more.”

Barren County boys’ golf coach Craig Pippen regrets he just got one season with Corbin after taking on the job as the program’s coach this season. Still, one year was enough time for Pippen to appreciate Corbin’s work habits.

“His work ethic has been amazing,” Pippen said. “The time he puts in and the time that these young people put in outside the requirements for them from their coaches is what matters.”

Corbin said his strong summer attracted some notice from college coaches, and when he took an official visit to Eastern Kentucky he was hooked by the campus environment and coaching staff.

“It’s never been a realization, it’s just always been the dream and the goal,” Corbin said. “But as the summer went on, it started to become more of a reality to me and makes me appreciate all the hard work that has went into it and all the sacrifice that has been put into it.”

Hard work is something Chesney McPherson has been putting in since the time Barren County girls’ cross country and track coach Catherine Beals has known her since McPherson’s middle-school days as an eager new runner.

“Even as a seventh-grader and then all through the years up until now, one thing has not changed and that is her tenacity and her grit to lean into the pain,” Beals said. “Cross country is not an easy sport. It’s not just physical, it’s mental and she is able to go to a place and put all of that aside and basically run toward that finish line. And she always has that goal in mind that I’m going to get better each and every time.”

McPherson capped off her senior season by winning her second straight Class 3A, Region 2 championship. Then, despite running on a sore ankle she turned in the week leading up to the KHSAA state meet, McPherson turned in the best performance by an area runner with her fourth-place finish in Lexington.

“I thought this season went really well, I really enjoyed it,” McPherson said. “I got to go to a lot of races that I wanted to for my senior year. I’m not finished yet. I’ve got some national races to go to these next few weeks, but I liked how the state meet went. I gave it my all. I went against two other SEC commits and it was just a great day.”

Murphy can look forward to one more season playing softball for her father, Daryl, at Barren County in the spring. Last season, she batted a team-high .544 with six home runs, nine triples, 16 doubles and 55 runs batted in while stealing 24 bases as the Trojanettes won the District 15 championship and reached the Region 4 semifinals before ending their run with a stellar 29-3 record.

“Katie has been a joy to coach and to be around since she was 4 years old,” Daryl Murphy said. “I used to coach high school at another school and her mom would have her at tee-ball practice and I would be somewhere with the other softball team, but we have been super-proud of her efforts from Day 1.”

Before that final high school season playing for her dad and then for WKU coach Amy Tudor beyond that, Murphy is still hoping to get in one more season of high school basketball as she rehabs from a knee injury suffered playing basketball over the summer.

But on Thursday, Katie Murphy took just a little time to look ahead to her future.

“This is a great day,” she said. “I’m friends with Jameson and Chesney, so being able to spend it with them has just been amazing. And all the people that have come out to support and just seeing how much love everyone’s been able to show, it’s just been a great day and I’m glad to finally say that I’m officially a Hilltopper.”{&end}