Katy has continued to improve all season.

The Tigers have made strides in every area from the start of the season to now in the tail end of the district schedule. With pitching, defense, hitting and baserunning hitting their stride.

That was on full display Tuesday, as Katy beat Taylor in a District 19-6A matchup 10-0, run ruling the Mustangs (14-8, 5-7) in a matchup that clinched an outright district title for the Tigers.

“We’ve really learned how to gel together and learned very quickly that we are a tough team,” said senior catcher Kailey Wyckoff. “Once we focused in and found the right mindset we discovered that toughness and it’s really helped us.”

It’s the seventh straight outright district title for the Tigers, who have put together a 22-3 record and 10-1 district record so far this season. But it didn’t always seem like an inevitability like in some years.

The Tigers actually started off district with a loss, the teams first district loss in eight seasons, the day after that game, the group got together and deciding to be better.

And the Tigers have done just that, winning 10 straight games since that loss en route to the district championship.

“The biggest change was when we lost to Seven Lakes,” said Katy head coach Kalum Haack. “I think it hi really hard with a lot of them because that was our first district loss in eight years. But I told them also that ballgame that it wasn’t on them it was on me. Since then, they have been a completely different team. They’re hitting the ball, the defense is playing well and I’m just really pleased with how they’ve turned the corner since that game.”

Katy’s win over Taylor was a microcosm of how they’ve won all season, as they put together a strong offensive performance to go with dominant pitching and elite defense.

Katy put two runs up in the first inning, as Ashtyn Reichardt hit a sacrifice fly to get the Tigers on the board before Cameryn Harrison reached on an error and another run scored.

Taylor held katy at bay for the next two innings, before Katy got two more runs in the fourth, with an RBI double from Avery Porter and an RBI triple from Wyckoff and Katy got two more in the fifth from a Motgomery Henderson single and a Hailey Gore sacrifice fly.

“We were very impatient in our first few at bats,” Wyckoff said. “We’re not really used to seeing someone who is a bit slower with the ball but is very precise. We had to regroup and we realized that she will give you a strike eventually, you just have to wait. We had a lot more success once we did that.”

The tigers did the rest of their damage in the sixth to end the game. Erynne Castillo started the scoring by driving in Wyckoff before Henderson drove in a run with a single and Harrison doubled before Gore closed things out with an RBI single.

“We hit the ball really well all throughout the ballgame, we just hit it right to him,” Haack said. “I told them after the game, you just keep doing the same thing you’re doing and those hit will start to fall. We didn’t really change up anything we did, we just have to keep hitting the ball hard. When it goes right to them, there’s nothing you can do about it. I was really pleased with our defense pitching and how we hit, especially after having four days off with seeing no live pitching.”

The win secures the one seed for Katy, who will play Morton Ranch on Friday before preparing for the playoffs.

“We focus on what we can control, and that’s what we do,” Haack said. “We work on certain aspects of the game so we know we’ll be ready for anything anyone throws at us and that we can execute anytime we want to execute it. But playing in this district allows you to see all different styles of pitching and seeing all those things combined really helps us once we get to the playoffs because once you get there, you see a lot of the same thing.”