SPORTS 1C
Transcription
SPORTS 1C
cyan pg 1 magenta pg 1 yellow pg 1 Black pg 1 A DVANCE-MONTICELLONIAN Wednesday, June 19, 2013 | mymonticellonews.net SPORTS CONTACT US 1C Harold Coggins, Sports Editor 870-367-5325 [email protected] Local prep basketball teams get early tuneup at UAM camp BY HAROLD COGGINS [email protected] Harold Coggins/Advance Monticellonian EASY TWO Monticello’s Bralin Daniels (50) goes up for a basket in UAM’s team camp. It’s only June and high school basketball is the farthest thing from most fans’ minds. After all, the 2013 football season is closer. But both Drew Central and Monticello high schools took part in a 12-team high school basketball team camp, sponsored by the University of Arkansas at Monticello, on Thursday that left both C.J. White and Wayne Sherrer impressed in some areas and knowing some areas need more work. “The UAM team camp basically validated the projected strengths and weaknesses of the 2013-14 Billies,” said Sherrer, who will enter his 36th season at wMonticello. “This will be a very young team and the faster the maturation process the quicker we will become a high quality team. And make no mistake about it, I expect this to be a highly competitive team.” The Billies were 3-1 during the one-day camp, losing to Bastrop, La., on a last-season shot before beating Monroe (La.) Wossman, Dermott and Kilbourne, La., in 40-minute scrimmages with running clocks. Three-minute halves separated two 20-minute periods. Drew Central was 2-2 during the day, winning over Dermott and White Hall but falling to Watson Chapel and Junction City. Pirate coach C.J. White said the day was as mixed as the results. “We did okay,” the Drew Central coach said. “It was a good opportunity for some of my younger players to play. I liked a lot of what I saw but also disliked a lot Team depth helps Marlins finish second Disqualifications are still problem, though, as bigger meets loom BY HAROLD COGGINS [email protected] Coach Aaron Jost warned about it the week before. Disqualifications prevented the Monticello Marlins from picking up their second consecutive swim meet title but depth kept the Marlins in second place. The host Warren Waves summer only program nipped the Marlins summer only team 889-884 at the 11-team Pink Tomato Festival Swim Meet in Warren on Saturday but Jost said he saw some things he liked, even with the disqualifications. The Marlins year-round team finished eighth with 96 points. “The meet went well,” Jost said. “There were more disqualifications than I wanted, especially since we worked on it last week, but our swimmers will continue to work hard. It was a close meet and we’ll be ready next week.” The Marlins captured 36 first places at Warren (down from 53 the week before) but finished first and second in five events and showed depth by placing five swimmers in the points in three events and four swimmers in five events. Only 16 points from winning the meet, the Monticello swim team had seven individual disqualifications and three relay mishaps, costing the Marlins at least three event victories. “Because of that experience, I hope our swimmers will be more tested for the championship meets (both the Arkansas AAU State Championships coming up in El Dorado on July 5-7 and the South Arkansas Swim Association Championships in Arkadelphia on July 20),” Jost said. “And I also expect to have several swimmers qualify for the (AAU) Junior Olympics (in Detroit on July 26-29).” Saturday, the usual swimmers came through again for the Marlins. Eight-year-old Heather Shrum won four individual events and was part of two winning relays to again pace Monticello in wins with six. Her sister, Brooke Shrum, was part of five wins and Raven Broome and Clay Shrum were part of four. Heather Shrum was first in all four strokes in the 8-and-under division: the 25-meter butterfly in a time of 24.95 seconds; the 25-meter backstroke in 28.72; the 25-meter breaststroke in 27.09; and the 25-meter freestyle in 21.56. She also teamed with Nicolette Thornhill, Olivia Tumlinson and Riley Kate Derryberry to place first in the 8-and-under 100-meter freestyle relay with a time of 2 minutes,2.91 seconds and with Thornhill, Derryberry and Maddie Newton to win the 8-and-under 100-meter medley relay in 2:16.11. Brooke Shrum placed first in the 12-and-under 50-meter fly (38.14), the 12-and-under 50-meter back (37.65), the 12-and-under 50-meter free (32.32), the 12-and-under 100-meter individual medley (1:28.46) and moved up a division to help Nora Catherine Saffold, Dailyn Johnston and Mallie Mullins claim top prize in the 14-and-under 200-meter free relay (2:35.36). Broome finished first in the 1518 200-meter free (2:56.15), the 15-18 400-meter free (5:54.23), See DEPTH Page 2C of what I saw. It is just June and the goal for the camp was for everyone to get some playing time and grow as a team, and I think we did just that. We have a lot of work to do but have a lot of hard workers. We will get where we need to be by the start of the season.” As far as individuals, both coaches said they saw some good things. One negative for Monticello is that Christian Robertson, the lone starter back from last year’s Class 4A, District 8 champions, broke his wrist in the early minutes of the Billies’ first scrimmage with Bastrop. Sherrer said Robertson will be in a cast for a month but should be ready by the time school starts this August. The bad news for Drew Central is Tremaine Newton, who will be counted on as one of the Pirates’ mainstays in 2013-2014, didn’t even play because of an injury. Newton should be fine by the time school starts, though, White said. “Dilly (Binns), Edmond (Hunter) and Tremaine know they are going to have to step up and be leaders on the floor,” White said, “and I was very pleased with the leadership that Dilly and Edmund showed during the camp.” The person Sherrer singled out was junior Sadaeys Miller. “I was happy with the competitiveness of Sadaeys,” the Monticello coach said. “Moving forward, I think he can provide the energy for others to feed off of. Overall, I expect our team to be better offensively than last year.” So while thoughts may be more toward football now, both coaches are chomping at the bit for the 2013-2014 basketball season. Chance Wright/Advance Monticellonian CONCENTRATION Edmund Hunter (4) of Drew Central focuses on making a shot over a Dermott defender. MONTICELLO HIGH SCHOOL’S ALL-STARS Ashleigh White photo courtesy of Eric White/Conway Log Cabin Democrat; Will Naron photo courtesy of Scott Harvey ALL-STAR SWINGS Monticello’s Ashleigh White (left) and Will Naron get their swings during Arkansas High School Coaches Association All-Star Game festivities Tuesday in Conway. White had a two-run single that scored two runs in her East team’s 10-8 victory over the West in the first game of the All-Star doubleheader. White’s RBI hit gave the East the lead for good in Game 1. The West salvaged a split by winning the nightcap 8-1 at the University of Central Arkansas’ Farris Field. On the other side of the UCA campus at Bear Stadium, Naron’s East team didn’t far as well. The West won both baseball games, 2-1 and 6-1. UAM cowboy finishes 29th at College NFR BY HAROLD COGGINS [email protected] It was not to be for Eric Manos. The University of Arkansas at Monticello cowboy who qualified for the College National Finals Rodeo in steer wrestling, finished out of the running last week in Casper, Wyo. Thanks to a slow 16.0 second first go-round that had him in 25th place after one day, Manos improved to 9.7 second in the second go-round and entered the final goround in 20th place, with an outside shot at reaching the top 12 and going to the finals. But in Wednesday’s third goround, Manos joined 16 other cowboys of the 46 competitors that didn’t post a time, dropping the UAM senior to 29th overall, with a 23.4 second average. The University of Nevada at Las Vegas’s Corey Rogers finished only fourth in the short final round but his average of the four rounds was enough to give him the event win. Panhandle State University won the men’s team title with 820 points, while Idaho State University’s 520 points was enough to win the women’s title. The top Ozarks Region of the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association (of which UAM is a member) men’s finisher was the University of Tennessee at Martin, which scored 390 points and finished 10th. Southern Arkansas University’s women scored 110 points, good enough for 16th place and the top Ozarks Region finisher among the women. The University of West Alabama’s Zac Wilson won the national championship in tie-down roping, bringing an individual crown to the Ozark region. The College of Southern Idaho captured three individual championships: Spencer Wright in saddle bronc riding, Orin Larsen in bareback riding and Timmi Ward in barrel racing. Lety’s second-place finish at this year’s U.S. Open doesn’t define him as a person One man’s elation is another man’s heartbreak. So it was for Phil Mickelson on Sunday at the golf’s U.S. Open and, unfortunately for Mickelson, it’s a feeling he’s experienced before. Lefty, who finally shook the mantra of “the best player never to win a major” in 2004 with the first of his three Masters HAROLD championships (he COGGINS was 0-for-41 in major COG’S CORNER golf tournaments up to that time), was second for the sixth time in our national championship and eighth runner-up finish in any major. It seems like when the breaks fall, they seem to avoid one of the most likable golfers of our time but it’s not like Mickelson’s the only good golfer to finish second. Jack Nicklaus did it 19 times in majors, Arnold Palmer did it 10 times and Mickelson’s eighth Sunday tied him with Greg Norman, Sam Snead and Tom Watson for third on the bridesmaids list. Only Nicklaus, with seven runner-up finishes, has more second places in the U.S. Open than does Mickelson. Still, golfers and fans of the game everywhere will tell you it’s hard not to like Mickelson. While Tiger Woods’ extramarital affairs, Sergio Garcia’s rantings and Rory McIlroy’s love life have gotten more attention lately, Lefty has always been a role model. Putting family before the game he plays as his job is something Mickelson does with ease. He carried a now-famous beeper during the last round of the U.S. Open in 1999 because his wife Amy was pregnant with the couple’s first child, Amanda, and the birth was imminent. Mickelson had vowed to leave the course immediately, even if he was leading, if Amy went into labor. The labor came but the call didn’t until Lefty lost by one stroke to the late Payne Stewart. Amanda was born the next day. One of my all-time favorite memories of watching golf was that of Stewart consoling Mickelson on the 18th green at Pinehurst with Lefty’s head in Stewart’s hands. Mickelson later said Stewart told him there was something far more important than winning a golf tournament about to happen to him: fatherhood. That occurred, ironically, on Father’s Day 1999. All that was made more poignant by the fact that, four months later, Stewart died in a plane accident, leaving a wife and two children, 13 and 10 at the time. Then, in 2003, Mickelson was by Amy’s side when she almost died from serious complications of childbirth while giving birth to the couple’s third child, Evan. Six years after that, Mickelson put golf on hold and was by Amy’s side again when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009. The Mickelsons have successfully fought that obstacle. In 2011, he had to deal with his own problems when he was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, a potentially debilitating condition that could have ended his golf ca- reer. He’s so far overcome that hurdle, too, and turned his thoughts back to his family. Shoot, he even attended his daughter’s eighth-grade graduation in California the night before a 7:11 a.m. Eastern Time tee time for the first round of this year’s Open in Pennsylvania. He promptly went out and shot a 3-under-par 67, claiming the first-round lead. Heading into Sunday’s final round as the only player under par on Merion’s brutal East Course, Mickelson—on his 43rd birthday—looked like the man to beat. Double bogeys and the third and fifth holes derailed Lefty’s thoughts of a fifth major championship, though. An eagle on the 10th hole briefly gave Mickelson the lead by himself but three bogeys coming in allowed Justin Rose to slip by him and become the first Englishman in 43 years to win our national golf championship. “Heartbreak,” was the way Mickelson described Sunday. “This is tough to swallow after coming so close. This was my best chance of all of them. I was playing well, I had a golf course I really liked that I could play aggressive on a number of holes. I felt like this was as good an opportunity I could ask for and to not get it ... it hurts.” I would imagine it does—for the moment. But for the player who’s won 41 PGA titles, four major championships, gone through almost losing his wife twice and fought through his own illness, better days are most likely ahead. While more high-profile players like Woods (who was 13-over for his worst major finish of his professional career), McIlroy (who shot a 6-over 76 Sunday, bent one club, threw another down the fifth fairway and finished 14-over) and Garcia (who was even worse than those two, at 15-over) will continue to get more press coverage, Lefty will continue to put family first as he moves forward in his golf career. There couldn’t be a more suitable example of what all fathers should strive to be than Mickelson, whose eighth major second-place finish occurred on Father’s Day 2013.