Chris Tilton Sports

2012-02-12T11:07:00.000-05:00

Shawnee Duels South

The first matchup between Shawnee and South was excitingwhere the game’s outcome wasn’t decided until late in the 4^th quarter. Round two would also be closely contestedgame where the neighboring schools would go toe to toe for 4 quarters. However, this time South was playing with ahandicap. Senior and leading scorerJohnny Meyers would be watching the game from the sidelines. He had injured his leg in the game againstTri-County North and has not been able to play since. Speaking to him before the game – his injuryis day to day. His return to the courtis expected, but no idea as to exactly when.

South got an early advantage, but Shawnee made up thedifference and then some – leading the game 15-13 at the end of the firstquarter. South repeated their defensefrom the first matchup – a box and one with the extra attention going to JakeAdams. Shawnee used a couple of zonevariations (2-3,1-3-1) and then mixed in a little full court pressure to keepSouth off balance.

It was a one point game at half time. And that was the type of game that it was –two teams going toe to toe for 4 quarters. Neither team could go on a longscoring run and they swapped the lead time after time, the lead not being muchmore than 2-3 points at any one time for either team. It was close to a stalemate.

In the 4^th quarter it was a one point game at the6:30 mark in favor of Shawnee. In an effort to break the stalemate, South wentto a man to man defense. But Shawnee wasable to adjust and South couldn’t get an advantage. But the game broke open on a pair of oldfashioned 3 point plays late in the game. Shawnee’s Matt Buell threw up a shot that dropped and he wasfouled. Buell completed the three pointplay by making his foul shot. Then JakeAdams drove the basket, and likewise was fouled and made his shot.

Suddenly Shawnee had some breathing room – a 7 point lead. It was at the 02:30 mark and Coach Gerken took a timeout to set upthe end game for his team. The strategyworked out as South was unable to close to gap in the waning minutes – foulingsent Shawnee shooters to the foul line where they put the game away. At the final buzzer it was 62-54 Shawnee, areversal of their earlier game.

“Southhas a really nice team regardless of who they have on the floor -they have alot of really good shooters,” commented Shawnee coach Gerken, “They can extendyour defense because you have to defend Cottingim and Innis. As soon as you extend, then they go inside toGreen. In the first half I didn’t thinkwe did a very good job of hitting the glass, Green had 10 rebounds. So weadjusted to take that away.”

Hecontinued, “We kept fighting back and forth the entire game, I was proud of wayour kids kept fighting back. We madesome key half time adjustments and they worked out for us. It made them changewhat they were doing. Overall it was a competitive game, I was really happywith the effort.”

OnDavid Willoughby, “In the first half, he got into early foul trouble and waspretty much a nonfactor. But in the second half, he was aggressive and gotafter it. He did a nice job of making open jump shots when we called upon him. He did a nice job of keeping Green off theglass as well. And Jake Adams came on inthe second half. This is probably the best he’s played against the box andone. Give South credit – he had to workfor every one of his shots.”

Scoringfor TVS: Baker 7, Cole 5, Cottingim 9, Green 17, Guehring 2, Innis 13; Scoringfor Shawnee: Adams 14, Buell 9, Elam 4, Hocker 6, Letner 8, Mann 6, Willoughby15.

2012-02-12T11:01:00.001-05:00

Shawnee Defense Too Much for South

It has been a tough season for both Twin Valley South andPreble Shawnee’s girls basketball teams. Shawnee had been fighting injuries all season and had only gotten backto full strength at the end of season. Only to have the flu bug take away 3 playersfor their previous game against Dixie. South did not have the services of postplayer Gentry Gates due to injury. Bothteams entered the season finale looking for a victory to give them a boostbefore the state tournament begins next week.

Defensively both teams began with zone defenses. It quickly became apparent that part ofShawnee’s strategy was to put a lid on the South inside game by double teaming KatieStrazheim who was South’s remaining post player. At the other end of the court Shawnee wasgetting points in the paint and quickly ran a 14-5 lead at the end of the firstquarter.

South went to a man to man defense in an effort to stem thetide. But Shawnee continued to hittheir shots, Cheyenne Edwards had a goodquarter – hitting several layups and short jumpers. Turnovers would plague South throughout thegame. And a good many of thoseturnovers became Shawnee points as they took advantage of the gifts. It was hard for South to create any offense.Their outside shots were not falling while the inside game continued to be frustrated.

In the second half Shawnee mixed in some zone and man to mandefense to keep South off balance. Atthe end of the third quarter they still had a healthy lead 36-20. South went to a press in an effort to make upthe difference. They made up a littleground, but Shawnee would have none of that and did some half court trappingand some pressing of their own. Thepressure became too much for South to handle and Shawnee ran away with the leadand the ball game, winning 50-31.

“We just didn’t come out ready to play”, Commented Southcoach Mabry, “we talked about it at halftime and said we are putting out alackluster effort. We like to have these nights where we play all daybasketball against another school. Butevery time we just aren’t ready to play.”

On not having Gates, “ When we have Gentry Gates and KatieStrazheim in there they complement each other. When you have two threats in thepost it helps us out. Every time Katie got the ball tonight, they doubled downon her. It definitely took out an optionthat we like to have.”

Shawnee coach Joe Webster, “Aggressive defense is what itcomes down to - being able to trap and put pressure on the ball. Our goal wasto double down on their post player and trap their perimeter players anyplacewe could. We had a lot of steal and goes– that’s what the traps do. CourtneyLakes had 20 points, Cheyenne Edwards had 14 points, and Sidney Brown had 11. “

He continued, “Coming into this week we had to practice with 4 and 5 kids because of the flu bug. But we have been down a good part of the yearwith injuries. Lakes was out for 7 games,she just came back full strength last week. Steele went down the third game ofthe year, she was out until the 13^th game. This has been the first game where we came outand did what we do. “

State Tournament matchups: Next week TVS playsCovington at Brookville High School at 2pm. Shawnee plays Hamilton Badin at 5pmat Monroe High School

2012-02-05T12:13:00.000-05:00

Denny Dumps Dixie

Dixie entered Saturday night’s game with a two game losing skid after losing to Tri Village the previous week and dropping a game to league opponent Milton Union the night before. But it would be a tall order for Dixie to fulfill as Valley View came into the game with some height in the lineup and potent scoring weapon Zack Denny. And to make it even more of a challenge, Dixie would not have the services of senior guard Andrew Barnett who was unable to play in either weekend game.

Dixie employed their man to man defense, but also used a zone defense in the half court – occasionally trapping out of this set. Valley used a couple of different zone defenses and Dixie was able to get some points scoring from outside. But they had to play catch up all night. Valley View started with a 7-0 run before Dixie took a time out and got things figured out. Dixie tied the Spartans at one point in the first half, but the Spartans kept a 2 point lead going into the locker room at half time.

In the third quarter, the Greyhounds inexplicably were cold shooting from the floor. And since Valley View had decent height, there were not many second chance shots from rebounds. At the other end of the floor Valley View was steadily pulling away as they connected on shot after shot. Entering the 4th quarter, the Spartans lead had now grown to 12 points.

Dixie desperately went into a full court press to try and get some points from turnovers. Although they got some points from steals, they gave up some baskets in transition. And Zack Denny had a phenomenal game, when Dixie tried to make a surge, he was able to make some critical shots against a stalwart defense. For the game he had 31 points. Turnovers were also a problem for Dixie Saturday evening, time after time passes were picked off and converted into easy points.

Although Dixie had their best quarter of the game, scoring 17 points in the final stanza, Valley View bested them by scoring 18. Valley View would extend the Dixie losing streak to 3 as they would win 54-41. Next week the Greyhounds will play league foes Middletown Madison and Carlisle.

Coach Creamer commented after the game, “It’s been an extremely difficult week. It’s been harder for us in the locker room and in practicing than on the game floor. We’re dealing with some things and we just need to grow and mature as players and as a group. Of the three games that we have now lost, I thought that tonight was our best effort. I thought we played very hard tonight. But when you can’t put the ball in the hole, it makes the turnovers even that much more glaring. We are not where we want to be as a basketball team – but we not really that far away either. “

Scoring for Dixie: Luke Bowling 8, Zach Grubb 3, Landon Hicks 2, John Isaacs 14, Matt Isaacs 9, Jon Sauer 5. Scoring for Valley View: Patrick Boyle 4, Zack Denny 31, Josh Haeseker 5, Brad Miller 2, Cooper Nolte 2, Jeff Pierce 2, Andrew Zellner 8.

2012-02-05T12:03:00.000-05:00

The Rivalry is Back

Rivals Twin Valley South and Tri-County North clashed on Friday night. Although South entered the game with the better record, North was able to give South all that they could handle. The last few years the series has been lopsided in the favor of South. But this game showed that the rivalry was back. It was a game with several lead changes and the end was in doubt up to the last minute.

Surprisingly, it was North who got an early lead. They were able to get their outside shooting game going and in the first half it was effective. South started in a man to man defense, but also used their zone – going back and forth the entire night. North utilized a zone defense for most of the game. At the end of the first quarter it was 13-10 in favor of North. Cole Cottingim gave South their first lead of the game with a three point shot. But North closed the gap and the game was tied at halftime 21-21. In the close confines of the North gym, it was a noisy first half as the crowd rooted for the hometown team.

A re-invigorated South defense manned the court in the second half. They played aggressive half court defense and stifled the North shooters. Then South began to put a little distance between themselves and their rivals. Cole Cottingim hit another trey to break the tie and Mike Green, who had been benched in the second quarter with 2 fouls, had a good second half. It was time for the South fans to make a little noise.

But North stuck around, they stayed within 7-8 points of South. They went to a full court man to man late in the 4th quarter and were able to get some turnovers. When they fouled, South was not hitting the front end of 1 and 1’s, but South was able to control the rebound. So despite their efforts, they couldn’t make up any ground. With a minute left, South still had a 8 point lead. They were able to control the game from there, winning 51-42. South got their victory, but they had to earn it.

Coach Jackson commented after the game, “It’s good to get the rivalry back, we preached this week that it has been awhile since the North South game has been competitive. I thought it was a great game, South played hard, it was physical, hats off to coach Augspurger and his team – they finished. But our guys we have turned a corner, we’ve seen this from early on – we have gotten better each week. We’ve competed and had our chances against a good team, and South is a good team. With a minute left we had an opportunity and had we gotten a couple of rebounds, we could have cut it down to a one possession game.”

On Austin Hutchins who lead all scorers, “His effort was incredible and he showed good leadership. He has an excellent attitude. And Josh Diehl had a good game, he didn’t score as much, but he did a lot of little things to help the team, he took a beating down low – he played sick and just played through it. Billy Derringer had a good game, Cole Williams, Tyler Reese, Matt Louthan all gave great effort.”

Coach Augsperger commented on the rivalry: “We know this that no matter what their record is that North is always going to give us their best shot. It’s a rivalry game that they will get fired up for – and I thought they gave us their best shot tonight. Now we did not play a good first quarter, and they played really well. They were hitting their shots early in the game. We played a good third quarter and had a good start to the fourth quarter. For the most part, we felt pretty good about ourselves… I feel a lot better about this game than I did about our last two. “

2012-02-03T20:28:00.001-05:00

tvs 21 tcn 21 halftime

2012-01-29T18:28:00.000-05:00

Twin Valley South came into this week riding a 3 game losing skid, albeit against some top notch teams. The Panthers needed some victories to get their momentum back and this was a 3 game week with a rescheduled game against Bradford teed up first. They were able to dispatch the Railroaders 57-54 before going into the weekend with back to back games against Arcanum and Brookville. The Trojans fell 63-54 Friday and so the Panthers were ready to go for the trifecta against the Blue Devils. But Brookville would prove to be a stubborn nut to crack.

With only two victories it would be easy to overlook Brookville. But they had home court advantage and looked to be well prepared. They must have seen how South had problems with trapping defenses as they would use a ¾ court trap in the second half to throw South off balance and make a strong run. But the first half would go to South. They were able to get points from their big men even though Brookville tried to use a 2-3 zone to nail down the inside game. But it was a low scoring affair, about half way the second quarter it was only 13-10 in favor of South. However, South would finish the half strong thanks to a pair of Cole Cottingim treys to close out the half up decisively 23-13.

It looked like the game would be well in hand and I think the Panther fans were ready for the visiting team to extend their run coming out of the locker room and walk off with a victory. But Brookville ran their trap constantly in the second half and this put South into hurry up mode – when they didn’t turn over the ball, they rushed their shots and as a result were missing. At the other end of the court Brookville, who had been slow to score all night, found their range and began connecting on three point shots.

Brookville was able to take the lead (28-27) at the 05:26 mark in the 3rd quarter. The lead would bounce back and forth over the remainder of the quarter, until the end when Mike Green scored 2 baskets – to tie, then give South a slim 36-34 lead going into the last quarter. But Green had not cooled down yet, he was able to get 2 more baskets to extend South’s lead to start the last quarter. But would a 6 point lead be enough? South defenders worked hard, but Brookville was able to chip away at the South lead.

With a minute left, South had a 40-38 lead. South threw the ball away when they tried to go into a slowdown. But South was able to get the ball back and now Brookville had to foul with 30 seconds left in the game. Although South didn’t drain the nets from the foul line, they hit the front end of 1 and 1’s. Johnny Myers and Wes Cole made trips to the foul line and extended South’s lead for a 45-41 victory.

Coach Augspurger was not as happy as one would think after three victories, “One of my favorite expressions is playing with defensive integrity. When you are playing with defensive integrity then no matter who you are playing with, no matter what the score, you set yourself up for success. I have talked to this team about it, but we just haven’t shown it whatsoever.”

He continued, ”We have a tendency that we look at who we are playing and what their record is. When we play against good teams we have good quarters, we play close against them and lose. And against lesser teams - no offense to teams with a handful of wins, we come in and play to their level. We have not been a good enough Monday through Thursday team in practice. I am a huge believer that is important. We are not where we want to be at this point in the season.”

Scoring for TVS: Anthony Augspurger 4, Wes Cole 4, Cole Cottingim 8, Mike Green 14, Troy Innis 3, Johnny Myers 12. Scoring for Brookville: Derek Day 3, Logan Kindell 17, Austin Kuck 3, Luke Landis 6, Chaise Spangler 2, Tyler Tincher 8, Wes Zellers 2.

2012-01-22T09:13:00.000-05:00

After playing 4 games in 8 days, the Dixie Greyhounds had what pretty much added up to a week off as they had only one game this week. So they were able to focus and prepare for a single opponent. The unlucky recipient of the extra attention – National Trail. It has been a tough year for the Blazers as they only have a single win this season, and the Greyhounds did not show them any love as a smothering defense and potent offense quickly dismissed any thoughts of a Blazer upset.

To counter Dixie’s man to man defense, Trail utilized a spread offense across the foul line extended. Later in the game they would use a baseline offense. Throughout the night the Blazers seemed to give up the inside game to the Greyhounds, shooting from the outside and using an occasional dribble drive to keep Dixie from sitting on their shooters. Trail started with a man to man defense, but went to a 2-3 zone in an attempt to stifle the Dixie inside game. Dixie did press some in the first quarter – and were able to convert steals into scores.

At the end of the first quarter, Dixie had a healthy 18-6 lead. They altered their half court defense and went to a trapping zone. Throughout the night, the Greyhounds would take advantage of Blazer ball handling errors and turn them into points. In the last part of the second quarter, Dixie did not allow a score and took a 35-16 lead into the locker room. Like a pit bull latching onto its quarry, Dixie would not loosen their grip when they re-entered the court. The dry spell for Trail lasted until well into the 3rd quarter, when they finally got a couple of baskets.

Trail was not able to generate much offense even when Dixie emptied their bench for the last quarter. They did try a quick line up and full court pressure to try and get some quick points on turnovers, but Dixie would have none of that. On the other hand, Dixie got at least one score from every player on their roster. Three players would score in double figures – Zach Grubb, Luke Bowling, and John Isaacs. Dixie cruised to victory 66-29.

Coacher Creamer spoke after the game, “We knew coming in that on paper, this was one of those games that we were supposed to win. Our focus was to come out and try to improve and not worry about who we were playing and what the scoreboard says. And I thought we were pretty mature tonight and did a pretty good job.”

On defense, “There is little doubt as to what we are going to hang our hat on as far as what we are – and our strength is defense. We are a half court man to man team – we know that when the going gets tough that is what we have to go and do. We are trying to evolve into something a little more complex, we are trying to use a half court trapping defense and extending that man to man to full court from time to time. But our best defense is our half court man to man and I don’t think that I have ever coached a group that wants to buy into it like this. And you give yourself a chance to win every night the way that we can sit down and defend.”

Next week – the toughest week of the season? “We are home Tuesday against Waynesville who is leading our league and has a 10 game winning streak. We then go to a tough place to go on Friday – at Northridge. And then we go to Tri-Village on Saturday night. We played that stretch a week ago where it was a tough stretch – 4 games in 8 days. We came out of that unscathed. This was a lighter week and so we used it for preparation. Next week we will find out just how good we are, but I believe our kids are excited and are looking forward to the challenge."

2012-01-21T20:09:00.001-05:00

dix 35 trail 16 at half

2012-01-21T19:15:00.002-05:00

Dixie jv 49 trail jv 43

2012-01-15T19:07:00.000-05:00

Dixie wins battle of Rte 35

Coming into Saturday’s matchup both Dixie and South had very similar teams. Young guards, stingy defenses, and offensive threats in the post. Johnny Myers for South and John Isaacs for Dixie were the two big men that had been doing the scoring for their teams. Fans were not disappointed as the big men banged under the baskets. Also as factors in the game, Dixie was playing their 3rd game of week. They had two league wins under their belt, but would they have enough gas left in their tanks with their 3rd game in 5 days. It is mentally and physically challenging to maintain a high level of play with little rest. And South was facing two fierce opponents back to back. They dropped their Friday night game against Franklin Monroe and badly wanted a win to get their momentum back.

In the battle of the big men, TVS came out ahead as Johnny Myers would score 10 (one of his lowest scores of the season) points against John Isaacs who was held to just 2 points. But the war was won by the supporting cast of Dixie. With their leading scorer throttled, Dixie needed points from elsewhere.

The game was very physical and very intense. The house was packed and the crowd got into the ebb and flow of the game. South played their familiar zone while Dixie used their man to man defense. Dixie mixed in a little full court pressure but didn’t have much effect and settled back to the half court defense. South got an early lead but Dixie closed to within 3 thanks to an Andrew Barnett trey at the buzzer.

This momentum carried over to the second quarter. With the inside game buttoned up thanks to a vigorous South defense, Dixie went to work on their outside game and Luke Bowling was a factor here as he connected with his jump shot. Andrew Barnett would hit a couple more timely 3’s for the night. Also turnovers were a factor as Dixie was able to capitalize on turnovers and score some points in transition. So now Dixie had found out where they could get some points. This gave Dixie a slim 25-22 lead at the half.

Although the scoreboard did not reflect much change, there was plenty of action on the floor in the third quarter. Like two heavy weights going toe to toe the teams gave each other their best and their defenses were bent and flexed – but held very well. At one point in the action, the post play came close to actual blows but the teams settled back down. A defensive clash it was as Dixie scored just 6 and South 4 in the third quarter.

Dixie needed to break loose from South in the 4th quarter. Coming out of the gate, it was Barnett who threw down a three - so now Dixie could slow down and deliberately run their offense. South went into a man to man defense and would extend that to full court. But Dixie was able to handle the pressure. Ominously for South they had 7 fouls and now every foul was a trip to the line for Dixie. Dixie was able to thwart any attempt at a TVS comeback and ran out the clock to win a hard fought defensive game 42-31. Dixie had 7 players score in this game, while South only had 4 players score.

Coach Augspurger of TVS spoke after the game, “We had a tough weekend, Friday night we were out prepared, they were ready, and we weren’t. Tonight the referee’s did not call much and there was a lot of physical contact and we did not handle that. They won the physicality battle. Now our defense played OK – I was pleased with our defense. But on the boards we were not strong enough. In some respects, this is a young group and you have to wonder if we are making improvements fast enough. We played two tough teams this weekend; we knew back in September that we needed to circle this weekend. We were mediocre against Mississinnewa Valley, best performance of the year against Eaton, and this week I don’t feel our focus was where it needed to be in practice. We weren’t ready to play like we needed to play. If we are going to be successful in Southwest Ohio this year we have got to get better.”

Dixie’s Coach Creamer spoke after the game, “It’s been a brutal week, our kids know that, and we came out of it 3-0. We are tired, but we earned that fatigue – and we earned 3 wins. I love our character and I really, really love our toughness. We want to do the dirty work and we want to do the dirty work more than the team we are playing.”

On holding Johnny Myers to 10 points, “We are fortunate in that we have some length that is athletic enough to go out and guard him – not to let him operate in the open court like he wants to. He wants to face up and drive to the basket and we were able to defend that. Matt Isaacs, Mike Smiley, and Zach Grubb all took turns defending him.

On John Isaacs being held to 2 points, “Offensively and on the offensive and defensive glass, he has put us on his back the previous three games. It was someone else’s turn today. John was frustrated, but he realizes that every night can’t be his night – that’s why it is a team game. “

2012-01-15T19:01:00.000-05:00

First win for Dixie Girls

The Dixie Greyhounds girls varsity basketball team got their first win of the season this past Saturday. It was part of an ‘All the basketball you can eat’ Saturday where South faced off against Dixie in an all day series of games. As it would turn out, the host teams would have the advantage all day long. Tip off was at 10am at TVS where the 7th grade TVS and Dixie girls squared off. This game was won by South, as was the 8th grade game – although the win did not come easily as the game was decided in overtime. Now the spotlight moved to New Lebanon where the boys and girls JV teams started play in the afternoon with Dixie winning both opening games and worked their way to an evening finale with both varsity teams.

Both girls varsity squads have been struggling this season, Twin Valley South only has 2 wins and Dixie had yet to win a game. But when evenly matched teams play, it can make for an exciting matchup. The TVS girls’ varsity started out strong and kept a lead throughout the first half. Both teams played zone defenses. Offensively, South was able to connect on their outside shots while Dixie got their points in the paint. Although South had the lead, they could not extend it more than 4-6 points as Dixie doggedly stayed on their heels. South went to the locker room with a 23-18 half time lead.

Dixie had made a change to man to man defense and when they came out in the second half they smothered the inside game of South and shutdown the outside shooting. Then they went on a furious scoring run – putting up 13 unanswered points. South took a time timeout when Dixie got their first lead of the night, but to no avail. Dixie Senior Ciera Bates owned the paint as she scored basket after basket in the red zone. South just could not stem the tide. Senior Katie Strazheim finally broke the scoring drought for South, but it was too little, too late as Dixie played like a team on a mission in the third quarter, scoring 22 points – but allowing only 6.

South went to a man to man defense in the last quarter and this slowed the pace of Dixie scoring. But South had 6 fouls already going into the final quarter and they quickly went gave Dixie double bonus. South closed to within 5 points as they made a late run with about a minute and a half left. But that was as close as they would get as Dixie would rally one last time and get their first victory of the season, 54-44.

Dixie head coach Jared Crowe was understandable ecstatic after the game, “Both teams played really hard today. They came out with more intensity than we did. But in the second half we came out like we really wanted it. It has been a tough year, but the girls really wanted the win and it showed tonight. We talked in the locker room at half time and I told the girls that we can win this game if we believe in ourselves. And we had the man to man defense really get out on their shooters – that and getting on it in transition really helped. “

On Ciera Bates, “She has been our goto player all year, she is a senior and is averaging 16 points and 14 rebounds a game. She does everything for us, I don’t know what the team would do without her. I am glad that she had a really great game tonight. Kate Leis had a good game too, she has been struggling with her shot all year and she started hitting shots tonight. Our sophomore point guard had been turning the ball over this year, but showed tonight that she is really maturing.”

Scoring for TVS: Clark 2, Gates 5, Mackie 10, Nushawg 21, Straszheim 4, White 2. Dixie Scoring: Bates 26, Evans 3, Hundley 5, Leis 11, Rader 3, Shope 4, Woodgeard 2.

2012-01-08T13:29:00.001-05:00

Dixie fast and furious over Northridge

The action was fast and furious in the first quarter of the Dixie – Northridge game this past Friday night. Northridge is quick, athletic team and tries to score in transition. Dixie went into full court pressure early to the Northridge ball handlers. The result was a lot of fast action up and down the court. In the half court Dixie was working the ball inside to their post players while Northridge used a shell offense to dribble drive to the basket for shots. Dixie got the upper hand early with a 18-10 lead at the end of the quarter.

Both teams slowed the pace of the game down somewhat - mainly playing half court defense. Northridge shifted to a zone defense to try and take away the inside game of Dixie. This initially slowed down the Dixie offense and allowed Northridge to creep their way back into the game. And after losing Gabbard the Dixie faithful had to watch anxiously when Andrew Barnett went down hard after taking a charge. He had to come out of the game, but when Dixie went to a quick lineup to close out the quarter he re-entered the game and drilled a three pointer. Not to be outdone, Logan Watts sunk a buzzer beater to give Dixie a 29-23 lead at the half.

After the half, Northridge went on a run to tie the game at 29-all. They employed a half-court trap and got some easy baskets from turnovers. Dixie took a time out to sort out their strategy. And they actually began doing some trapping themselves and got their offense back in sync. Once again it was Andrew Barnett who helped spark a Dixie rally with a timely three. John Isaacs and Luke Bowling also connected to extend the Dixie lead once again.

Watching basketball these days - most scoring is done either close to the basket, or behind the three point line. But Dixie shooters Luke Bowling and Mike Smiley used the old school mid-range 8-10 foot jump shot effectively in this game. Northridge didn’t seem to have an answer. They shifted to a full court press after closing to 3 points in the fourth quarter. But Dixie handled the pressure well and began to deliberately run their offense in the half court to use up clock. With the full court pressure from Northridge, Dixie calmly found openings and John Isaacs broke the game open with back to back baskets. When Northridge took a second timeout at the 3:30 mark, Dixie put in their quick line up.

From there, the game took a familiar path. Northridge tried to launch 3’s to get back in the game, but the Dixie post players swept the glass – pulling in all the rebounds. John Isaacs would end the night with a double double – a remarkable 16 rebounds and 20 points. When Northridge fouled, Dixie shooters were deadly accurate, hitting 8 out of 10 in the fourth quarter. After time ran out, Dixie had chalked up another league win, 62-50.

Coach Creamer spoke afterwards, “That was our closest effort at a complete 4 quarter basketball game, it came after our best week of preparation in practice. Hopefully our kids see that correlation. …when we took the floor tonight I felt that we deserved to win because we prepared to beat Northridge for 4 straight days in practice.”

…on having 7 players score, “When Ryan Gabbard went down with the injury we told our kids that none of you are going to replace Ryan Gabbard, but all of you need to step it up a little and fill that void. Mike Smiley had by far his most productive night. Luke Bowling finally got alive at the offensive end for us. And John Isaacs played the way that we all expected him to play night in and night out. We played two sophomore guards [Griffin Moore, Logan Watts] tonight and they are growing up in front of us. And they are only going to continue to get better. “

Next week will be a battle of route 35 as the TVS boys and girls teams play at Dixie on Saturday night. It will be one of those days with all the basketball you can eat! The capstone of the night should be the varsity boys matchup featuring a two big men, John Isaacs of Dixie vs. Johnny Meyers of South. How these two perform offensively and defensively against each other should have a big impact on the outcome. The schedule is as follows: JV boys 2:30 tip off; JV girls 4pm; Varsity girls 5:30; Varsity boys 7pm. The host school will have a spaghetti dinner (all you can eat of course) from 4pm to 6pm.

2012-01-08T13:21:00.000-05:00

TVS Over Eaton
It was an electric atmosphere in the Twin Valley South gym this last Saturday night. Partly because they were playing their neighbors to the West – Eaton, who brought a lot of fans to the game. And partly because it was ‘black out’ night for South fans. The vocal TVS student section was filled floor to rafters with fans clad in black. The hometown team seemed to feed off of this emotion as they promptly went on an 11-2 run to start the game. Eaton took a time out to cool the Panthers, but were down 15-5 at the end of one quarter.

South played a zone for most of the night while Eaton started in man to man, switching to zone to stop the potent South post game. South did assign a defender to Eaton’s Cole French – Anthony Augspurger drew this task. French had scored 23 points the night before against Bellbrook, but against South he managed only 3. An impressive defensive showing for the freshman. South closed out the half strong and had a commanding 34-17 lead.

But a week earlier, Eaton had spotted Dixie a healthy halftime lead and had a furious fourth quarter where they held Dixie to 2 points and scored over 20 points to beat the Hounds. Coming out of the locker room South seemed to play a little sloppy and sure enough the Eagles began to chip away at their lead. Eaton had gone back to man to man and South was deliberately running their offense to slow down the game.

Starting guard Troy Innis hurt his leg in a scramble for the ball and had to leave the game for a few minutes in the fourth quarter. Things were not looking for the Panthers as Eaton had now gotten the lead down to single digits and with South bricking their foul shots, they seemed to have gained the momentum. The Eaton fans who had to sit on their hands the first 3 quarters came to life as their team positioned themselves for a comeback.

Coach Augspurger took a timeout, put Troy Innis back on the court and went to an aggressive man to man defense at the 4 minute mark. These changes woke up the lethargic team and they promptly derailed the Eaton comeback. Now the it was time for the Panther fans in black to make noise as South went work and scored baskets at a blistering pace. Johnny Meyers and Troy Innis combined to score almost all of South’s 19 fourth quarter points.

“We’ve still got to put together a full game,” noted Coach Augspurger afterwards, “we put together about 26 pretty good minutes tonight. We played very well in the first half, we adjusted to the fact that the officials were consistent and called a tight game – something we haven’t always done this season. On defense we did a lot of good things , Johnny Myers was great tonight – we had to ride on his back a little bit. All in all it was an excellent win for us. ”

…on the switch to man to man defense, “We had to do that because their other guys starting making shots. So we made the switch and I think that energized our kids. Plus Troy Innis had a cramp in his leg, he sat on the bench to get it taken care of and those extra minutes of rest refreshed him. He came on the court like a banshee and gave us a great two minutes; then Johnny Myers went crazy at the end – he seemed to grab every loose rebound and did the things that Johnny always does.

…on the loud crowd, “I thought our student body was awesome tonight. They did a great job, I just want to see them keep coming back. When the community is supporting the team, it can be a lot of fun. “

Scoring for TVS: Augspurger 7, Cole 5, Cottingim 8, Green 4, Innis 14, Myers 24.

2011-12-24T21:00:00.001-05:00

Dixie Loses Player for Season in Loss.

Dixie lost the game and a valuable player this past week in a pitched battle against league leading Waynesville. The Hounds spotted the home town team a generous first half lead and then had to fight in the second half to claw their way back into the game. The Hounds were thrown off by the Spartan half court zone defense and after adjusting to it, they mounted a challenge that fell short in the last half of the game.

The Hounds were able to slow down Luke Creditt, who had been scoring over 20 points per game. That was one of the keys to the game that coach Creamer was focused on. Matt Isaacs drew this assignment and held Creditt to just 10 points on the night. But Waynesville had other players who picked up the slack – Ty Black (13 points) and Steven Jeffries(18 points). Isaacs had a good night offensively as well, scoring 16 points himself.

The team had to play catch up all night. They were down 8 in the first quarter and were down 31-19 at the break. But the team made some adjustments at half time and mounted a furious comeback closing to within 2 points. During the intense play in the second half Ryan Gabbard went down and had to leave the game. It was later discovered that a bone in his leg was fractured and so the seniors season will end on the operating table as a pin will need to be inserted for the leg to set and heal properly. Ryan had been leading the team in scoring and so he will be missed.

Dixie earnestly tried to regain their momentum, but Waynesville was able to pull ahead. And the Hounds had to resort to fouling, but Waynesville calmly sunk their shots to extend their lead. When the game ended, Waynesville won 59-48.

Coach Creamer commented after the game, “We did a good job against Luke Credit - we executed our game plan against him, but they have a lot of offensive firepower and a couple of other kids stepped it up. We struggled offensively to put the ball in the hole the first half. We got looks we wanted, but just weren’t hitting our shots. They did go into a 2-3 zone - that was unexpected from them and that crossed us up a little bit. “

He continued, “After halftime we adjusted and did a phenomenal job to open the second half. We had a couple of possessions where we could have tied or maybe even taken the lead, but we just couldn’t get over the hump. To their credit they made free throws down the stretch to extend the lead back out to double figures. Matt Isaacs had a phenomenal effort for us against Creditt, he drew the man to man match up. And he turned around scored 16 points at the other end.”

What to expect from Eaton, “They are starting to get all their personnel back, they didn’t have everyone at the start of the year. They have an excellent athlete in Cole French. They have as much size as anyone that we have played against. It is a challenge for us – any time you have to go on the road in a SWBL cross over game it’s going to be tough. We look forward to playing against them. “ Dixie plays at Eaton on December 30th.

Scoring for Dixie: Barnett 3, Gabbard 12, J. Isaacs 4, M Isaacs 16, Moore 9, Smiley 4

2011-12-24T20:54:00.000-05:00

South Eeks Out Win

Twin Valley South had a defensive battle against the Newton Indians in the final game before Christmas break for both schools. Coming off of a hard fought loss against Tri-Village - it was the closest that any team had come to Tri-Village, coach Augspurger had to wonder how the team would react after an emotional game. Would they have any gas left in the tank for the second test in a week? Newton came into the game 3-4 but would prove to be a worthy adversary.

In the first quarter, both teams sparred warily. Each side used a zone defense. Newton got some traction feeding the ball into the post and back out to the guards for outside shots. At the other end of the court, South was trying to utilize their height advantage, but Newton double teamed any player in the post with the ball. South wasn’t connecting on their outside shots. So scoring was light by both teams.

Despite their height advantage, South did not seem to be rebounding well. But their defense was on track – not giving Newton many looks at the basket. The second quarter was shaping up to be a stalemate, but Cole Cottingim hit back to back three’s right before the half to give South an 18-11 lead at halftime.

But South did not build on this momentum in the third quarter. The team actually seemed a little sloppy after the break and Newton took advantage, gradually catching up to and passing South. They were now kicking the ball inside and getting open shots at the basket. South called a time out, but to no avail. Newton had a 5 point lead in the third quarter and had actually grown the lead to 7 at one point in the fourth quarter.

Newton was running a shell offense to run some time off the clock with about 5 minutes left in the game. Coach Augspurger needed to do something to shake up the team and get them out of their doldrums. A defensive change was made and the team went to man to man defense. But the momentum change happened at the other end of the court with Cole Cottingim who provided an offensive spark when the Panthers needed it by nailing a 3 point shot. Then Matt Green scored 3 the old fashioned way - with a made shot from the floor and hitting his foul shot. Suddenly the Panther team had come to life.

Troy Innis made a trey then dropped back and made a steal at the other end of the court. So the defensive change was creating turnovers, plus the team seemed to rebounding better. Time was starting to run out now. Johnny Meyers swatted the ball away for a Panther turnover on the next Newton possession and now Newton was forced to start fouling to get the ball back. South connected from the foul line and put the game away. Narrowly escaping with a 39-36 win.

Coach Augsperger was glad to garner the win, “We played two games this week and I thought we played very well, very tough with a lot of poise and a lot of composure in the one we lost. In this game, I thought we played about as poorly as we could play – especially at the offensive end. In the third quarter their kids were moving and making shots, we weren’t talking on defense or making plays.”

He continued, “But I thought we played uptight the entire game. It seemed to me like we got off to a bad start, we got down on ourselves thinking we were going to lose. We had to play man to man there at the end and I thought we did a pretty good job. We had not played man to man hardly at all this year. We had several guys with active hands that pretty much shut them out down the stretch. “

...on Tri-Village – ‘It was a well played high school basketball game by two good teams. We turned the ball over too much, as we have had problems with at times this year. And we didn’t finish out the game, we were right there - just didn’t get it done. But I was really pleased with the mentality that we had. Tonight we were uptight, but against Tri-Village we were ready to play, but loose.”

Twin Valley South will play National Trail in the Preble Shawnee Holiday tournament on Thursday night (12/29).

2011-12-18T12:16:00.000-05:00

The D in Dixie must stand for Defense. Last Saturday night Dixie throttled the North Panthers holding them to just 6 points in the first half. And like a pit bull latching onto its adversary, Dixie kept the defensive pressure up throughout the game. It was a pressure cooker that North could not escape from. Dixie was able to rack up an astounding 62-20 victory by the nights end. Holding a varsity team to 20 points is an impressive defensive performance in this age of the three point shot.

Dixie utilized vigorous full court pressure in the first quarter. North used one, then two timeouts to try to work out a way around the Dixie defense. Then Dixie fell back into an effective trapping defense and were still creating turnovers and making crisp passes on the offensive side to get easy points. In the second quarter, Dixie called off the full court attack and settled into a man to man half court defense that North would spend the whole night trying to figure out.
For their part North played a zone defense in the first half and played man to man in the second half. This seemed to be more effective for the second half. Although Dixie played a lot of bench players in then and slowed down the pace of the game. North generally played a single post offense and tried to cut players through the Dixie defense but just didn’t get many open looks at the basket.

Dixie definitely owned the boards for most of the night. And Dixie didn’t miss a beat with their stingy defense when they emptied their bench in the second half. Even with the starters resting and subs on the floor, Dixie was able to hold North to a scrooge-like 14 second half points. At the end of the third quarter, Dixie had a lopsided 50-11 lead. North was able to score some in the last quarter, almost doubling their total and were able to almost keep pace with Dixie who scored 12 in the last stanza.

Coach Creamer was asked for comment after the victory, “The one thing we talked about is that good basketball teams put away teams early that they are supposed to put away early. We came out focused, got the early momentum, and kept it.” …on the defense, “We told our kids early that we can be pretty successful basketball team over the long haul if we commit ourselves to playing hard on the defensive end. We are making good strides on defense, but it is not a finished product. “

…On the strong showing by the bench players in the second half, ” We have done a great job in practice of putting our best against our best – that’s players 1 through 10. Now you can only start 5 but we have 5 others guys who are ready, willing and capable. Tonight we showed that they are ready, and they need to be ready because you are always one play away from losing a starter.” …Next up – Waynesville, “They are the top team in our league and return as many players as we do. They probably have the best player in the league in Luke Credit. We have to go on the road, we will be decisive underdogs, and we are looking forward for this opportunity.”

Coach Jackson was asked about the game, “Dixie was unbelievable, that was some of the best defensive play I have seen this season. Coach Creamer is doing a great job and he has some good athletes. Our guys, we didn’t knock down shots, but we did not quit – which I was happy about. We need to get back quicker in transition. Hats off to Dixie they were a better team than us. Next week we play against Ansonia, they will play a lot of man to man against us, but I think we match up real well. It should be a real good game. “

Scoring for Dixie: Barnett 6, Gabbard 12, Grubb 11, J. Isaacs 6, M. Isaacs 10, Moore 4, Smiley 6, Watts 7. Scoring for North: Derringer 2, Diehl 4, Heltsley 3, Hutchins 4, Louthan 3, McAdams 2, Rees 1, Williams 1.

2011-12-18T12:11:00.000-05:00

Panthers put away Ansonia
The Twin Valley South Panthers put on an impressive performance this last weekend with a decisive win over Ansonia. The home team seemed to have everything in sync while the visiting Tigers never really got on track. The Tigers did get a little traction in the second half and closed the gap a little, but South redoubled their efforts and were able to pull away with a 56-38 win.

Ansonia started off the night in a press, hoping to rattle the young South guards. But South brushed off the pressure and after half a quarter of pressure, Ansonia settled into zone. Later they would try a little man to man when the zone wasn’t effective, but they ended up playing zone most of the night. Immediately South shot out to a lead, they were attacking the Ansonia defense and making their baskets. At the end of the first quarter, South had a double digit lead 15-4.

The South defense was also on track in the first half. They played in a zone for the entire night. Ansonia didn’t get very many open looks at the basket and so when they shot, they were missing. And the South team did have a height advantage and were sweeping the ball off of boards, holding the Tigers to one attempt per possession. The zone defense was aggressive, generating turnovers and South was getting points off of transition. This allowed them to build the lead to 29-11 at the half.

South at one point had a 26 point lead. They went on a run to start the third quarter and were up 37-11, so it was beginning to look like a blow out. But South relaxed at this point and the Ansonia offense began to slowly climb back into the game. They tried a few different looks and got some advantage with a shell offense that opened up the outside shot. In the fourth quarter, they got a little run going and took a time out to set up their press once again to try one last attempt to close with the Panthers. But South was able to handle the pressure and ride out the last quarter for the victory.

Coach Tony Augsperger was asked for comment after the game, “We played really, really good basketball for about 2 and half quarters. Then I felt like we relaxed and we didn’t put them away like we should have. A good team would keep the pressure on them when we had them thirty something to eleven and extend that lead. But we let them creep back into the game, we are not good enough yet to allow teams to do that to us. “

South has a big game next Tuesday at Tri-Village(5-0), “They are the tallest team in the league and we will not have a height advantage against them. We are playing on their court; it is going to be a huge game for both teams. “ Tri-village is undefeated at this point and those are decisive wins - their closest margin of victory is 19 points. So South will have their hands full against them. South will then end the week at home on Friday against Newton(1-4).

The JV team won their game 44-33. Scoring for South: Augsperger 2, Boggs 8, Cole 4, Cottingim 7, Green 10, Innis 4, Meyers 21. Watch for upcoming coverage of the Holiday tournament.

2011-12-11T20:23:00.000-05:00

Young South Team 1-1 in First Weekend

With only 3 South players with varsity experience from last season, everyone had to be wondering how the young team would fare in their first weekend of action. South opened the season with a win on the road against Bethel, a quality opponent that has owned South the last few years. But turned around the next night and lost to Valley View. Interestingly the games were a contrast where the Bethel game was a defensive slugfest, while in the Valley View game was a high scoring affair.
The Bee’s were 2-0 coming into the game with wins over Arcanum and Indian Lake. After eking out a two point lead at half time, South shutdown the Bee’s in the third quarter and held off a fourth quarter surge to win this game 31-28. Johnny Meyers did the bulk of the scoring for the Panthers with 21 points.

Head coach Tony Augspurger was impressed with the win, “We have lost to Bethel the last three years, and they got back almost their whole team from last season. I thought we were very well prepared for them and we had a good understanding of what they were probably going to do. So we executed our game plan very well. It was low scoring because both teams have well schooled defenses. We were able to play 9 kids in that varsity game and for 6 of them it was their very first visit ever onto a varsity basketball court. We did not do that well offensively because I thought we were a little uptight on offense - it being our first night. They were quick and moved well, but we used our big guys and took advantage of our size. We rebounded really well and communicated on defense. It was a good emotional win for our kids.”

…on Johnny Meyers, “He has the ability to the best in our league and maybe in the area. And tonight he played like that. And we need him to perform, he is a two year starter and is a proven scorer – I thought he played like a senior. He made big plays for us, big shots for us all throughout the game. He also grabbed 11 rebounds. And Matt Green did well for us, he had 8 boards. If we are going to compete for a league championship, we had to win – in our league you need to win out or maybe have one loss to have a chance.”

On Saturday night, South would face the full court pressure of Valley View on defense and a talented Zack Denny on offense. This time the game was faster paced and the scoring was unchecked. At times the young South guards had problems against the pressure, causing South to fall behind early. But South mounted a second half comeback that excited the home town crowd as they tied the ball game at the end of the third quarter at 48 all.

And to start the fourth quarter South hit a three to go ahead. But just as it got interesting things became undone for South as Johnny Meyers got his 4th foul early in the quarter and had to watch from the bench as Valley View regained and then extended their lead. When he reentered the game around the 4 minute mark, he quickly got his fifth foul and was done for the night. Valley View went on to win 71-63.

Coach Augspurger on the loss, “The Valley View was frustrating in that we were prepared, but didn’t do what we needed to do defensively. The Bethel game we looked like we knew what we doing, we weren’t like that in the Valley View game. We didn’t do what we needed to do to slow down Denny. And we dug ourselves into a hole. Later in the game we put Anthony Augspurger and also Nick Guhering on Denny and they slowed him down in the second half. On offense, Valley View pressed us and we executed our press break OK at times but other times we gave the ball away.”

“When Johnny fouled out in the fourth quarter it kind of took our breath away. At this point in the season, we are not ready for that. But as the game went on we handled their pressure better and scored better. But I thought our new starting point guard Troy Innis did a great job with his first two starts. Ending this first week I am happy with my kids, in terms of individuals they did a lot of good things. We are going to have inexperience errors, but I thought we played hard both nights.”

2011-12-11T20:20:00.000-05:00

Hounds pull ahead in stretch

Friday’s game between Preble Shawnee and Dixie was a hard fought matchup as the two league rivals battled back and forth for 4 quarters. Both teams played hard nosed, intense defense and at times bodies flew on the court. Twice Dixie players ended up in the stands – one skidding on his belly for a loose ball before crashing into the bleachers, later in the second half another player crashed into the scorer’s table. And midway through the fourth quarter a double technical was called as two players engaged in a little post whistle activity as the contest was drawing to a close. It was an impressive effort by both teams.

Shawnee opened with a trapping zone defense. Early on this was effective as Dixie was coughing up the ball and leading to Arrow baskets. And at the other end of the court Dixie was getting into foul trouble – accumulating 6 fouls by the end of the first quarter. Coach Creamer took a timeout at the two minute mark to settle the team defensively and get them focused on taking care of the ball on offense. Coming out of that break Dixie did a little trapping of their own and got a couple of turnovers. Still at the end of the first quarter Shawnee lead, 13-11.

Dixie spread out their offense in the second quarter. But Shawnee was still able to extend their lead. Dixie needed someone to step up and get the Hounds going again. So Ryan Gabbard sparked a late rally by scoring on 3 possessions in a row. Dixie went to a quick lineup and Andrew Barnett hit a layup to give Dixie their first lead of the second quarter. Gabbard ended Dixie scoring with a buzzer beater to send the Hounds to the locker room with the lead.

The third quarter was a defensive showdown as Dixie had adjusted to the trapping defense of Shawnee and that ended Shawnee’s ability of getting points from turnovers. Plus Dixie had put Barnett on Jakes Adams, the Shawnee scoring threat which slowed down his scoring. But now it was Shawnee that was accumulating fouls at a fast pace and had 7 early in the 4th quarter. By games end, Dixie had toed the foul line 22 times.

With the game on the line, Dixie did a slow burn to pull away with the lead. On succeeding possessions Gabbard fed the ball to John Issaacs for a score, Andrew Barnett knifed to the basket for a layup, and then Gabbard hit a layup to put Dixie up by 10 with about 4 minutes remaining. And as what happened last week, the visiting team focused on shooting treys to try and get back in the game. With Dixie’s height, they can be glass cleaners and the team controlled defensive rebounds limiting Shawnee’s opportunity at a comeback. Dixie held off the Shawnee challenge to win 55-49.

Coach Creamer agreed that it was a battle, “We are very thankful that we were able to pull out a win in a hard fought basketball game. We are not pleased with all of our execution, but there is a lot of basketball in front of us and we are going to make improvements.” …on the effectiveness of the Shawnee trap in the first half, “We have some young players and that was their first opportunity to play against that kind of pressure. It rattled us early, but I thought we regained our composure and started to execute our offense. When you can make mistakes, learn from them, and still come out with a win that says something about a team.”

First year head coach Andrew Gerken had this to say about the game, “First we didn’t play real well. Second Ryan Gabbard is a real good player. He was too quick and too strong for our kids to handle. I thought Dixie handled our pressure very well, they passed the ball and found the open man. They adjusted well to the changes we made at halftime. Overall I thought our kids played hard, but I thought that they might have played a little bit harder than us. They hit the boards a lot harder and out rebounded us.” …about Jake Adams, “Jake struggled, I thought that Dixie did a real nice job of bellying up on him and forcing him out of his comfort zone. But at the same time, I thought that Jake did a good job of finding the open man. He is going to have some nights like this and we need someone else to be able to step up and score some points.”

Dixie Scoring: Griffin Moore 2, Andrew Barnett 6, John Isaacs 11, Luke Bowling 2, Matt Isaacs 14, Ryan Gabbard 20. Shawnee Scoring: Jake Adams 17, Matt Buell 8, Josh Hocker 5, Brian Kettring 3, Jake Elam 5, David Willoughby 2, Christian Letner 9.

2011-12-04T15:26:00.000-05:00

Dixie Rebounds against Franklin Monroe

Dixie rebounded in their home opener against Franklin Monroe. After dropping their first game on the road against Carlisle, Dixie faced off at home Saturday night against a team that made a deep playoff run last season and is generally in the top half of the Cross County Conference. The game featured both team teams playing tough half court defense that kept the score low – it was 14 to 8 in favor of Dixie at half. More of a football score than a basketball score.

Franklin Monroe played a 2-3 zone the entire night, while Dixie stayed in man to man. Occasionally Dixie would go into full court pressure and that worked a few times where they surprised the Jets and got a quick basket from a turnover. Most of Dixie’s points in the first half came in the paint, either from working the ball inside to the post or from a layup or pull up jump shot from a steal. The Jets were trying to score from the dribble drive but had a rough time getting second shots as any misses were being rebounded by the Greyhound post players who did a good job most of the night controlling the boards.

As the game progressed, Dixie kept the lead from the first quarter on but could not get any breathing space between themselves and the Jets. They stayed on their heels until late in the 3rd quarter when Mike Smiley struck from behind the arc just before the buzzer to give Dixie a 26-18 lead. When action resumed, Andrew Barnett put another dagger into the Jets when he popped another three and extended the lead even more. Ryan Gabbard next hit a 12 footer and then the route was on. Franklin Monroe tried their share of 3 point shots in the stretch, but couldn’t connect. While the Jets flailed, the Greyhounds raced ahead – at one point leading 41-22. As the game wound down, Dixie put in a guard heavy lineup and worked the clock to get their first victory of the season 41-28.

Coach Creamer was happy with the win, “We didn’t exactly have an inspired effort against Carlisle last night. But for our first opportunity of playing back to back games, I was pretty impressed with our effort and focus tonight. I really think that we and Franklin Monroe are very similar basketball teams in that there are going to be nights were we struggle offensively to put points on the board. We were very deliberate on the offensive end and we didn’t get impatient. We stayed the course and put the basketball in the right spot. We struggled at times tonight, but when we needed points, we had some players step and score for us. We established our presence in the paint and when we started to get double teams they were able to kick the ball back out to our perimeter and they stepped up knocked some shots down.”

The Carlisle game, “Carlisle did a great job of getting on us defensively in the half court and we did not handle that pressure very well. Opening nights tend to be a little sloppy on both sides. We turned the ball over early, we missed shots we shouldn’t have missed, and so in the second half we took chances on defense and missed. Carlisle took advantage of those opportunities and scored. All the credit goes to them last night. We look forward to the opportunity to play them again.”

Scoring for Dixie against Franklin Monroe: Smiley 3, Moore 5, Barnett 3, J. Isaacs 8, Sauer 6, M. Isaacs 6, Gabbard 10.

2011-11-27T19:51:00.000-05:00

Injury Bug Bites South Early.

The injury bug hit Twin Valley South’s Lady Panthers early and hard. It’s not unusual for injuries to take a toll on a team as a season grinds on. Injuries and illness are part of sports and that is where depth can help a team. A team loaded with players can find a fill in for a missing player and move on without missing a beat. But this year South has a young team with only one senior – Angela Newsome and little depth. According to coach Mabry the team dressed 15 players between varsity and JV a week ago but this week could only muster 9 total players. Meaning that the Reserve game had to be cancelled and the varsity team played but it consisted of 5 varsity players and 4 from the reserve team. On the other hand, Carlisle is loaded with seniors and a deep bench. South gave all they could – but there was only so much gas in the tank.

Carlisle played a stingy man to man defense that the Panthers had to work hard against. South played zone defense – mixing in a little trapping at times to try and generate turnovers. But Carlisle moved the ball well in the half court and the trapping had little effect. On the other hand, turnovers would an Achilles heel for South. In the second half alone there had to have been at least a dozen turnovers – due in part to fatigue and also to inexperience – forcing passes where they would be picked off.

Carlisle built a substantial lead at halftime – leading 30-10. There was a brief moment in the 4th quarter where it looked like South might make a run when Kara Mackie scored on 3 successive possessions. But a smothering Indian defense stepped it up and forced some South turnovers into baskets and put an end to that threat. Still South had a bit more respectable second half before finally falling 29-50 in the season opener. Another ray of hope for the Panthers, they were able to get two players scoring in double figures – Katie Strazheim and Kara Mackie.

After the game coach Mabry commented on the turn of bad luck for the players, “Within the last week we had a multitude of things. We basically dressed all the healthy players we had tonight. About a week and half ago we had 15. Over the last week we have had all types of injuries. One kid had a concussion in school, another kid was in a car wreck. It’s one of those things, we came with what we had. I know we really got tired, and even though we had subs it was hard to use them. We didn’t have any varsity subs and the reserve team doesn’t know the varsity plays – we run a different type of offense. We had a lot of turnovers, but a lot of that was from being tired. We forced some bad passes. Angela Newsome is the only girl we have with varsity experience from last year. Katie Strazheim was varsity too, but was hurt and missed last season.”

Scoring for Twin Valley South: Gentry Gates 2; Kara Mackie 12; Angela Nushawg 5; Katie Strazheim 10. South will play Stivers at home on Tuesday and opens league play Thursday with their rival Tri-County North also at home. North also lost their season opener against Northridge 32-43.

2011-11-22T07:21:00.000-05:00

South Young and Eager for Season Opener

Coach Augsperger is hoping that fresh faces will bring a change of fortune for the Panthers. “We are coming off the worst three year stretch in almost thirty years of TVS basketball and I believe we have the opportunity to come roaring back from that. The biggest question mark that we have is can we become the tough, hard nosed defending and rebounding team that we need to be.” His team returns 3 players with varsity experience from last season. Johnny Meyers and Michael Green, both post players are back, as well as Cole Cottigim – who was a 6th man off the bench last season.

Coach Augsperger expects Meyers to contend for player of the league honors – he had 15 points and over 8 rebounds a game last season. “But he is an outstanding driver who can score from inside and out. And Michael Greene did well for us as a freshman last year, He had 8 points a game and 7 rebounds. Michael is important for us because he provides us with a talented offensive inside presence. He has an outstanding touch from 17-18' feet and in. Rounding out our returners is Cole Cottingim. He was our sixth man last year and is easily the best outside shooter we have in the program. He was bothered by returning from a knee injury last year but is healthy and we have high hopes he can fill it up.”

Now he was asked aboutthe new faces, as the varsity squad will be dressing 10 players - “Troy Innis, 5'9" sophomore point guard. He had a good summer and pre-season, he is working on becoming ready to run the show on the varsity level. Also moving up from the JV team will be 5'10" senior hustler Nick Guehring. Nick will bring intensity for us off the bench. “ Coach Augsperger will be looking for Michael Boggs to help with the post. “He has good basketball smarts and is a great all around athlete.”

A pair of freshmen guards will see varsity playing time this year - Anthony Augsperger and Wes Cole. “They led their 8th grade team to the CCC championship and are skilled young players who have the toughness necessary to play on the varsity team young.” Finally Jesse Wysong and Seth Baker will split time between JV and Varsity.

When asked about the team overall, coach Augsperger responded, “We have a lot of question marks because we are so young and so inexperienced. Myers and Green could be an outstanding combination of bigs on our level. Certainly, if they continue to improve and jell a little better together, they could be the best, most athletic inside tandem we've had in a long, long time. We need Cole Cottingim to shoot like he can and thus far in pre-season practices and scrimmages he's off to a good start. The X factor will be how well all of the young guys and the inexperienced varsity guys do when the lights are on.”

So guard play will be instrumental to the Panthers success this season. Having a double figure scorer in the post is a good thing, but the team will need to have someone that can get the ball down the court and get the ball to him. And as we have learned from the Bengals early success this season – don’t discount a young team. If the Panther s can figure out the perimeter game, they will have success this season.

The team will open against Bethel Friday, Dec. 9th a team that Coach Augsperger expects to one of the top teams in the league. Then they come back against a tough Valley View team that features Zack Denny on Saturday. So this will be a rough opening weekend for the Panthers – the young players will be forged in fire early.

2011-11-22T07:18:00.000-05:00

Dixie Experienced and Ready

Coach Creamer is enthused about his team’s chances in the SWBL this season. “Waynesville was league runner up and return all 5 starters, they look to be the favored team to win the SWBL Buckeye division this season. But we also return 5 starters and feel that we will be right there with them. Waynesville will have Luke Credit, the quarterback on their league winning football back as their leading scorer. He is a presence that we will have to deal with. They don’t have the height that we have, but they are athletic and quick.”

But Dixie has good depth this season as well as 5 solid starters back from last year’s team. The Hounds will start Andrew Barnett at point guard, Luke Bowling and Mike Smiley at forward, and John Isaacs and Matt Isaacs playing post. Bowling and Matt Isaacs are juniors, the rest are seniors. And they will have size and experience coming off the bench – Ryan Gabbard moved back into the district and Zack Grubb are both 6’ 4” seniors that will see plenty of floor time. Both are new comers to the varsity squad. Grubb was injured last season, but is healthy for this year.

Coach Creamer was asked what he liked about this year’s team, “Well we have good length, meaning we don’t have anyone with dominating height. There are no giants on this team. But as a team we have good height overall. And these kids are athletic, they make good plays. I like our play inside, but our perimeter play needs to be more consistent. They can shoot well, but not great. Now there are times where we do well on the perimeter but we need to able to do it every night. ” Otherwise the team will see a lot of zone defenses.

Dixie was .500 in the regular season last year and dropped their first two games. So any chance at a league title will depend upon a strong start this season. Dixie will start their season on December 2nd against Carlisle at Carlisle and then open at home the next night against Franklin Monroe on the 3rd. Both teams should be good opponents. Carlisle fields a strong team this year and Franklin Monroe had a good playoff run last year. The way that the league is scheduled Dixie will play each division opponent twice, so they will have to deal with the Waynesville Spartans two times – each game should be a battle.

2011-11-06T08:39:00.000-05:00

Ada Overwhelms North

The Ada Bulldogs came to Lewisburg ranked as the third ranked Division 6 team in the state by the AP. By games end it was clear why. Ada was able to dominate on both sides of the line of scrimmage and their spread offense was ran efficiently. Many times during the night the Panthers would have the Bulldogs in third and long situations, but they would toss the ball to an open receiver and keep the drive alive. And although North was able to make some plays on offense, they had a rough time putting together a scoring drive – every yard was hard earned from North’s perspective.

This was the first playoff game where North was able to host the game and a generous crowd was on hand. When Ada scored on their first drive - using just a minute and half of the clock, it looked like North might answer. JJ MacPherson helped put the ball into Ada territory with a 30 yard carry. But after driving to about the 36 a quarterback sack pushed the line of scrimmage back and North had to punt. Ada immediately went back to work and scored again. That would become the theme for the night, North would do a 3 and out series, maybe getting a first down or two but in the end being forced to punt the ball away. And Ada would methodically move the ball down the field

North did try to adjust on defense, but when they blitzed Ada would dial in a bubble screen. Stop the pass, then Ada would run for yardage. And when you are playing a better team, you hope for turnovers to give your team more possessions. But the football gods smiled on Ada all the way, while North was shown no love. Ada put the ball on the turf 3 times and recovered all 3 times – the last one was on the 5 yard line and was ran in for a score. North gave away the ball twice, once on a fumble and the other an interception in the end zone. Ada did not punt at all – they faced 4th down several times and went for it each time.

North was finally able to find the end zone in the second half. In the first half, sophomore Austin Hutchins had hurt his left wrist, left the game for a few plays – but the gritty quarterback returned to the field. He lead the TCN scoring drive in the second half, starting from their own 26 yard line. JJ MacPherson capped the drive with a touchdown run from about 17 yards out. Then just before time ran out, the TCN reserve quarterback ran a keeper around the right end for North’s second score. At night’s end it was 49-12 Ada.

This is a first draft - come back for the coach's comments.

2011-11-05T20:06:00.001-04:00

Ada 35 tcn 0 halftime

2011-10-30T20:53:00.000-04:00

Bradford Surpasses TVS

The first half was great for Twin Valley South but Bradford made a strong comeback in the second half to come away with the win. For the first 2 quarters South could almost do no wrong. They found the endzone twice and kicked a field goal for a 15-0 lead. But then Bradford scored just before halftime and from that point on, it was Bradford’s game. South never could recover their mojo. That score was set up by a kickoff that went to the thirty yard line and with less than a minute left in the half the Railroaders punched the ball in the endzone.

In the second half, Bradford changed their defensive strategy and started to blitz their linebackers more. This disrupted the South offense and by games end, Bradford would have 8 sacks. And South’s receiver’s seemed to have problems finding the handle, there were a lot of dropped passes. South did better than what they had done in the past with turnovers – only allowing a single fumble. But that fumble was costly as it happened on the South 15 yard line and Bradford was able to score. Bradford began to move the ball on offense and at games end they would garner the win 29-15.

Statistical highlights for South: Cole Cottingim was 15 of 31 passing for 203 yards and a TD. Freshman Wes Cole had 3 receptions for 54 yards; Zane Cottingim had 4 receptions for 46 yards; and Darin Brown had 4 receptions for 60 yards and a TD. On Defense Bobby Green lead the way with 10 tackles, Zane Cottingim had 8 tackles and Cody Clayton had 5 tackles with 4 of them for a loss.

On the game, coach Engleka was disappointed with the outcome – particularly since the team did so well against Miami East. “ In the first half we shut them down. They have 3 good backs and we told the team that we need to gang tackle and go to the ball. We got away from that. And on offense we had problems with their blitzing in the second half. Although we only had the one turnover – it came at a bad time and lead to a score.”

The Senior Class, “It was a difficult spot for them to be in with a new coach and a new program. They could have fought the changes and just gone through the motions. But these seniors bought into the program and provided good leadership for the rest of the team to follow. With them it was team first, always. In particular, I thought that Dylan Steffey, Bobby Green, and Ashley Dillon showed the younger kids how to go hard. I think that attitude showed itself against Miami East, that was a big step in showing everyone what this program can be. And Cole Cottingim hadn’t played since 8th grade and he did a good job for us as quarterback. Cole Maggard has been a solid performer as has Matt Johnson. We will miss them.

On the CCC, “ I have had experience with Centerville and Middletown among other places. And I was impressed with how many good programs there are – Covington is outstanding, Ansonia and North have good programs in place too. These schools are not just throwing athletes on the field, they are building and developing their players. There were times this season where it was not X’s and O’s, we were physically and mentally beaten by some of these teams. It is a toughness we need to develop and that is going to be stressed over and over this off season. “

2011-10-22T08:58:00.001-04:00

Dixie prevailed over Middletown Madison in a hard fought game with plenty of hitting. Neither team has a shot at a league title or playoffs – rather they were playing for pride. And both teams did not back down from the challenge, you would have thought that they were playing for the championship from the intensity on the field. However, this game also featured plenty of penalties and at times there was more yellow on the field than a dandelion patch. Watched a lot of football and this has got to be one of the top games as far as flag tosses go. I don’t think that either team had an advantage as far as the amount of penalty yardage either for or against, but the yardage in total penalties may have surpassed the team offense for either team.

In what would be a harbinger of things to come, a penalty flag flew even before the game opening kickoff! A rule that most folks are not aware of – including yours truly, that when it is game time at least one player from your team must be on the field. If all your players are on the sidelines or in the locker room then it is a penalty. The Greyhounds benefitted from this as Madison had to kick off from deep inside their own territory. And they went to work, quickly scoring on their first drive as Ryan Jordan plunged in from 2 yards out to put Dixie on the board first.
In the first quarter neither team seemed to pass particularly well, maybe from the cold air causing the receivers to drop balls. But Madison was able to put together a nice drive where they kept the ball in between the tackles and scored a field goal. That would end the first quarter in favor of Dixie 7-3.

Dixie stopped another Madison drive when Luke Bowling intercepted the ball at the Dixie 19 yard line. Later in the quarter Ryan Jordan would find the endzone again for another TD. This time the touchdown was set up by a hook and go pass from Bowling to Isaacs that put the ball on the Madison 5 yard line. Madison answered with a TD of their own – their passing game had caught on and they mixed the pass and run well on this drive. But Dixie wasted no time in answering – Ryan Jordan ran a deep post route and caught the defense by surprise, he scored on a 65 yard td pass on their first play from scrimmage. Madison had an extra point blocked and Dixie bobbled the ball on the extra point and so the halftime score stood 19-9 in favor of Dixie.

Madison scored in the third quarter and now Dixie’s lead was getting thin. So to start the 4th quarter, Bowling connected with Smiley on a screen pass that took the ball to the Madison 23 yard line. From there who else but Ryan Jordan scored on a 23 yard TD run to put Dixie ahead by 2 scores. Things then got uglier in the 4th quarter, I unofficially counted at least 8 penalties between the two teams. It had already been a penalty filled night, but with Madison trying desperately to score and Dixie’s hard hitting defense driving them back – emotions were charged as the clock ticked down. The Madison sideline had 2 unsportsmanlikes and both teams had late hits. Madison finally turned over the ball on downs with a minute left and Dixie took the victory formation to ride out the rest of the clock for a 26-16 victory.

Coach Tarpley agreed that there were a lot of yellow handkerchiefs on the field, “Yes we thought that they were a bit excessive. A part of that is we have two hearing impaired players. And we tell the [referee] crews that at the beginning of each game – they also need visual and touch ques. They are great kids and play hard; most crews can work this out, but it seemed to be a problem this week.”
“But our defense played well for us this week,” added Coach Tarpley, “We did really well on third down, preventing the other team from getting a first down and having to punt. Matt Isaacs had at least 12 tackles on the night. And Ryan Jordan had 2 big sacks in the fourth quarter, he had a big impact on the game for us – and he is only a junior. Matt Isaacs and Smiley both had a sack. And Bowling had a big interception for us. Offensively, it was a good passing night for the team. Luke Bowling really came around for us on Friday, we felt we had our passing game where it should have been for us all year. And Smiley had a good night personally – he had 2 big catches for yardage.”

On Carlisle, “This senior class has never had a losing season the 4 years that they have been here. Now they have been 5-5, but never have they been worse than that – so they have some incentive to get out there and keep that intact. Now Carlisle is a good team and are going to be tough to beat. We are going all out and giving it everything we have got. So expect some fireworks from the offense on Friday night, we plan to light it up.”

This will be the last interview with coach Tarpley this season and so we discussed the future, “We have a lot of good juniors that are contributors on offense and defense. A lot of how we do depends upon what they do in the off season. This season we checked it out and we had the 5th toughest D5 schedule in the state. They will need to be prepared for us to have success.”

2011-10-21T21:11:00.001-04:00

Dix 19 mm 9 at half

2011-10-21T20:03:00.001-04:00

Dix 7 madison 3 1st injured mohawk stops play

2011-10-15T09:36:00.004-04:00

North Drives Over South.

Would Tri-County North have emotion enough left in their gas tank after their big win over Miami East for this week’s game against rival Twin Valley South? It can be tough to keep a team focused and driven over the course of a two and half month long season. And even though the two teams records were opposite of each other, North at 5-2 and South at 2-5 there have been times over the years where the underdog has upset the favored team. So it had the potential of being a trap game for North if they overlooked South. With a wet field and sporadic rain, you had to wonder if turnovers would a factor and that would be a way for South to hang with North – if they could force some fumbles and get good field position.

North put the game into the hands of fullback Michael Olinger and his raging bull running style. They ran in between the tackles into the teeth of the South defense. And South could not find an answer. At least not in the first quarter as Olinger rampaged thru the South defense for 3 touchdowns in the first quarter. In the game he had 2 more touchdowns called back for penalties or he would have done even more damage. As it was he had 198 yards for the night.

There were plenty of turnovers – but it was the North defense causing South to cough up the ball. Unofficially I had South tossing up 5 interceptions and giving up two fumbles. And the first fumble was a heart breaker in two different ways. South did a fake punt and Dillon Ashley carried the ball for a first down. But as he went for extra yardage, he took a hard shot to the helmet and crumpled in a heap as the ball squirted away and was fallen upon by a North player. So that stopped the drive and senior Ashley – who missed the first few games of the season due to injury, continued his hard luck season having to watch the remainder of the game from the bench.

Rounding out the scoring for North was JJ MacPherson -14 yard run, Austin Hutchins – interception returned for a TD, and Caleb Lawson – 90 yard TD. South got on the board as a gritty Zane Cottingim caught a pass for a nice 25 yard gain to put South in the redzone. Then he finished the job a few plays later when he scampered into the endzone from 5 yards out. South came close to scoring a second time but a fumble on the North three yard line ended that threat. That was the theme all night for the South offense – when it looked like they would put together a drive, a turnover or penalty would kill it. At the last whistle the score was 41-6 in favor of North.

“When you have 7 turnovers in a game you are not going to win that game,” stated South Coach Engleka after the game. “North’s Olinger scored pretty easily on their opening drive, and we wanted to answer. We put together a nice 17 play drive but then threw an interception in the endzone. Then when we did the fake punt we gained 16 yards on that play and fumbled. Turnovers hit us at the worst possible times.”

Zane Cottingim had a good night for South though – “On defense he has a nose for the ball and is in on every tackle. He has good instincts but knows his defensive keys, he is a real leader us on defense. And when Ashley was hurt we had to use him on offense – he played running back and slot receiver. Also Darin Brown had a good night with 8 tackles at cornerback and 3 receptions for 38 yards at receiver. Dylan Steffey, on offensive line performed well for us. We talk to kids about going from whistle to whistle – well he went from whistle to the echo of the whistle in my opinion it was his best night of the year. “

On South’s game against Miami East, “Miami East and North have similar offense’s and defense’s so we are going to see the same schemes as we did against North. I think they are the biggest team physically in the league and we are going to have to prepare to be ready for that. Last I looked they were number 9 in the playoffs –a bubble team and we want to take that from them.”

I asked Coach Derringer if North had any concerns going into the game, “We were more worried about the spread offense – we just don’t see that in this league. And we were worried about getting our linebackers set up correctly. We ran them a little wider and then came up with blitz packages against different formations. And we were worried about their running game, Cole Cottingim can be dangerous.”

On the game, “We wanted to establish the running game as we had seen how they had problems with Ansonia and a few other teams. Michael Olinger had a great game for us. But the penalties really hurt, he should have had two more scores. We will work on eliminating penalties this week. And the defense was just exceptional. Billy Derringer had 2 interceptions, Austin Hutchins had one interception for a TD, and Sam Judd had a big interception to stop a TVS drive in the endzone. Josh Daughtery and JJ MacPherson had 14 tackles and Jake Schlater had 2 sacks. On the offensive side of the ball Caleb Lawson had 7 carries for 134 yards and Austin Hutchins was 4-13 with just 49 yards. So our passing was not successful as it has been in the past. But we counted 6 dropped balls – if we could have caught those we would have had over 100 yards passing. Right now Austin stands at about 850 yards, with two games left in the season – we are thinking that he will break 1000 yards passing.“

Next week North goes against Trail - another school using the spread offense. Coach Derringer plans to switch up his defenses and give them a different look in the secondary. Offensively things shouldn’t change much – maybe a few less penalties...

The picture - North's Sam Judd gets cartwheeled by South's Zane Cottingim.

2011-10-09T14:38:00.000-04:00

Dixie Defeats Northridge.

In the words of Coach Tarpley, Dixie has a brutal schedule this season. And they have played several teams in the SWBL that look to be play off bound with maybe 1 or two more ahead. It makes it doubly tough to make it back to .500 when you are the smallest team in the league. So when winless Northridge came up next on schedule, Dixie wanted to take another step in the right direction with a victory. Coming into the game, Dixie had 2 wins and needed this win plus 2 more to get to .500.

But things didn’t start off well for the Greyhounds when a Luke Bowling pass was intercepted and after a good return, Northridge passed the ball from the 12 yard line and were up on the scoreboard 7-0. Dixie next went to ground game and Ryan Jordan scored to draw the score even at 7-7 to close out the first quarter. Any thoughts that Northridge had of getting their first win of the season were put to the rest in the second quarter when Dixie erupted for 27 points. Northridge never really got regrouped in the second half although they did score again in the fourth quarter. When all was done Dixie had a decisive 53-13 victory.

On way to the victory, Ryan Jordan had the best night of his high school career. Not only did he score a touchdown in every quarter, he also set a new Dixie single game rushing record with an astonishing 294 yards. But wait there’s more - to paraphrase the late night pitchmen – Jordan had a great night on the defensive side of the ball too. Matt Isaacs was out with a concussion and so middle linebacker duties fell on Jordan’s shoulders. He responded by leading the team with 11 tackles. Quite a night’s work for the young athlete. Also scoring for Dixie were Mike Smiley, Doogie Houser, and Luke Bowling (1 run and 2 TD passes).

Coach Tarpley had plenty of praise to go around, “Ryan Jordan had a great night for us, but we had a good night as a team. Our defense played well holding Northridge to under 200 yards of offense. Matt Smiley, John Isaacs and Luke Bowling did really well. Our PAT kicker, Ryan Scott, had 5 PAT’s and we have been focusing on special teams this week and it showed in the game – we wanted to stop giving team’s good field position.”

Next week Dixie plays a tough West Milton team, “We just have a brutal schedule this year. We played another team that is strong up front like West Milton – Brookville. We played with them for a half and then the game got away from us. But we have to get our heads up. I told the players that of the 7 games we played, in 5 we have been close to even. West Milton is looking at Division 4 playoffs and maybe a chance at the league. We need to focus on what we can do and try to spoil their party.”

2011-10-08T09:56:00.002-04:00

Football Texas Style

Everyone knows that things are bigger in Texas. And the high school football game I attended last night lived up to expectations. Coppell High school at Dallas is one of the largest high schools in Texas and regularly vies for the state championship. When you pull up, you are struck by the size of the complex. A huge scoreboard with graphics and video replay, a stadium with field turf that most colleges would be envious of and a practice facility with an indoor football field. The indoor field was actually used by the Dallas Cowboys when there was a dome collapse at their facility a few years ago. So the sports complex is impressive. I have been to playoff's in Southwest Ohio and the Troy and Mason facilities are some of the best in the area and they pale in comparison to this.

And the whole experience was an event. Both teams took the field running thru inflatable helmets and smoke in the endzones. The home team Coppell Cowboys ran thru a huge banner that looked to be about 25 feet tall. The cheerleaders had to use poles and ropes to hold it up. The halftime show was impressive. The Coppell band had to be at least 200 members strong and generated a wall of sound. Not one, not two, but 4 conductors lead the band. The Lariat drill team in short skirts and dainty cowboy hats did a well choreographed high kicking routine.

Oh yeah there was a football game there too. Fossil Valley Panthers were the visitors. Coppell was starting a sophomore quarterback due to their starting quarterback going down with a knee injury two weeks ago. Both teams ran variations of the spread offense. Coppell used a 3-5 defense and Fossil Valley used a 4-3 defense. As one might expect, Coppell tried to run the ball more with the young quarterback while Fossil Valley was more creative with their offense - even using a halfback pass at one point. They did not utilize a punt team, as the quarterback could also punt. So they just got into a regular spread formation, he took a couple of steps back and quick kicked the ball.

Fossil Valley scored twice to get the early lead. But Coppell was able to make adjustments and after two possessions where they did 3 plays and punted, they finally scored on their third possession when they ran a quarterback keeper and he found a seam for a long run and was finally dragged down at about the 5 yard line. Later they punched the ball in for a score and it was game on from that point. With a bigger line, they were able to get most of the yardage in between the tackles. Mixing in a pass every so often to keep the offense honest.

Coppell gave up a field goal and even a safety. The quarterback had problems with the snap from center several times and that was a thorn in their side as the ball was bobbled and had to hit the ball at least a half dozen times during the night. But they got their third touchdown and the lead in the third quarter. And the score was from a broken play where they drove inside the 10, the snap was bobbled and the quarter scooped it up and drove forward thru a crease in the line and somehow rolled out of a tackle to cross the goal line.

The Coppell defense made a good stand in the fourth quarter – Fossil Valley was in the redzone and they kept them from a touchdown for three plays and failed on a field goal attempt. This allowed Coppell to run out the clock for the remainder of the quarter winning 22-19. All in all I found the quality of play exceptional and it was definitely an event worth watching.

Coppell Cowboy Stadium

2011-10-02T11:40:00.001-04:00

Tri County North took out their frustrations on the Bradford Railroaders on Friday night. The team was still smarting from a disappointing 35-7 loss against Covington last week. The coaching staff would have to be wondering how the team would react on their first game back from an emotional loss. And being homecoming weekend, the Panther fans were even more clamoring for a win. This team still has a lot on the line for themselves, a future Covington loss would mean a chance for a least a tie for the league championship and at last check they were unofficially in 8th place for their district – meaning that they are in the hunt for a state playoff berth. So the Panthers needed to rebound with a win for all these reasons.

On their side of the ledger Bradford already had a thin roster decimated by injury – but had some players suspended from the game. So the North sideline was overflowing with red jerseys, while the Bradford sideline was thin – I don’t think there were even 10 substitutes on the Bradford sideline. Bradford was certainly playing iron man football – no rest for the starters. And with new faces on the field there was a greater chance for mistakes.

Any doubts on the North sideline were quickly erased in the first quarter. North struck first with a 80 yard touchdown pass from Austin Hutchins to Bill Derringer. A stout North defense kept Bradford out of the endzone for most of the game, preventing them from getting any traction. But Bradford had several mistakes at key times that prevented them from taking advantage of opportunities. Early in the second quarter they recovered a fumble at the North 35 yard line. But a critical hold on 4th and 1 put Bradford into long yardage and they had to give up the ball. North took advantage and regained their momentum scoring on a Sam Judd pass reception from Caleb Lawson.

The next Bradford drive was again stopped by penalties – a hold, then an unsportsmanlike as a flustered Bradford offense could not get on track. After a Bradford fumble North scored again on a JJ McPherson run and now things were getting lopsided with North up by 3 scores. Bradford tried a little subterfuge right before the half ended with a fake punt in their own territory. This failed and gave North a short field with about 1:22 left in the half. This was all the time needed for North to find paydirt again as Caleb Lawson caught a 35 yard pass from Austin Hutchins to put North into a commanding lead 28-0.

The second half showed even more that it was not Bradfords night –another fumble and a penalty, and then a snap on a punt went over the punters head who then correctly reacted by kicking the ball out of endzone – denying North the chance of a TD, but gifting them with a safety. About midway thru the 3rd quarter things got a little ugly when a pushing and shoving match drew unsportsmanlikes for both teams and a talking to from the referee’s and coaches to settle both teams down.

North found the endzone 3 times in the second half. JJ McPherson and Michael Olinger (who bull rushed thru several tackles on his 24 yard TD run) both ran the ball in and a Colton Booth to Mark VanBrederode touchdown pass rounded out the scoring for the Panthers. The Bradford offense was able to find the endzone in the 4th quarter as the North first string defense rested on the sidelines and let the reserves finish out the game. Giving an otherwise frustrated Bradford offense some measure of success.

Coach Derringer was asked if the staff was worried about how the team would react after the Covington loss, “Well we were all disappointed about how we got down early and were dominated up front. So we got the whole team and worked on firing off the ball and drive blocking and I think you can see the results of that on Friday night. Austin Hutchins had over 200 yards passing and you can’t do that unless you have an offensive line to protect him. This is the first time in a long time that North has had over 200 yards passing in a game. “

JJ McPherson had 95 yards rushing and a TD. Austin Hutchins threw for 201 yards, 2 TD’s, and was 8 of 13 passing. Billy Derringer had 105 yard receiving and a TD; Caleb Lawson had a TD and 25 yards; Sam Judd also had a TD.

“Now we did get to a slow start against Bradford even though we scored on the second play of the game. But our defense really dominates at home and we held Bradford for three quarters. One of their rushers had over 2000 yards last year and we held him to just 35 yards over 3 quarters. Josh Daughtery our middle linebacker had one of his best games of the year, he had a tremendous night and covered the side to side defense well. JJ McPherson had three tackles for loss at outside linebacker. And the entire defensive line played great – we rotated 6-7 players in there and kept fresh all night.”

Next up is Miami East, who is also coming off of a loss to Covington. “We upset them last year and I know they remember that. But we are playing here at home this year, and this season we are playing good at home. It should be a great ball game.”

2011-09-23T22:12:00.001-04:00

Bville wins 28 20

2011-09-23T20:23:00.001-04:00

Dix 14 bville 0 halftime. Ch 7 n ch 45 filming

2011-09-23T19:53:00.001-04:00

dix 7 bville 0. 1St

2011-09-18T17:04:00.000-04:00

“Our defense is what makes this team”, stated coach Derringer after his squad defeated Bethel on Friday night, “we don’t have much size but overall quickness is what makes our defense so effective.” Bethel was able to march their opening drive down the field and plant the ball in the endzone. It looked like game on for two teams that are battling for the top half of the league. But that would be the only score of the night for the Bee’s as the stifling North defense shut out Bethel for the remainder of the game. Meanwhile the North offense was able to put up 34 points in all against Bethel.

Coach Derringer explained after the game that he was disappointed with the first half rushing game. “We had scouted them, and attacked their defense where we felt they were weakest against the run. But we were not able to run, we might have had 8 yards in the first quarter and not much more than that for the half. “ Fortunately for the Panthers their passing game is effective – and Austin Hutchins connected with Billy Derringer for the first score for the Panthers. This tied the game and the Panthers were able to score again before the half ended. They split Austin Hutchins out as a receiver and placed Caleb Lawson at quarterback. Billy Derringer was again the recipient of a touchdown pass - this time from Lawson, and the Panthers had a 14 – 7 lead.

As good teams do, North made some half time adjustments to their running game and then exploded for 163 yards rushing in the 3rd quarter. Caleb Lawson scored a rushing td in the third and North opened the game up in the fourth quarter with both JJ McPherson and Cameron Gayheart scoring rushing TD’s. So the two halves were opposites for the team with the passing game carrying the load in the first half, and the rushing game making the difference in the second half. The game was won 34-7 by the Panthers. Coming into the game Bethel had a single league loss against Covington and in that loss they played tough against perennial powerhouse Covington losing by just 3 points 17-14. So on paper this should have been a much closer battle.

“Our defense stepped it up after the opening drive,” said coach Derringer, “We gave up 52 yards in the first quarter, but in the second quarter they had -22 rushing. And when we beat Arcanum they had 7 yards rushing in the first 3 quarters, and it was the same against Mississennewa Valley. For the game Bethel had less than 100 yards rushing and maybe 25 yards passing. It was a good game for us, we had great intensity and the team was emotional going into the game.”

Defensively for the Panthers Josh Daughter lead the way with 12 tackles and 2 for loss; Jacob Schlater, who had just returned from injury after missing two games had 6 tackles, 3 tackles for loss, and caused a fumble. Sam Judd and JJ McPherson had 6 tackles apiece with McPherson also intercepting a pass.

Coach Derringer on next week, “Covington will run every type of option at us – they have a complicated offense and our defense will have our hands full trying to sort it out. It has been 12 years since a North team has beat Covington. We will have to play an excellent game to leave their field with a victory.”

As we approach midseason, the league is starting to sort itself out from top to bottom. This coming Friday North takes on Covington for a game with both league and playoff implications for both teams. Both teams are undefeated in league play – tied for first, and a win makes the route the league championship that much easier. North is D6 this year and beating D5 Covington would give them first level points to get into the playoffs, and Covington would like to have the second level points from North wins. This will be an away game for North in the always tough Covington home field.

2011-09-11T17:28:00.000-04:00

Ansonia Outlasts South in Shootout

Ansonia outlasted South in a contest where offense was king. Neither teams defense could stop the others and it came down to which team would make the final score before time ran out. Ansonia under coach Hoying has been known for years for a ball control/run first offense. This year South’s offense features a spread attack and they would air it out – scoring 5 of their TD’s with the pass. So it was a game that would contrast two different styles of offense, plenty of lead changes, and where the punters pretty much had a night off.

South fell behind early as Ansonia got the ball and marched it down the field, taking 6 minutes of clock to score. South moved the ball on their first possession getting two first downs, but a penalty stopped their first drive and caused them to punt. And for the game South would punt twice, once in the first half and once in the second half. Ansonia then did another machinelike clock eating drive and ended it with another touchdown in the second quarter. Ansonia went for 2 points on their PAT’s and were successful twice. So the scoreboard was 16-0, it was not looking promising for the Panthers.

But although time of possession in the first half would favor Ansonia, South showed that they didn’t need much time to score. They scored not 1, not 2, but 3 unanswered touchdowns in quick succession. Suddenly it was TVS in the lead with a 21-16 lead. But South just would not be able to stop Ansonia on Friday night and they scored just before the half ended to regain the lead 24-21.

Now the game became a seesaw with Ansonia and South exchanging leads several times. But Ansonia was able to extend their lead. And late in the game South was facing a 40-28 deficit. But with 5:11 left, they scored to make it 40-34 and then did a squib kick which South recovered. It was a big momentum shift. And South made use of that momentum to drive the ball in and score. But
Ansonia was not out for the count – they made a big special teams play and blocked the TVS kick for the point after and now the score was knotted 40 all. But Ansonia had one more drive left in them and scored with 11 seconds to go for the win 48-40. And every fan in that stadium got their money’s worth that night.

“I was proud of the team, twice we were down by 2 touchdowns and twice they responded and came back, said Lance Engleka after the game. I was most pleased that we didn’t get down and kept coming at them. But ball control was a problem, we gave up 474 of rushing offense – and you can’t win games giving up that kind of yardage. Also Ansonia converted on 3rd and 4th downs 12 of 17 times. We can’t allow teams to have that kind of success again us.”

He went on to point that that Cole Cottingim had a great game rushing 24 times for 149 yards and a touchdown and his passing was 12/19 for 210 yards and 5 td’s. Scoring 5 passing touchdowns is something that South has not done for quite some time. He also pointed out that Michael Burke had a good night at receiver 7 receptions for 131 yards and 2 TD’s. Finally safety Zane Cottingim had 8 tackles with 4 assists and defensive back Wes Cole had 2 solo tackles and 8 assists. But when asked about this he admitted, “Our leading tacklers should not be in the defensively secondary, we need more from the rest of the defense. “

2011-09-03T08:40:00.001-04:00

Dixie Falls to Valley View

Although the final score was lopsided, the Greyhounds hung with the Spartans for 3 quarters. And Dixie had their chances against Valley View. There were two times in the game where 14 point swings made a big difference. Although the outcome would probably have been the same, the score would have been closer had Dixie not had mistakes in the red zone. Twice they failed to score points in side the twenty and both times Valley View capitalized on Dixe mistakes in the red zone to score themselves. So add 14 to the Dixie side and subtract 14 from the Valley View side and suddenly you have a game. Dixie showed that they could move the ball but putting it in the endzone was a problem on Friday.

Dixie’s first drive was their best of the night. Combining the pass and run they capped the drive with a Bowling to Ryan Jordan 32 yard touchdown pass. Later in the Valley View offensive series Dixie’s Nick Parker sacked the Valley View quarterback as did Wade Floyd a few plays later and Dixie would hold a 7-0 lead at the end of the first quarter. So far Dixie was looking good on both offense and defense.

But to beat a bigger opponent, a team can’t afford to make mistakes. And turnovers kept Dixie from getting momentum, this started in the second quarter and didn’t stop. Early in the second quarter a bad snap lead to a bad handoff which lead to a Valley View Spartan pouncing on the dropped ball. A few plays later and the game was even at 7-7. Then a bad punt gave Valley View the ball on the 41 yard line where they drove it in to go ahead. A fumble recovery by John Isaacs gave Dixie new life but on that series, Dixie coughed up the ball on an interception at the Valley View 14. Dixie did stop them and got new life when a bad snap went over the punters head, he attempted a kick which was partially blocked and who else but Isaacs covered the ball at the Valley View 17. It looked like a momentum change, but Dixie threw an interception on 4th and 11, it was returned by Chris Lykins over 90 yards for a TD. So instead of tying the game 14 all, Dixie was down 21-7 at the half – not the momentum shift that Dixie needed.

In the third quarter, Dixie’s Wade Floyd had a tackle for loss and ended Valley View’s first drive. Dixie’s last gasp was on their next possession. John Isaacs caught a pass and went 80 yards for the touchdown. They did not make the extra point and it was 21-13. And from there on out it was all Valley View. Dixie was able to drive again to the Valley View 25, but a bad snap on 4th down killed that drive and lead to another Valley View touchdown. With Valley View able to platoon, they wore down Dixie. Many Dixie players had to go both ways in the heat – plus two starters were just coming back from the flu. So they just ran out of gas in the second half. The Spartans would win 49-13.

“Well you can’t win any ball game with 7 turnovers,” stated Coach Tarpley after the game,”and Valley View capitalized on 4 of those for touchdowns, including all three Valley View TD’s in the second quarter. Bad plays and bad snaps were a problem. And our defense could not find an answer for Schenck their running back. Valley View rose to the occasion and played really well.”

He did go to say that Ryan Jordan had a really good game on defense. “He was our leading rusher last week, but we couldn’t get our running game on track this week. He plays both ways and lead the team in tackles at linebacker. Next week we play against Division 2 Franklin, the mistakes we made this week we can correct.”

Congrats to both TVS and TCN on their first victories of the season. And Eaton is hitting on all 8 cylinders. They look tough to beat at this point in the season.

Finally on OSU - watching the game against Akron over my shoulder as I update. Glad that OSU gets the win. They looked good - but you have to consider the opponent, the Zips have been in the bottom half of the MAC. Still I liked what I saw, an Ohio State team that controlled the line of scrimmage, ran well, passed well. Freshman Miller got playing time at qb in a non threatening situation. So a good start to the Finkell era.

2011-09-02T21:57:00.001-04:00

Vv 49 dix 13 final

2011-09-02T21:27:00.001-04:00

Dixie 13 vv 28 end of third

2011-09-02T20:37:00.001-04:00

Vv 21 dixie 7 at halftime

2011-09-02T19:54:00.001-04:00

Dixie 7 vv 0 1st qtr

2011-09-02T19:53:00.001-04:00

Dixie 7 vv 0 1st qtr

2011-08-31T11:59:00.002-04:00

This Friday I will be covering the Dixie - Valley View game.

If you can't make the game, I will be posting quarterly scores from the sidelines.

Watch for the story to be posted here next weekend.

2011-08-28T17:17:00.001-04:00

Greyhounds Race Past Panthers

With Dixie graduating a good crop of seniors last season there was some question if they could reload or would they need to rebuild? They have Junior quarterback Luke Bowling back at the helm but they lost two of his favorite receivers and on the defensive side of the ball they lost a premier linebacker, finally they lost linemen on both sides of the ball. Well the answer this last Friday night was that Dixie is in reload mode. They scored first and allowed South to tie it 7 -7. But that was the high water mark for the South offense as they were smothered from that point on by a stout Dixie defense. On the other side of the ball, the spread offense of Dixie was keeping South off balance with both the run and pass.

Bowling showed that he had some wheels as well as an arm as he carried the ball in twice for scores. He also connected with Doogie Hauser for a 30 yard TD pass, this play was set by a Jordan screen pass a play prior. And Jordan scored himself on runs of 43 and 80 yards. The 43 yard run was set up a Zack Grubb kick off return to the TVS 46 yard line. Trent Cummings scored on a one yard carry. But this score was set up by a Panther miscue – a bad snap on a punt resulted in the ball going to Dixie on the one yard line.

The lone Panther score was set up by freshman Anthony Augspurger’s interception. He was playing outside linebacker and jumped a route for the pickoff. Then he ran about 36 yards until he was tackled at the 23 yard line of Dixie. Three plays later the ball was given to Augspurger from 6 yards out where he finished the deal by running in for the score.

Both teams had their of share penalties – even for a first game. In a close game this can come back to bite these two teams. So I am sure both teams will be working on minimizing the illegal procedures and holding calls for next week. Although there was a good night for football, the turnout in West Alexandria seemed a little light as compared to years past. Hopefully this will improve too as the season goes on.

But Coach Tarpley from Dixie was more than pleased with his defense, “They are doing really well, this is the fastest defense that we have had and it showed on the field. It was lead by linebacker Matt Isaacs, who had 13 tackles and a fumble recovery. We played well in all aspects of the game, the defense, the offense, special teams – our kicking game was outstanding. Ryan Jordan had 165 yards rushing in the first half alone. “

He was gracious to the host team, “They are a well coached team, I see them getting much better once they learn the spread offense. It is a hard offense to pick up the first year. Also I appreciate the good sportsmanship that I saw on the field. Lance [Engleka] will do well at South, I see him doing good things in the CCC. ”

On next weeks game, “Well they are Valley View for one – they dropped us from the schedule years ago because they didn’t think we offered the completion, but I want to see the rivalry we once had come back. They have a good running back that their offense is centered around and they run a 5-2 defense. It will be a tough game, but I hope to surprise them. We had a good fan turnout Friday against South, but I really want to see the Dixie fans come out in full force and support us at Valley View.”

Coach Engleka acknowledged that Dixie was potent after the game, “We knew their offense was explosive, they put 35 points against Division 2 Greenville and scored 49 points in 3 quarters against Tri-County North. So we knew that they could put points on the board in a hurry. So we told the players before the game that we could not allow any big plays. We did that in the first quarter – although they scored, they had to drive the ball down the field. And we stopped them a few possessions. Then we had the break down on special teams early in the second quarter and turned the ball over to Dixie on the one yard line. Then we gave up another big play and so that 14 point swing at the start of the 2nd quarter really broke our backs.”

I asked him about the South score, “We had told our outside line backers where the Dixie receivers hit their marks, and Anthony hit the mark at right time and was able to make the play. We’ve been teaching the kids to listen and get to where they need to be on each play. He then had a nice return to the redzone and we were able to score three plays later.”

Finally, what positives they could find from the game? “We watched the game film and found that defensive linemen Cody Clayton and Kole Maggard did a great job clogging up the ‘A’ (inside) gaps. Kole was generally double teamed and still had 7 tackles including 2 for loss. They were both in their backfield more often than not. We also liked what we saw in Brad Wagers at Defensive End. He is a bit undersized, but compensates with quickness. And that quickness caused problems for the Dixie offense.

Next week South will play National Trail at home – both teams run the same offense and the same defense – according to coach Engleka this game will come down to which team executes the spread offense and 4-4 defense the best, and Dixie stays on the road and will travel to always tough Valley View.

2011-08-26T22:05:00.001-04:00

Dix 42 tvs 7 final

2011-08-26T21:35:00.001-04:00

dix 42 tvs 7 3rd qtr

2011-08-26T20:46:00.001-04:00

Dix 35 tvs 7 at half

2011-08-26T20:15:00.001-04:00

tvs 7 dix 21

2011-08-19T22:44:00.001-04:00

Eaton is ready for Talawanda. After their 3rd and final scrimmage, Eaton is ready to begin the regular season next Friday against Talawanda. Expectations are high after last seasons playoff run. Returning quarterback Cole French did not disappoint as he looked steady at the helm. I don't know what his completion rate was, but it had to have been high. Very few dropped balls and most of his passes were on the money. He and the spread offense work well together. When the scrimmage was over, Eaton had scored 4 TD's to Tipp City's one.

On the other side of the ball the defense had a good night overall. Lots of pressure on the Tipp quarterback. He had little time to throw. The running game was all they had. It was the big play that was the Achilles heel of the Eaton defense. They held Tipp to just a few yards a carry then all of sudden Tipp ripped a big carry for 50-60 yards. This happened at least twice and lead to their one score. Then the second time the defense held on a 4th and short causing Tipp to give up the ball on downs at about the 10 yard line. But overall the defense gave a good accounting of themselves.

The one thing I would like to see improved is the running game. Sure with the spread, you think pass first. And with a seasoned quarterback that is your strong hand. But you need to be able to run from time to time to keep the defense honest. Plus on those cold and windy Fridays, you need to be able to run when the pass isn't working for you. There was one decent gain for 15 yards, but overall they didn't do so well on the ground.

Coach Neanon had this to say after the scrimmage: "It was a good place to start, I really liked our defensive intensity - we got some nice pressure on their quarterback. That is something that we have been working on, so it was pleasing for us. Overall intensity wise I thought we played well. I thought our passing game looked good tonight. Our receivers caught the ball and Cole ready the defense well and picked out the guys who would be open. The offensive line gave him plenty of time, and if Cole has the time he can pick a defense apart."

Neanon expects Talawanda to use a ground attack. "They have big line splits and they will try to spread you out and they have a big quarterback who makes good reads on the option. They are not a huge team, but they have good quickness. On defense they use that speed to close on the ball."

On OSHAA allowing teams to have three scrimmages this year. "Overall I think it was a positive. We got to look at a lot of kids early on and fill out the depth chart. A lot of our young guys got playing time in game situations. On the negative side, there is always the chance for injury and so you just want to get out healthy."

Also I am doing some audio clips. So check it out on my Sports webpage, there is a link to right. The TVS audio is there now and Eaton's will be there shortly. Oh and if there are any young aspiring broadcasters out there - contact me. My voice is a monotone.

2011-08-19T20:53:00.001-04:00

Eaton 28 tipp 7 With jv teams now playing in 43h

2011-08-19T20:06:00.001-04:00

Eaton 21 tipp 7 at half of scimmage

2011-08-13T22:26:00.002-04:00

A new look at TVS. By my count TVS won the scrimmage 4-2 over New Miami. South scored both on the ground and in the air. The offense has an entirely new look under first year head coach Lance Engleka. He is the former offensive coordinator at Middletown where they ran the spread offense. That was the South offense of choice for the entire scrimmage. Many times spread teams will go to a different formation when it is short yardage - but South stayed with the spread thru out. Although South did use the pass effectively, they were able to keep New Miami of balance by running for yardage as well.

The South quarterbacks had a good eye for the most part - I think there was just the one interception, and the South receivers had good hands - very few dropped balls. They had a few holds on the line, and a few miscues, but for a first scrimmage they did well. And New Miami did have a couple of horses at tackle. Two big kids that looked to be over 6 foot and over 250 pounds. Defensively they had some let downs, but in the last part of the scrimmage, when it was down and distance, they did a good job against New Miami. South was up 4-1 and they had some subs in the game late when a New Miami quarterback ran a keeper for about 50 yards just before the scrimmage was over. Lots of red jerseys around the ball which you like to see on defense, plus they had a few sacks and tackles for loss.

New Miami has a new head coach as well - Coach Jewitt - if my memory is right he coached at Carlisle for awhile. One thing he did that was actually beneficial for the TVS defense was the variety of formations he used. The old T formation, Double wing, and the spread offenses. So the team had to adjust to a variety of looks. New Miami does not have much depth with about 22 - 24 players in all. On the other hand, South had 41 dressed for the scrimmage. Towards the end that difference in depth meant that they stayed stronger, longer.

Coach Engleka stated the entire experience was positive. "From an offensive standpoint we want to be uptempo in everything we do. Right from the get go we did what we needed to do, we were able to run the ball and we were able to throw the ball. We want to do what we want to do - when we want to do it. We both ran and threw the ball well when we wanted to.

Dylan Ashley and Cole Cottingim did really well at quarterback today. Our offensive line did a good job of getting into guys and moving them off the ball. We want our line to move the line of scrimmage back three yards and they did a great job of doing that. Our recievers made some real athletic plays. On the defensive side we told the guys to line up right, play fast and physical. Those are the three things we want to do, and today we did those three things. The type of offense they were running we had not seen before. And they did a good job against them; and if we can do those three things all year - line up right, play fast and physical we will be successful this year.

The defensive line did a good job of putting pressure on the quarterback. Our linebackers were coming up strong. Our free safety Zane Cottingim did an outstanding job today did an outstanding job of filling in the alley. Overall we were pleased with everything."

2011-08-13T12:11:00.003-04:00

Football Scrimmage: TVS 4 New Miami 2 Final

Well looks like the mobile posting from the field is working well. South was up 4-1, but Miami East got a score at the end of the scrimmage. Will post a full update and a pic or later. Have to run to a birthday party now.

2011-08-13T11:09:00.001-04:00

Tvs 2 new miami 1 almost done with scrimmage

2011-08-13T10:45:00.001-04:00

Tvs 1 new miami 1 midway thruscrimmage

2011-07-30T08:07:00.002-04:00

Ready for Fall? If you are like me you are ready for fall sports to kick off. The Reds just don't have the chemistry that they had last year. They have shown signs of what they can be - like when they beat up the Giants. Then they fell on their face at Houston. Playing to the level of their competition. Although they are not mathematically eliminated, it is safe to say that they will spend the playoffs like the rest of us - on their couches with the remote control.

The Browns could be a team that sneaks up on folks. I can see them upsetting some teams this season. But the Bengals, oh the Bengals, ran by Mike Brown who was shocked and amazed that his franchise was voted amongst the worst in sports. New offense, new receivers, new quarterback, shutdown corner Joseph gone - for them 3 or 4 wins will be an accomplishment. This season the Bengals gear stays in mothballs.

Which brings us to the other professional team in Ohio - the Ohio State Buckeyes. Lots of turmoil. Anyone who hasn't graduated is suspended for the first 5 games. We have gotten spoiled in the Tressel era. It was taken for granted that we would win the big 10, beat up on Michigan, and play in a major bowl. Although the interim head coach, Finckel is intense, I don't know if he can overcome all the off field churn to get the team focused. It will be interesting to see if Braxton Miller can work his way into a starting QB spot - he seems more like the real deal than Pryor.

So what's left - my favorite sport, High School football. Looking forward to seeing some great players this fall. Cole French was phenomenal at Eaton. But his favorite receiver graduated, along with some very good linemen. Still I think that Eaton is in reload mode and should do well this season. A bit further down 35, Bowling is back as a Junior QB for Dixie. And he faces similar challenges - two very good receivers graduated along with some key linemen. Dixie had a great season last year, but being the smallest school in the SWBL, they have little margin for error.

In the CCC, look for Covington and Miami East to be at the top. But I think Bradford could be ready to make a challenge. They return a lot and Enis seems to have made a difference as head coach. Likewise Bethel returns some good players, I can see them in the top half of the league. Derringer seems to get the best out of TCN, they had a good young quarterback last season. It will be interesting to see if he continues to improve. South has a new coach, numbers are up, so maybe South will rise again. Ansonia graduated a lot and I am not sure they will get much help from the underclassmen. National Trail has a new coach, I heard they held up OK against Centerville in 7 on 7's, so maybe they are onto something.

Finally, I have the capability of updating the blog from my phone. So I will be posting quarterly updates on the games that I am attending. I know from the stats that a fair number of folks follow the blog from out of state and overseas. So this will be a way to get results closer to real time. First game will be TVS vs. Dixie.

2011-07-30T07:21:00.001-04:00

Test post from phone

2011-05-29T07:45:00.000-04:00

Local Athletes State Bound

Two local athletes will be going on to state – regional Champion Myranda Schoen from TCN threw the discus 114’6” to win her event. South’s George Holman was a 4th place finisher in the 1600m run and so he will be running at state. The always tough Southwest Regional track meet was a heartbreaker for a number of athletes who had aspirations of going on to the next level. Many athletes would have their best performances of the season at the meet but it wouldn’t be enough to be a top 4 finisher and go on to state. But as I found out, several athletes will have opportunities after their high school careers have finished.

Dixie had two near misses with John Isaacs finishing 5th and William Stapleton finishing 6th in their events – high jump and 3200m run. Stapleton took an astounding 30 seconds off of his best time but still just missed going to state. De’Aaron Isaacs finally got a medal in the 300m hurdles. Last season he tumbled over the last hurdle while in first place and was disqualified. This season he did finish, but ended up in 8th place. South’s Steve Balthis and Ryan Burns also came close to qualifying for state, but their performances were just shy. South girls relay teams finished outside the medal range even though the 4X400m relay team won their heat.

And looking to the future, De’Aaron will be going on to Miami University on an Academic Scholarship; he will be studying music and drama . Megan Uzzel didn’t do as well as she would have liked in the pole vault, finishing out of a medal. But she will be going on to Ashland where she plans to continue her track career. Tony Prater, also from Dixie, will be attending Kentucky Christian and playing football there. Finally South’s George Holman will attending the University of Detroit Mercy where he will continue his running career with a scholarship.

Coach Fahrenholtz from South had hoped that Steve Balthis would have made it to state,” but still he had a great season, and great career here – he just didn’t have a great day. In any other year his long jump would have gotten him to state, but it didn’t this year. In the 2 mile run 6th place was under 10 minutes – so the competition was great in all the events.” On George Holman, “His time of 4:30.11 is a personal record for him. I am happy for him, he ran well. He is our one and only going to state – it was a tough year here at regionals.”

George Holman was asked about going out for the early lead in his race, “Part of my stragedy was to get out there early and stay with the leaders and stay with them as long as I can.” George held the lead for most of the race and was overtaken late but finished a solid 4th. This will be his second 1600m run at the state meet.

Dixie’s Coach Hughes also agreed that this was a tough meet. “I was happy with the numbers of the guys that made it to the meet. They worked hard all season, it didn’t go quite as well as we wanted it to. John Isaacs just missed in the high jump, and our 2 miler, Stapleton had the best performance for us of the day and still didn’t make it – it was his best run ever. Sophomore John Nguyen didn’t make it in hurdles, but he got some good experience. De’Aaron Isaacs didn’t make it, it wasn’t quite his year. He got his first medal for 300m hurdles, but it really wasn’t the medal he was really hoping for. The 4X200m team scored points for us and had a personal best. the 4X100m team just missed scoring points, finishing 9th. Kenny Beard, the head track official, remarked that the first and second finishers here will finish really well in state too.”

Regional results: 110m hurdles TVS Steve Balthis 7th; 4X200m relay Dix John Isaacs, Doogie Hauser, Ryan Jordan, Tony Prater 7th;1600m TVS George Holman 4th;300m hurdles Dix De’Aaron Isaacs 8th; 3200m Dix William Stapleton 6th; Discus Myranda Schoen TCN 1st; high jump Kate Yeazel NT 6th; High Jump Dix John Isaacs 5th; Long Jump TVS Steve Balthis 6th; Pole Vault TVS Ryan Burns 6th, Jordan Krickenbarger 8th.

2011-05-22T10:35:00.000-04:00

South and Dixie Do Well at District

Both Twin Valley South and Dixie boys found success at the district track meet. The two teams dueled for the championship and when the day was done, South took home the first place hardware, while Dixie was runnerup. And the girls teams added to their respective medal counts as several local teams sent athletes to the regional meet to be held next week in Troy. Athletes had to finish in the top 4 in their event to qualify. And it was great weather in an otherwise wet spring. A track official remarked to me that this was only the second meet all season that he had attended where there was no rain! The hot weather made for some good performances.

Steve Balthis from Twin Valley South had an impressive meet, he qualified for all 4 of the events that he participated in. Another athlete had to over adversity to go to the next level, Myranda Schoen from TCN qualified in 2 field events – winning the shot and second in the discus. She had a noticeable limp from a pulled hamstring when she entered the circle for her throws, but was able to persevere. But she missed a trifecta due to the injury which caused her to be scratched from the 100m dash.

South coach Farenholtz was all smiles at the end of the meet. “Steve Balthis qualified in all 4 of his events. And George Holman won the 1600m run, and also qualified on his relay team. Bobby Green finished second in the shot and this was his first year of doing it. He is a junior so he will be back next year. We had great performances today – the 4X100 relay team, well that was their best time all year. They picked the right time to run there best. We scored in all of the field events. Ryan Burns and Jordan Krickenbarger both qualified in the pole vault. Burns has been playing catcher on the baseball team this spring, so we just picked him up – we are hoping that he gets even better for next week. It’s been a fun day for us”.

TVS girls Coach Mabry is sending some athletes to Regionals as well. “Haley Glander is going on two relay teams, but she just missed qualifying in the open 100 and 200. Finishing 5th in both races. It would have been nice if she could have moved up one spot. But both relay teams, the 4X200 and 4X400, ran their best times today. The 4X100 ran their best time of the year – but it just wasn’t fast enough. But next week the girls aren’t running as many races, so they will be fresher and we have time to prepare”.

Coach Via from Dixie was ecstatic about Megan Uzzel who was district champion in the pole vault. “She put in a lot of work in the off season. She won last year with a 9 foot jump. She spent the season breaking her own records and has the school record this year – 10 feet.” Coach Hughes, boys coach from Dixie, was pleased with the Dixie boys team, “The winning 4X100m relay team ran a personal best today. This is back to back championships for our 4X100 team. Our high jumper, John Isaacs was also a district champ. He’s had a good year, tied our school record with a 6’6” jump earlier in the spring. We double qualifiers in the 300m hurdles, De’Aaron Issacns and John Nguyen. This will be De’Aaron’s third year at Regionals. Both he and John have been working really hard this year. Stapleton, our distance runner, has had a good meet – he will be going to regionals in two events”.

Other regional qualifiers are: TVS 4X800 (George Holman, Anthony Botting, Josh Perry, Nick Guerhing); 110m hurdles TVS Steve Balthis, Dix De’Aaron Isaac. 100m dash TVS Steve Balthis. 4X200m relay TVS (Hayley Glander, Kim Perry, Alyssa Wysong, Katherine Leach). 4X200m relay Dix (Tony Prater, John Isaacs, Doogie Hauser, Ryan Jordan).

1600m run TVS George Holman, Dix William Stapleton. Girls 4X100m PS (Taylor Fultz, Jessika Evans, Mackenzie Steele, Cassie Crawford). Boys 4X100m Dix (Tony Prater, John Isaacs, Doogie Hauser, Ryan Jordan). TVS (Tyler Leach, Brandon Gorby, Ryan Burns, Jacob Hemmelgarn). 300m hurdles Dix De'aaron Isaac, Dix John Nguyen, TVS Jacob Hemmelgarn. 800m TVS Kim Perry, TCN Makayla Conley. Boys 3200m Dix William Stapleton; Nick Guehring TVS.

4X400m TVS (Ashton Beneke, Kim Perry, Abbey Voge, Hayley Glander). 4X400m relay Dix Tony Prater, Patrick Bain, John Nguyen, De'aaron Isaac). Discus Myranda Schoen TCN. High Jump John Isaacs Dix, Steve Balthis TVS. Long Jump Steve Balthis. Girls shot Myranda Schoen TCN; boys shot Bobby Green TVS. Pole Vault Dix Megan Uzzel. Pole Vault Jordan Krickenbarger, Ryan Burns.

2011-05-15T12:46:00.000-04:00

Dixie Ends Season Against Waynesville

The Dixie Greyhounds baseball has enjoyed success this season as they have in past seasons. But despite a 12 game winning streak earlier in the season, the team sputtered down the stretch and finally lost to Waynesville in the opening round of the state tournament. Dashing their hopes of back to back district titles. It was a frustrating loss for the seniors, a group that was used to success.

Dixie was able to get the lead when Greg Leonard and Wes Smith crossed the plate in the second inning. This gave them a 2-1 lead over the Spartans. Waynesville threatened in the 4th inning, advancing a runner to third base. But a timely double play by the Greyhounds got them out of danger. Aaron Worley unofficially had 6 strikeouts by the 5th inning so he was throwing a decent baseball. He had only lost one game the entire season.

The one run lead seemed to be holding fine as the team entered the 6th inning. The first Waynesville hitter reached base, but the next batter popped out to the catcher when he tried to bunt. The next batter flied out. Then came a 2 out rally, a coaches bane. The next batter was walked, and the damage was done when a bases clearing double on a ball hit in the gap scored two runs to give Waynesville the lead. Another batter was walked and finally the next batter grounded out to end the eruption.

Dixie went down 1-2-3 in to end the 6th inning. They did manage to get their first hitter on base in the final inning when he hit a blooper just over the heads of the infield. He advanced to second on a ground out. The next batter went down swinging and now Dixie was down to their final out. Dixie had a slim chance, but things would have to break the right way for them. Unfortunately the base runner was thrown out on a failed steal attempt trying to get into better scoring position. So that was game, set, and match for Dixie.

Coach Bingham was crestfallen after the game, “We gave the game away - had some errors that hurt us, and the kid from Waynesville pitched a very good game. We hit balls, but we hit then right at them – didn’t have anything fall. ” Despite this loss, the team did end up in second place in the league.

And Coach Bingham gave props to a successful senior class, “Aaron Worley, Josh Bingham, Ethan Hayes, and Wes Smith were the core of this group. Aaron ended up with 7 wins against 2 losses and is second all time in wins at the school. Ethan has been a solid player behind the plate, hits the ball hard, and is one of the all time RBI leaders. Josh was strong for us in 2009 and helped us in that district championship run, he has been solid for us in the outfield. Wes is 3-1 and has been a really good pitcher for us despite injury. All of these seniors will be missed.” He went on to say that this was the winningest class in school history averaging 18 wins per season.

2011-05-12T12:27:00.000-04:00

Well Graher has stepped down as head coach at Trail. The guy who got Mississinnewa Valley turned around met his match at the Blazers. The team has only won a single game in the last 3 years. So a lot of room for improvement. Not sure who they can manage to bring in at that program. No tradition, tough for an incoming coach to build enthusiasm for a program like that. A difficult uphill battle for anyone.

Dixie is resodding their football field this spring and looks to be doing some regrading. So if nothing else the field will be looking sharp this fall. Dixie graduates a lot, but I like their quarterback.

Coldwater on ESPN? Heard a rumor that ESPN is thinking of putting a Coldwater game on TV. It would be an August game and they would move it a Sunday start time.

2011-04-24T16:46:00.000-04:00

South Football Under a New Head Coach

South Football will be under the helm of a new coach this fall. Lance Engleka was recently voted in by the school board after the resignation of the old coach and has hit the ground running. He has already met with the team and is implementing a strength and conditioning program for the kids. “Even with baseball and track in season, the workouts have been well attended. I like the leadership that I am seeing from the seniors.”

He has an Ohio background, but has spent some time out of state. He spent 4 years in the Navy, and coached at Buford high school outside of Atlanta, Georgia where he helped coach the offense. In Ohio he graduated from Miamisburg high school, he attended Miami University where he played baseball, and coached football in Centerville and most recently in Middletown – again on the offensive side of the ball.

Middletown was his most recent coaching position and they featured the spread offense. Coach Engleka stated that most fans think of a spread offense as constantly throwing the ball. But the system at Middletown allowed more flexibility and so there times when they ran more out of the spread than passed. It was adjusted according to the players you had at time. At different times they had strong players in various positions and so they adapted the offense to match the skillsets they had to work with. So the spread offense is something that we could be seeing more of from South.

It is noteworthy that Engleka has been with winning programs – Buford had a phenomenal run where they made the playoffs several years in row, the football team even received a letter of commendation from the Georgia state legislature and Middletown has made the state playoffs the last two years, even defeating perennial powerhouse Moeller the year before last. This year Wayne beat them on the way to the State Championship. Although he has a lot of experience with large Division I schools like Centerville and Middletown, he stated that Buford was closer to TVS in size – so that gives him some perspective on small school football where there will be many players going both ways.

Although he comes in with a lot of coaching experience on the offensive side of the ball, he is not neglecting the defense. Coach Householder, an alum of New Mexico State University, and who has spent about 30 years in football either as a player or coach will be in charge of defensive duties. He was most recently coaching in Springfield. Coach Engleka is expecting big things from him. Coaches Maddox and Albright are being retained and will round out the coaching staff.

One thing that struck me is that towards the end of our conversion he stated that he enjoyed seeing the players during the strength and conditioning sessions. It gave him a chance to meet and get to know the kids off the field – so that that they knew that this was more than just about football. That is a perspective that I like to see. He also came off as sincere and focused. Attributes that we like to see in our coaches. South football has been very cyclical with long valleys between the peaks. Here’s hoping that South rides to a new peak with their new coach.

2011-04-17T06:07:00.000-04:00

Brookville One - Two at TVS Invitational

The Brookville boys and girls track teams had a strong showing at the Twin Valley South Invitational Friday night. The girls team finished first and the boys team was second – edged out of first by only half a point by Covington which scored 98 while Brookville scored 97.5. Despite the threat of bad weather by the local forecasters there was a good sized crowd on hand. The parking lot at the school was full and people were parking along the access road. The umbrellas popped up like mushrooms as a couple of bands of rain passed thru – but each time it rained for about 30 minutes and was gone. Temperatures were reasonable for this time of year and overall it was well ran track meet.

Team finishes for local girls teams: Brookville 1st,Eaton 3rd, Valley View 4th,Madison 5th, National Trail 8th, Dixie 9th, TCN 10th, TVS 10th(tie). Boys teams finishes: Covington 1st,Brookville 2nd, TVS 3rd, Dixie 4th, Eaton 5th, Valley View 6th, Madison 8th, TCN 13th,National Trail 15th.

Girls 4X800 Brookville 1st,Valley View 3rd,Eaton 5th,Dixie 7th; Boys 4X800 Brookville 1st, Valley View 3rd,TVS 4th,Eaton 5th,Dixie 7th; Girls 100m hurdles Ashley Neavin Eaton 1st, Kari Shank VV 3rd, Mackenzie Lingenfe BV 4th, Zanna Spears Eaton 6th; Boys 100m hurdles Steve Balthis TVS 1st, De’aaron Isaac DX 3rd, Jordan Krickenbarger TVS 4th, Deon Smith Eaton 5th.

Girls 100m Dash Michelle McKinney Eaton 1st, Danielle Sedwick BV 2nd,Myranda Schoen TCN 3rd, Allison Bundy MD 4th, Katie Clark VV 5th, Kari Shank VV 6th,Hayley Glander TVS 7th, Katherine Leach TVS 8th; Boys 100m dash Trent Vore BV 1st, Ryan Jordan DX 3rd, Joe Lang VV 4th, Nathan Clark Eaton 6th, Kody Eby TCN 7th.

Girls 4X200 Brookville 1st, Madison 3rd, Valley View 4th, TVS 5h, Dixie 6th, Eaton 7th; Boys 4X200 Eaton 1st, Dixie 4th, Valley View 5th,Trail 6th, TCN 7th; Girls 1600m Samantha Combs VV 2nd, Courtney Swink BV 3rd, Stephanie Robinson MD 5th, Andrea Hunt NT 7th, Alissa Mayrer BV 8th; Boys 1600m George Holman TVS 1st,Todd Hewitt Eaton 2nd, Sam Bench BV 3rd, Nathan Lee VV 4th, William Stapleton DX 6th, Nick Guehring TVS 7th.

Girls 4X100m Madison 1st, Valley View 3rd, Brookville 5th, TVS 6th, Eaton 7th, Dixie 8th. Boys 4X100m Dixie 1st, Brookville 3rd, TVS 4th, TCN 5th, Madison 6th,Eaton 7th, Valley View.

Girls 400m Michelle McKinney Eaton 2nd, Lilly Malcolm Madison 4th, Lydia King BV 6th, Ally Rutherford BV 7th, Makayla Conley 8th TCN. Boys 400m Ethan Leonard BV 1st, Jake Simpkins VV 3rd, Andre Eddy Eaton 5th, JJ MacPherson 8th TCN; 300m Zanna Spears Eaton 3rd, Kari Shank VV 5th, Ashley Neavin Eaton 6th, Mackenzie Lingenfe 7th, Kelsey Limbert 8th. Boys 300m De’Aaron Isaac DX 1st, Jacob Hemmelgarn TVS 2nd, Billy McGuire 5th, John Nguyen DX 7th.

Girls 800m Samantha Combs 4th VV. Andrea Hunt NT 5th,Kim Perry TVS 6th, Chelsea Tiley 8th; boys 800m Nathan Clark Eaton 1st, Jake Simpkins VV 2nd, George Holman TVS 4th, Jacob Bench BV 5th, Lee Bricker BV 6th, Josh Perry TVS 7th. Girls 200m Michelle McKinney 1st, Allison Bundy Madison 2nd,Brindy Northcutt BV 4th, Katie Clark VV 5th, Taylor Whiteman Madison 6th, Rachel Vore BV 8th;Boys 200m Dash Ethan Leonard BV 2nd, Ryan Jordan DX 3rd, Joe Lang VV 6th, Andre Eddy Eaton 7th.

Girls 3200m Samantha Combs VV 2nd, Courtney Swink BV 3rd, Alissa Mayrer BV 4th,Stephanie Robinson MD 5th, Victoria Stapleton DX 7th. Boys 3200m Todd Hewitt Eaton 1st, Nathan Lee VV 2nd, Matt Sewell BV 3rd, William Stapleton DX 7th. Girls 4X400m BV 1st, Eaton 2nd, VV 5th, DX 7th, MD 8th. Boys 4X400m BV 1st, Eaton 3rd, VV 5th,8th TCN.

Girls Discus Myranda Schoen TCN 2nd, Caitlin Highley Eaton 3rd, Mikayla Daniel MD 4th, Brooke Lewis VV 6th, Kate Deaton NT 7th, Katie Epperson VV 8th; Boys Discus Josh Behnken BV 2nd, Drew Othersen Eaton 4th, Dylan Steffey TVS 6th, Mike Smiley 7th DX. Girls Shot Andrea Brower Eaton 1st, Kate Yeazel NT 2nd, Mikayla Daniel MD 3rd, Myranda Schoen TCN 4th, Katie Epperson VV 5th, Lainey Linville BV 6th. Boys Shot Logan Shell BV 2nd, Austen Alber 3rd BV, Mike Smiley 4th DX, Drew Othersen Eaton 7th. Robert Green TVS 8th.

Girls Long Jump Alyx Duning NT 3rd, Katherine Leach TVS 4th,Rebekah Stout BV 5th, Andrea Hunt NT 6th, Emily Robbins TVS 7th, Katie Bliss VV 8th. Boys Long Jump Steve Balthis TVS 1st, Chris Daniel MD 3rd, Jacob Hemmelgarn TVS 4th, Ryan Jordan 6th DX, Billy McGuire MD 7th. Girls High Jump Kate Yeazel NT 1st, Haleigh White DX 3rd, Rebekah Stout BV 4th,Stacey Nutt Eaton 5th, Jordan Hickey TVS 6th, Andi Long MD, Kelly Schriever TCN. Boys High Jump Steve Balthis TVS 1st, John Isaacs DX 2nd, Ryan Thobe Madison 3rd, Nick Gillis BV 4th, Nathan Friesel VV 4th,Jacob Hemmelgarn 4th(tie).

Girls pole vault Megan Uzzel DX 2, Cortney Cobb MD 5th, Emma Kroger VV 6th,Heather Thomas TVS VV. Boys pole vault Jordan Krickenbarger TVS 1st, Cody Falldorf DX 2nd, Kyle Forth MD 3rd, Alan Sarver Eaton 5th, John Nguyen DX 7th, David Day VV 8th.

2011-04-17T06:01:00.000-04:00

A Shepard in Afghanistan Part 2

This is the second part of a dialogue between myself and Mark Shepard, a retired Army Colonel who is working with the Afghanistan Government. Some of the projects that he has worked on include developing a national firefighting curriculum and also a National Disaster Management Plan. So he interacts with Afghani’s on a daily basis when he is in country. He has been shuttling back and forth from the US, to Europe, and the middle East as part of his work. And he has been forthcoming with his observations and thoughts on Afghanistan and the Middle East in general.

In Marks words -What I can tell you that there are some educational, economic and cultural obstacles that it will take years to fix, not months. A country that has been without an education system since the Soviet Union invaded and not much of one prior to that has a long way to go. The younger generation of Afghans are more easily accepting of us, at least more accepting of the educational and need to join the world community. And, in a community that respects its elders, change comes very slowly. Marriages are still arranged and obeying of elders continues until the sons and daughters reach middle age.

In a country with few jobs, there is not much opportunity for the younger generation to advance. So educated young people are leaving the country to seek their fortunes. So this exasperates the problems in that country, when your best and brightest leave it is a drain on the society. Also he noted that half the society is marginalized – women have few opportunities to participate outside the home. He also noted that the Afghani’s liked Western things, but did not particularly like Western society. The further away from Kabul one gets, I believe the less they think Americans are doing the country much good, unless they are directly connected with a Provincial Reconstruction Teams that are a mix of Military and State Department people that are out in the provinces trying to establish stable forms of local government.

As noted before corruption has been a problem in Afghanistan. There is a move afoot to introduce a more Western style rule of law with a local system integrated with a regional and national justice system where the laws are standardized and enforced equally. Rule of law
includes the entire legal complex of a modern state, from a constitution and a legislature to
courts, judges, police, prisons, due process procedures, a commercial code, and anticorruption measures. All things we take for granted here but simply don’t exit there.

Another aspect of their culture that impedes the growth of knowledge is the reluctance to share information. A technician knows that he is invaluable so long as he is the only one in a unit to have that knowledge; once he dispenses it to others he no longer is the only font of knowledge and his power dissipates. This explains the commonplace hoarding of manuals, books, training pamphlets, and other training or logistics literature. So whether it is a private company or a military unit, there this hoarding of knowledge.

Mark feels that it will take generations of Western influence to profoundly influence the culture of Afghanistan. Historically, Afghanistan has been characterized as a nation of loosely confederated warlords who rule over geographically separate domains. And there has been pressure from voices within the national government to revert to the old ways and permit provincial governors to field their own militias. But this would upset the concept of a Republic style of government. So far they have resisted this urge to go back to the way things were. Hopefully with the coalition leaving around 2014, the international community will pick up where we left off and continue to guide the Afghans toward legitimacy. Without that guidance, it will plunge back into civil war. Until this generation of Afghans are gone, I get the feel of despotism more than democracy. The recent unrest in the Middle East has been long in coming. There has always been resentment against the ruling families in nearly every Middle Eastern Country. I see a real danger of the rise of radical Islam given the vacuum created by the recent coupes and change of government. Chances of this are very high. Time will tell if we have planted a seed of Democracy or if Afghanistan will revert back to their centuries old ways once we have left. I think we all wish for that seed to take root.

2011-04-16T07:42:00.000-04:00

A Shepard in Afghanistan

In a country in need of guidance, Mark Shepard, a graduate of now Tri-County North has been a shepherd of sorts – helping Afghanistan get organized and moving into the right direction. A retired colonel from the military, he had been sent back to the Mideast as a military contractor and is helping the Afghanistan government build a nationwide disaster response organization – sort of like our FEMA. I had lost track of Mark since school – I remember him as a quiet, somber guard on the football team. But we reconnected on facebook and so I was able to find out what he has been up these many years and what he is doing now. Wow has he been busy!
After joining the army he initially underwent training as a combat engineer, learning Demolitions, diving, freefall parachuting, and rappelling from helicopters. During his career he also saw action in the Panama invasion and the first war in Iraq – Desert Storm where he was a scout/sniper platoon leader for the 82nd airborne division. He eventually became a Ranger, an elite unit in the US army and was also a member of the special forces, the Green Beret. He rose thru the ranks, becoming a squad leader, a sergeant, then an officer and finally working his way to colonel. An impressive career for a humble lineman from Lewisburg.

So when we reconnected I asked him what he was doing in Afghanistan. Recent events in Libya and Egypt have overshadowed this war, but I wanted to find out more from someone who was there. Well after retiring from the military he went looking for another job. Turns out that a defense contractor was helping the government of Afghanistan build a FEMA-like organization to be ready for disasters. Things like earthquakes, avalanches(lots of them in the mountains of Afghanistan), fires, and floods. He was helping develop a ‘tashkil’ an afghan term for organizational structure and equipment for the new agency.

Being curious about the country and the culture – I wanted to draw from Mark’s experience to get his thoughts and views since he was living in the country and working with Afghani’s every day. First I asked him to contrast Iraq and Afghanistan. “Iraq and Afghanistan are miles apart. Iraq had an education system and are very much ahead in the areas of infrastructure and public services. Education is the central component that is missing in Afghanistan. There is over a 70% illiteracy rate here. Many people that I work with have very basic reading and writing skills. Some not at all.”

So this could be a problem when working with the officers, “Many of them were mujahedeen fighters that learned to handle a weapon and live in caves or other structures but were never afforded a chance to read or right. Because of their bravery on the battlefield or because of the Afghan Government connections many of the officers have, being illiterate is not necessarily a disqualification and the ministries would rather be interested in ethnic balancing instead of skill sets that will help their ministry.”

Despite obstacles there have been some successes, there had been no nationally organized fire fighting units. Now thanks to equipment being donated, there is a rudimentary fire fighting organization in existence. They are given intensive training and are being deployed as equipment and funding allow.
And the population likes these new firefighters they are seen as hero’s – just like in the US, who doesn’t like a fireman? In contrast, the existing national police force (Afghan National Police) needs some more improvement, an area that is getting attention. Mark noted the ANP are often at road checkpoints asking for bribes to get from truckers and also ask for other “favors” in exchange for “protection”. The corruption is seen as so rampant that the public will rely on the military as a champion of their cause. Since the ANP is an essential part of the disaster response effort, a lot of attention is being focused on changing their ways and thereby changing public attitudes.

There are some aspects of Afghan culture which are puzzling for instance, “The Afghan ethnic wars are things of legend among the Afghan people. Grudges hold for many years and are generational. One tribe may not like another because a great uncle or cousin from 150 years ago may have been killed by another tribe and according to Afghan Custom and law, this act must be endured generationally until some sort of settlement is made”. So getting tribes in the outlying areas to cooperate can be difficult because of this.

To be openly critical of a higher officers plan was unheard of several years earlier but now is tolerated. And being a ‘top down’ sort of culture it is ingrained to respect and listen to your elders – to not question authority. This still proved a problem in a recent exercise where the junior officers knew there was a flaw in the plan but did not question it and of course things went awry. But an avalanche and a plane crash were examples of where the fledgling agency was able to respond effectively. Even coordinating support with the Afghan Commando’s to do high altitude rescues. In a tightly structured country it can be difficult to reach out across departments like this.

So Mark is making progress despite some of the difficulties that he has encountered. We will continue this discussion in part two of ‘A Shepard in Afghanistan’ where we will explore more of Afghanistan and the Middle East thru his eyes.

2011-03-20T19:11:00.000-04:00

Congrats to Franklin Monroe for carrying the banner for the CCC deep into the playoffs. They were finally knocked off in the Regional finals by Houston. They only had one loss in the regular season, so an exceptional season for the Jets. Proving once again that the CCC is strong in basketball.

Geeze this Tressel deal at Ohio State. Lots of pressure on the head coach to win at a school like OSU where the fans are many and are fervent. To me the violation is one of those ticky tack things. Why can't players sell playoff rings and memorabilia? It's their property. I guess that I can see the autograph deal being a problem. Anyway rules are rules whether or not you agree with them. But I think that Tressel looked the other way because he was potentially going to lose a lot of talent for X amount of games. But getting caught after the fact may put a damper on what I thought could be a Championship season. Pryor will be a senior next year. Decent talent returning, but with this turmoil it will be hard for the team to focus.

How is everyone's brackets looking? Gotta brag I am in 10th place out of 107 people in my pool. Even though I blew Louisville - but then who saw that coming. I did have Pittsburgh being the first number season to crash and burn - albeit one round later. Anyway I have a habit of sprinting out early but getting it wrong in the later rounds and crashing and burning myself. Ohio State is running away from George Mason right now - just so that they make it to the final 4, but no further...

Rumor has it that Shondelmeyer is leaving TVS as football coach. He had a good run at Arcanum where the right coach with the right group of kids made it to the playoffs. Tried to fill the shoes of a legend at Versailles and just couldn't match up to the success that the Tigers had in the past. Never really got much traction at TVS. Used the pass sparingly and used the double wing offense for a run dominated attack. But who is going to take over now? It would be nice to have Cottingim again, but I am not sure he wants to do the duties of principal and head coach again. Doing it all takes lots of time. So then they will just have to find a young coach willing to come to a small school for experience and hope that he catches fire.

2011-02-12T21:56:00.000-05:00

Double Win Night for Shawnee. Both Varsity basketball teams won in exciting fashion in a mens and womens double header. South was the unlucky recipient of tough losses. South's women's team is based on seniors while Shawnee's is based on sophomores. The Shawnee team has been able to string together some wins while South has a winning season and hope to enter the post season season on an upnote with a win for their last regular season game. After a first half with a lot of turnovers, the tables were turned as the Arrows began to take advantage of the Panthers errors. Down the stretch Shawnee hit their shots while South whiffed. Shawnee came away with a 5 point win.

Coached this bunch of sophomores when I did junior high at Shawnee. And at times there were 4 sophomores on the court. Not much height, but some athleticism and that intangible that you either have or don't have - a desire to win no matter what the odds. If this bunch stays together, look for good things to happen in Arrow country the next couple of years.

As for the boys game, South has got to wondering what happened. They had a comfortable lead at half time. But Shawnee kept chipping away at that lead. If my memory is right South had an 8 point lead with about 2 minutes left. I was getting my coat and making plans for heading out the door. But Shawnee made their shots down the stretch, including an incredible three pointer launched about midway shot form between the three point line and midcourt. South had a tough time making foul shots, the Arrow crowd was definitely a six man as at least three players bricked the front end of 1 and 1's partly due to the loud crowd.

This tied the game and I think the air left South's sails at this point. They were trying to force the ball on offense and this caused turnovers. Plus it did not help to miss some easy shots. Shawnee did hit their free throws and won comfortably by 8. It has been a tough season for the South boys squad and this loss was a real heart breaker.

2011-01-24T12:29:00.000-05:00

Palmer leaving? I don't think so. Remember several years ago when Ocho Cinco threatened to leave? And look where he is now. I don't see the tight grip of Mike Brown relaxing. And I don't see any teams picking up the expensive contract of Palmer after a less than stellar year. So my bet is on number 9 being back next year.

2011-01-22T08:00:00.000-05:00

Public vs Private

OSHAA has a panel that has been looking at the public vs. private school debate. It is well known that private schools have dominated the state playoffs - particularly in football. And although schools are not allowed to actively recruit students for athletics, they can recruit for 'academics'. However it happens, good athletes seem to get attracted to certain schools and they excel. Meanwhile public schools have to play with the cards they dealt - only working with kids from their school district.

Over the years debate has swung back and forth. Some say leave things as is, it makes everyone better because you have to compete against the best. Another view is to go the opposite direction. To have completely separate divisions and playoffs for public and private schools.

OSHAA seems to have come up with a compromise between these two views. Everyone stays in the same pool. But there is a multiplier placed on schools that can pull students from a wider area than just their school district. So a school with 200 male students put can pull in students from outside their area may have a 10% multiplier giving them a total of 220 students for assignment to a division. NOt always enough to push them up into the next largest division, but it is a step in the right direction.

So at least OSHAA is addressing an issue - its a compromise. Not everyone will be happy. But this is a step in the right direction. Something needs to be done to give public schools some sense of fairness. Otherwise someday it could be that if you want to be on a championship team, then just go sign on with a Catholic school.

2011-01-01T20:14:00.000-05:00

Got to watch the Holiday tournament at Shawnee. A nice opportunity to see 4 teams in one night. Shawnee impressed with their quickness on defense. Turnovers were a problem for Trail. The full court press of the Arrows wore Trail down. South looked strong against North, but they almost didn't finish. Had a 15 point lead that evaporated away late in the fourth quarter. North had problems hitting the three all night, but late in the game they went to a quick lineup and started to dribble penetrate on offense. A few more South turnovers and a few more made North shots and the outcome may have been different. South got their first win of the season although they did lose a close game the next night to Shawnee in the Championship game.

Got to watch the UD Lady Flyers this weekend too. They play exciting basketball. Man to man defense, they run the court, and can shoot the three. They put up over 100 points against Harvard. They have a winning record right now and from what I saw, they should finish the season on the plus side.

2010-12-24T06:59:00.000-05:00

Basketball season is in full swing. Both Miami East boys and girls teams are looking strong this season. On the boys side Arcanum looks tough and on the girls side Tri County North is off to a strong start. TVS boys are off to a slow start 0-3. First season in a long time that there is not a Spitler on the team. But look for good things to come, there are some good players in the pipeline. The TVS girls team has a winning record.

Ohio State - the only professional sports team in Ohio. Didn't know it was a violation to sell things that you own like championship rings and trophies. I guess I can see the autographs being a problem. Gee there sure are a lot of restrictions on the athletes. I still say the college athletes should get a monthly stipend. Some athletes come from a poor background and so having a little pocket change isn't going to hurt. Anyway 5 game suspensions seems a bit much.

And speaking of professional football, both Cleveland and Cincy are struggling mightily. A good bit of the Bengals offense will be leaving after this season. Unless they put the franchise tag on someone, they will lose wide receivers TO and Chad and running back Benson. Some say Palmer should follow them out the door. It may not hurt to draft a QB to start developing them to be his replacement.

2010-11-28T13:11:00.000-05:00

November Wrapup - Eaton wrapped up a stellar season against Saint Nickolaus. Sure the outcome was not the best. But they were undefeated until that regional final game. And they have the championship from the SWBL big school division to hang their hat on. It was the first time I had seen French play. He threw some pics into coverage, but when he was on target, it was nice. He can throw a long ball accurately, and he is back next year. He may not be a blue chip prospect, but I can see MAC schools having an interest. Congrats to coach Neanon for a memorable season.

South girls basketball opened their season against Carlisle. The Indian defense was pretty tough, South's leading shooters were held in check. The Panthers made a good run in the 4th quarter, but Carlisle did a good job of managing the game and the clock. They couldn't find an answer for Carlisle's leading scorer and offense rebounding was lacking. Season is young and with a senior loaded team, I am expecting better from the Panthers as the season progresses.

Rodriguez at Michigan - The Wolverine faithful must be ready to storm the campus gates. Another sub par season and they just did not do well against Ohio state. Whatever he had going for him at WV did not follow him North.

Bengals - did not think they would be a playoff team this year, but thought that they would be better than this. Johnsons gold shoes really look out of place on a team with 2 wins. Palmer is putting up the passing yards when you look at the average yards per game. But the interceptions are a problem. I didn't think they lost that much on defense, but they have gone down the tubes as well. Injuries made things worse as well. What I am waiting for is the Bengals to make that late season push where they win like 3-4 meaningless games. Giving some optimism that - hey we can make this work. And we stand pat with no changes for next season, just like the Bengals have done for last umpteen years.

2010-10-30T07:37:00.000-04:00

Regular Season Wrapup.

Curtis Enis has the RailRoaders going the right direction. Bradford has been the doormat of the CCC for a long time. But in his first year Enis has them going the right direction. The team finishes 5-5 but that is a lot better than they have done and if they have a winning season next year it would have to be their first winning season in at least a decade. They were 5 points away from a winning season this year in a shootout with Bethel in the last game.

Trail - Graher has a reputation for turning programs around. Maybe Trail is a mountain too steep to climb. Usually by his second year you can see progress. But Trail finishes winless.

Bethel had a solid season and losing that overtime game to Ansonia cost them a shot at the playoffs.

South - Shondelmeyer caught lightening in a bottle at Arcanum and left for greener pastures in Versailles. Didn't have success there and finally returned to the CCC, getting the job at South. Still hasn't found his groove. This years team was light on Seniors - started a lot of freshmen and soph's, there is some talent in the pipeline. But he needs to get his mojo back.

North - Another success story, made the right move in allowing Derringer back at head coach. I think they won like 2-3 games last season. North came the closest of any CCC team of knocking off Covington - the Bucc's had to break a sweat to finally win over North. They graduate some big linemen, but have enough talent coming back to reload. Can Derringer take them back to the playoffs next season???

Once again Covington and Ansonia represent the CCC in the playoffs. I would like to see Covington pass more, tough to be one dimensional in the playoffs. Wish both programs success.

Eaton - one of the bigger teams in the SWBL. Neanon has been making adjustments to his style over the year and they are bearing fruit this year. They have a lot of talent. I really think that they have a shot at district.

Bellbrook - biggest school in the SWBL - and the last time you won league was... well I can't remember. Another disappointing season by the 800 pound gorilla. I can see why they are afraid to leave the SWBL for a bigger league. If you can't beat the small schools, you would really get thrashed by the big schools.

Dixie - Another feel good story. Tall receivers and a flame throwing sophomore quarterback. First winning season in forever. Just missed the playoffs. It is tough to be the smallest school in the league(D5), but they overachieved this season. Congrats to Coach Tarpley for turning the program around.

Valley View - Credit them with making the SWBL as strong a league as it is. Everyone had to play catch up to them - and they have. It used to be automatic that the Spartans would be in the post season. And their last state title was what - over a decade ago by now. And when was the last time you heard of football players transferring OUT of Valley View. Lots of good football to come from the Spartans, but I wonder if their championship years are behind them.

2010-10-24T17:09:00.000-04:00

South ends Season against Riverside

South won their first round match against Bethel, but fell to Riverside in 4 sets.

Stated coach Roberts after the season ended, "It was good to be able to get the younger players some tournament experience tonight as they will be the leaders of the team in the next couple of years and need to know first hand the level of play they will be expected to bring to the match." Against Riverside, "We just didn't have enough defense to stop their top player. She was the difference in the match. TVS had a good season finishing 21-3 overall and tied for second w/ TCN in Cross County Conference play at 8-2. Thank you to everyone who supported the girls on and off the court this season. Your support is greatly appreciated!"

TVS def. Bethel 25-11, 25-17, 25-12
Jordan Hickey 2 aces, 4 digs, 15 assists
Laura Ingram 3 aces, 12 digs, 5 kills
Taylor Baker an ace, 11 kills
Katherine Leach an ace, 10 for 10 on serve receive, 4 digs, 3 assists, 2 kills
Emily Burge 4 aces, 3 digs, 2 kills
Emily Froment 2 aces, 4 kills
Kim Perry 9 of 11 on serve receive, 11 digs
In off of the bench:
Gentry Gates 5 assists
Skyler Lain a kill
Danielle Kreitzer a kill
Angela Nushawg a dig
Kaelee Rivers a dig

Riverside defeats TVS 25-15, 24-26, 25-12, 25-21

2010-10-23T12:59:00.000-04:00

RailRoaders Steamroll South 67-8

It was senior night for TVS and its not the way you would like to leave your home field. Penalties were a factor for South. Their second drive of the night went deep into Bradford territory, but a delay of game and a hold left South with a fourth and forever. And the defense aided Bradford's offense with late hits and a facemask. When South went to the pass to try to generate some offense, Bradford was ready and had a couple of picks in the first half. The second half was more of the same and when all was done, Bradford under first year coach Curtis Enis had an easy victory. This makes their record 5-4, assuring them of a at least a .500 season. South will fight Trail for the bottom of the CCC next week.

North made a better show on their home field against Ansonia, but still came up short. It was a 19-14 game at the half, but the Tigers pulled away in the second half for a comfortable win. I think it was like 42-21. Eaton looks like a lock for the post season with their latest win over Valley View. That also gives them the SWBL league championship. They have a chance to do some damage in their district. Nice to see them make the post season.

Local Volleyball teams did not fare well in the post season. Everyone is done at this point. So except for Eaton football, the rest of us are waiting on basketball season. I will be coaching junior high again, looking forward to the start of the season.

2010-10-19T22:16:00.000-04:00

Volleyball for the Cure

First up this week for South was Franklin Monroe - they got the win but it wasn't easy. Coach Roberts, "We're happy to get out of here tonight with a win. Their middles tested us and we struggled a little with our block defensively."

TVS def. Franklin Monroe 25-11, 20-25, 25-15, 25-22
Jordan Hickey 41 assists
Laura Ingram 17 digs and 10 kills
Taylor Baker 2 aces, 17 kills
Katherine Leach an ace, 15 digs and eight kills
Emily Burge an ace, 11 digs, 8 kills
Emily Froment an ace, 6 digs and 6 kills
Kim Perry 3 aces, 32 digs and two saves

TVS defeated Bradford in straight sets on the night of Volleyball for the Cure - which was for Breast cancer awareness week.

TVS def. Bradford 25-9, 25-13, 25-14 Overall record - 20-2 League 10-2

Stated Coach Roberts, "Individual stats were not our focus tonight our main focus was the event and raising awareness and raising funds for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. I'm really proud of my girls and their efforts to get the word out about this
devastating disease. If you were anywhere close to the event you saw true teamwork in action.

We would like to thank all of the parents for their efforts associated with this event, we couldn't have done it without you. A big thank you goes out to Tammy Jackson and Tim Beneke for being a part of our event. We would also thank
the school administration, all the businesses and individuals who donated to the cause. We raised just over $5,000 between the website and the night of the event. Thank you to everyone who made contributions this year."

2010-10-10T21:25:00.000-04:00

North v South: another one for the Ages.

North, South – those words by themselves symbolize rivalry. And for Tri County North it was also their homecoming, which added to the already tense atmosphere. For years the two Panther teams have dueled on the field. These games are usually battles and this year’s edition added another page to that legacy. The two teams kept the crowd on the edge of their seats all four quarters.

North came into the game with momentum, winning their last two games – one of those being an upset of Miami East. South has struggled this season and has only a single victory. But as always, records are meaningless when these two teams take the field. The offensive fireworks would happen in the first half and the game would become a defensive stalemate in the second half.

North went to work on their opening drive, and aided by a couple of South penalties would score first on a JJ MacPherson 20 yard run. But South bounced back and scored on their first drive as well. Michael Burke connected with Tony Combs on a pass to put the ball in North territory. They ran the ball, then went back to the pass where this time Combs caught a 19 yard TD. The extra point was missed, so North stayed ahead 7-6.

The next score was set up when North quarterback Austin Hustchins was pressured in the pocket and had to scramble. When he done running, he had gone about 40 yards and put the ball on the 2 yard line where he would run a quarterback sneak for the score. On the ensuing South series North’s Eli Davidson would have the defensive play of the night when he snagged a South pass and ran about 37 yards for a North touchdown. This defensive touchdown would turn out to be a big one and put North on top 21-6.

But South’s Michael Burke wanted to show that North didn’t have the only quarterback who run and score. In the last half of the second quarter, he ran a keeper about 45 yards for a touchdown. And in their last possession of the quarter it looked like South had ran a hook and ladder play for a score, only to have it called back on an illegal forward lateral. Then Jacob Schneider sacked the South quarterback on the next play to end the South drive and hopes to draw even before halftime. South's Bobby Green also had a tackle for loss in the first half.

So at halftime the score stood 21-14 in favor of North. Now the two teams hunkered down and played some tough nosed defensive football. North ended one South drive at the 20 yard line when Austin Hutchins intercepted a pass from his counterpart. Both teams defenses held tough on 4th down situations numerous times. North ended another South drive at midfield on a big 4th down play and South ended a North drive on a 4th and 3 play on their own 12. But at the other end of the field North stopped South on a 4th and 2 inside their 30. Neither defense was breaking and both offenses were using all of their downs - shooting all their bullets each series.

There was about a minute and half left in the game when the North coach decided to go for it on 4th and 7 at midfield. The quarterback keeper was denied and South was back in business. They moved the ball to about the North 30 – and time was counting down. But the North defense stepped it up once again when Caleb Lawson pulled down a South pass to end their hopes with about 17 seconds left in the game. This was definitely a memorable game for the grit and determination showed by these two teams from the opening kickoff to the final horn.

Coach Derringer had this to say about the game, “South was very prepared for us. They came out and played a great ball game. We came out on the opening drive and stuck it in the endzone. But then they responded on their first drive stuck in the endzone too. From that point on it was pretty much a dogfight. We told the kids this week that the North South game you can throw out the records. It’s a big rivalry game and it doesn’t matter who has the better record at the time.”

"Our defense has been playing well. We had some breakdowns against Bethel, but from the Covington game on, they have been getting after people. We had the three interceptions, and on Davidson’s, he is a defensive end and recognized the half back pass and dropped back underneath and made an outstanding play – running it back in for a touchdown. Michael Olinger, our fullback, was really relied upon in the 4th quarter when we were trying to chug out positive yardage and hoped to get an insurance score. “ Next week North plays at winless National Trail, while South hosts Miami East.

2010-10-10T21:14:00.000-04:00

TVS def. Arcanum in a non-league contest in straight sets: 25-16, 25-13, 25-13
Jordan Hickey 6 digs, 2 saves, 27 assists, 2 kills, a solo block and a block assist
Laura Ingram an ace, 8 digs, 10 kills
Taylor Baker 3 digs, 8 kills and a block assist
Katherine Leach an ace, 7 digs, 6 kills
Emily Burge 3 aces, 5 digs, 3 kills
Emily Froment an ace, 5 kills
Kim Perry an ace, 18 of 20 on serve receive, 25 digs
Gentry Gates an ace, 2 assists
Coach Roberts Stated that, "Everything tonight was evenly distributed. As with any match we continue to strive to play our best volleyball and work on ball control issues."

10/5 TVS def. Newton in league play 25-12, 25-22, 25-18
Jordan Hickey 17 digs, 3 saves, 25 assists, 3 kills, a solo block
Laura Ingram an ace, 10 digs, 12 kills, and a block assist
Taylor Baker 9 kills, 3 solo blocks and a block assist
Katherine Leach an ace, 8 digs, two assists, 3 kills
Katherine was key for us tonight. When she controlled her serve we were able to execute our offense very well.
Emily Burge 3 aces, 10 digs, 5 kills
Emily Froment an ace, 2 digs, 4 kills and two solo blocks
Kim Perry 2 aces, 22 digs
Coach Roberts, "Hats off to Newton, they served us tough. As a result we had some problems on serve receive. A good reminder to keep our practice performance focus. . . drill, "baby," drill . . ."

At the Dixie Tri meet with Stebbins
10/9 TVS def Dixie 25-14, 25-9

10/9 TVS def Stebbins 25-19, 25-15
Coach Roberts, "Individual stats were not as important today as the total team effort. Everyone saw a little time today and that might
become key down the stretch. It continued to be all about team in the match against Stebbins as well." TVS improved its overall record to 18-2, league 8-2 (2nd is still a three way tie)

Upcoming matches for the final week of regular season (DRAW is tomorrow www.swdab.org)
10/11 Franklin Monroe
10/14 VOLLEY FOR THE CURE with Bradford doors open for raffle ticket purchases at 4:45PM
On behalf on the event, the TVS volleyball team would like to invite you to our
match in support of breast cancer awareness, education and all who have been touched
by this devastating disease.
THANK YOU sincerely for considering a donation.
Please make your checks payable to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
You can forward all contributions for the match to:
Twin Valley South
c/o Volley for the Cure
100 Education Dr.
West Alexandria, OH 45381

Thanks to Coach Roberts

2010-10-10T21:08:00.000-04:00

North Over Pats, Newton

On Tuesday, TCN traveled to Tri-Village for a league match up. Tri-Village was a little short handed with a couple of suspensions, and I think that showed up in their play. Their serve reception really struggled, and their communication on the court struggled as they had several balls hit the floor. They had a couple of nice hitters, but were unable to get the ball to them because of their poor ball control. On our side of the court, he thought Megan had her best game of her career as she led us in aces and kills. He thought Sara did a good job of getting her the ball, as Megan had the hot hand for us. Katie really did a good job on defense for us as she led us with 15 digs. Katie continues to improve her ability to read hitters, and she does a good job of placing herself in position to make defensive plays. He thought Carly Schriever also had a solid night with 6 aces and 4 blocks. Carly's blocking has been pretty strong all season long, as she rarely mistimes her block. Emily has continued to get better as our opposite hitter as she contributed with 6 kills. Aukerman liked how my team stayed focus with the lopsided scores and he felt like they played pretty strong all the way through. It was also a night for TCN to take a look at a couple of my subs at the Varsity level, and he thought they handled things pretty well. We defeated Tri-Village by the scores of 25-14, 25-12, and 25-13. Stats for the game are Bierly 1 ace, 4 digs, 23 assists, 2 blocks; Kelly Schriever 9 digs, 4 kills; Johnson 5 aces, 3 digs, 9 kills 2 blocks; Broughton 1 ace, 3 aces, 6 kills; Carly Schriever 3 aces, 1 dig, 6 kills, 4 blocks; Ullery 4 kills, 1 block; Whitaker 4 aces, 15 digs; Vanover 1 dig.

On Thursday, TCN hosted Newton. Newton has had some solid wins this year, and the first game was a challenge all the way through. North trailed all the way through the first game and found a way at the end to win. North was very fortunate to win that first game. Coach Aukerman thought North made some pretty good plays down the stretch to win that game, and if we hadn't won that first game, the night could have been completely different. He wish my team would have stepped up their play sooner, but he gave to give credit to Newton, they hit the ball pretty well, and their defense was impressive. After that first game, Newton lost their confidence. Coach Aukerman thought his servers stepped up and created passing problems for Newton, which always helps our offense as they gave us several freeballs. Megan once again had a solid night as she continues to improve her hitting game, but Aukerman thought we were more balanced in this game. Aukerman thought Sara did a better job of getting all of her hitters involved, which always makes us more competitive. We had good production out of Kelly on the outside and Mallorie in the middle that kept Newton offbalance. Katie did a good job with her serving as she led us in aces. By the third game, Newton had trouble with all aspects of the game, and we were leading them 17-2. At that point, Aukerman thought we should see our subs for the rest of the match. After a couple of shakey plays, he thought they did a good job of settling down, and they played pretty well. We finished off Newton by the scores of 25-23, 25-10, and 25-12. Stats for the game are Bierly 4 digs, 20 assists, 1 block; Kelly Schriever 2 aces, 9 digs, 3 assists, 6 digs; Johnson 9 digs, 1 assist, 9 kills, 2 blocks; Broughton 5 digs, 2 kills, 2 blocks; Carly Schriever 2 aces, 2 digs, 2 kills, 2 blocks; Ullery 4 kills, 3 blocks; Whitaker 7 aces, 15 digs; Schoen 1 dig, 1 kill; Marshall 2 digs, 1 kill; Vanover 2 digs.

Special Thanks to Coach Aukerman

2010-10-03T20:23:00.000-04:00

South volleyball seems to be building to a peak as they continued their winning ways this week. A solid front line and a tenacious defense were the trademarks of a hungry South team as they look to the end of regular season play and the beginning of the state tournament. The Panthers are firmly in second place in the CCC, league leading Miami East shows no signs of faltering. So now the prize is a strong tournament run.

Preble Shawnee was the first team up for the Panthers. The Arrows were no slouches, arriving with a respectable 10-2 record. But South went after Shawnee, winning in straight sets 25-16, 25-13, 25-14. Highlights for the match were Jordan Hickey’s 21 assists and both Laura Ingram and Taylor Baker had 10 kills, while Kim Perry had 21 digs.

Next up for the Panthers were the Ansonia Tigers. A young team that the experienced Panthers were able to dispatch with a stalwart defense as pointed out by Coach Roberts. And when you look at the stats, Jordan Hickey, Laura Ingram, Katherine Leach, and Kim Perry were all in double figures for digs. Proof that the Panthers can defend as well as attack. For the second match in a row, both Ingram and Baker matched with 12 kills. And Kim Perry was 18 of 20 on serve receive. It was another trifecta for the Panthers who won 25-17, 25-9, 25-14.

The week ended with a match against CCC league foes the Tri-Village Patriots. The Panthers would complete a hat trick going three for three for the week. The Panthers won in three straight sets 25-8,25-11,25-23. Coach Roberts had these comments after the match, “Our front line - Baker, Froment and Ingram act as Three Musketeers along the net versus the Patriots. These three young ladies
plus Jordan Hickey's set distribution coupled with their supportive defensive cast of Burge and Perry did a fine job of controlling play against TV. Some of their kills were like lightning! Froment had one of her more impressive nights. We will need more performances like this from all of these young women to make a run in the tournament."

Finally the TVS team wants to remind everyone about their VOLLEY FOR THE CURE with Bradford , doors open for raffle ticket purchases at 4:45PM. The TVS coaching staff and the TVS volleyball team invite you to our event in support of breast cancer awareness and education. THANK YOU sincerely for considering a donation. Please make your checks payable to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

TVS vs. Preble Shawnee
Jordan Hickey 3 aces, 9 digs, 21 assists
Laura Ingram an ace, 10 digs, 10 kills
Taylor Baker 2 digs, 10 kills
Katherine Leach 6 digs, 2 assists, 5 kills and a solo block
Emily Burge an ace, 10 for 10 on serve receive, 9 digs, four kills
Emily Froment an ace, 5 kills and 3 solo blocks
Kim Perry 2 aces, 21 digs
Gentry Gates (freshman-in off the bench) four assists

TVS vs. Ansonia

Jordan Hickey 10 digs, 2 saves, 32 assists
Laura Ingram 2 aces, 10 digs, a save, 12 kills
Taylor Baker 12 kills, 2 solo blocks
Katherine Leach 3 aces, 10 digs, 4 kills
Emily Burge an ace, 3 digs, 2 saves, 2 kills
Emily Froment 7 kills
Kim Perry 2 aces, 18 of 20 on serve receive, 27 digs

TVS vs. Tri Village

Jordan Hickey 6 digs, 36 assists
Laura Ingram 5 aces, 9 digs, 11 kills
Taylor Baker 12 kills
Katherine Leach 9 of 10 on serve receive, 3 digs, 2 assists, 2 kills
Emily Burge an ace, 100% on serve receive, 9 digs, 5 kills
Emily Froment 3 aces, 3 digs, 9 kills, 3 solo blocks
Kim Perry 24 digs

You can forward all contributions for the match to:
Twin Valley South
c/o Volley for the Cure
100 Education Dr.
West Alexandria, OH 45381

2010-10-03T20:14:00.000-04:00

A dominating Tri County North volleyball team made short work of the visiting Ansonia Tigers this week. The hosts did a good job on defense - almost always getting a hand on the ball. And on offense, they set up some nice spikes that the Tigers had a rough time handling. With more experience and a slight advantage on overall team height, the Panthers dispatched the Tigers in three sets.

The young Ansonia team fell behind 7-3 in the first set. A time out was called, then a second one when North doubled up Ansonia 16-8. But when Ansonia tried to rally and mount an attack, North blockers were ready at the net. Ansonia seemed to do well when they had a lot of touches to set up their offense, while North seemed to do better on the attack – punching the ball back over the net. North won the first set 25-16.

In the second set, North took command. During one run, North scored 3 points in a row off of serves. The Tigers took a time out at that point to get organized. That stopped the North run, but not the final outcome. North did falter a little down the stretch. They allowed Ansonia to score 6 unanswered points in a row and made the set interesting 21-15. But North settled down and went to work. Scoring points off of serves and spikes, they shutdown Ansonia and won 25-15.

Finally North went to work for the final set. On the Ansonia side, there were a lot of balls that hit the floor, while North kept the ball in play. This time Ansonia could not muster a rally. They would lose the final set to North 25-9. One good thing about Ansonia was their team spirit. They played hard and celebrated every hard won point. This team should get better as they mature.

“We did a real good and served aggressively”, stated coach Aukerman after the game, “the kids really worked well together. We’ve really been working hard on our serves and serve zones. I think Ansonia got frustrated towards the end of the match, as they struggled because of their errors. I thought our serve reception looked pretty good in this match, which is extremely important for our offense. Megan Johnson, Kelly Schriever, Emily Broughton, and Katie Whitaker have done a good job all year for us with passing the ball in serve reception.”

North won against Bethel on Tuesday – “We had some problems hitting around their block, but I thought my hitters did a good job of adjusting to hit around them. My middles also did a good job of running one balls to freeze their middles, which made things easier on my outsides. I thought Kate Whitaker and Emily Broughton had good serving nights as we scored a lot of our points when they were serving. Megan Johnson had a good night with her hitting as she led us in kills, and my middles ( Carly Schriever and Mallorie Ullery) provided good blocking. “

North had a clean sweep for the week, visiting Brookville for their last victory of the week. “Brookville has a good defensive team, as we had problems with putting the ball down against them. Every kill we recorded, we earned. We caught a break with Brookville's setter being out of the lineup with an injury. They had some nice hitters, especially outside hitter Taylor Woodworth. She used our block several times to get her kills, and seemed to get better as the match progressed, but I thought my players answered the call. Kelly Schriever stepped up big with her serving as she recorded 7 aces. Katie Whitaker had a good defense morning recording 25 digs. Sara Bierly kept the our offense rolling, and she also kept Brookville's defense honest by throwing in several dumps that scored points for us. I thought Megan Johnson and Kelly Schriever did a good job of adjusting their defense to pick up balls hit by Brookville. We defeated Brookville in 3 games 25-19, 25-18, 25-18. “

Bethel Stats:
Bierly 1 ace, 2 digs, 18 assists, 3 kills, 1 block; Kelly Schriever 2 aces, 3 digs, 4 kills; Johnson 2 aces, 2 digs, 7 kills, 1 block; Broughton 1 ace, 1 dig, 2 kills, 1 block; Carly Schriever 2 digs, 5 kills, 4 blocks; Ullery 2 kills, 3 blocks; Whitaker 3 aces, 9 digs.

Ansonia Stats:
Bierly 3 aces, 10 digs, 18 assists, 3 kills; Kelly Schriever 1 ace, 8 digs, 4 kills; Johnson 3 aces, 9 digs, 5 kills; Broughton 1 ace, 7 digs, 2 assists, 2 kills, 2 blocks; Carly Schriever 2 aces, 2 digs, 8 kills, 2 blocks; Ullery 2 digs, 3 kills, 1 block; Whitaker 3 aces, 9 digs; Schoen 1 dig, 1 assist, 2 blocks.

Brookville Stats:
Bierly 1 ace, 7 digs, 22 aces, 6 kills; Kelly Schriever 7 aces, 7 digs, 6 kills; Johnson 15 digs, 6 kills, 2 blocks; Broughton 1 ace, 7 digs, 5 kills; Carly Schriever 9 digs, 2 kills, 1 block; Ullery 4 digs, 5 kills, 3 blocks; Whitaker 2 aces, 25 digs.

2010-10-01T22:54:00.000-04:00

South took one on the chin from Covington. The Buccs scored on their first three possessions in the first quarter as they went on to rout the Panthers. Their offense was crisp and precise with the run. Not so smooth with the pass. Which could hurt them in the playoffs. The Panther offense was able to move the ball at times. But penalties and fumbles ended drives in the first half. The Panthers put it all together in the 3rd quarter and finally found the endzone. The Panthers were without Steve Balthis which hurt them on both sides of the ball. Although I don't see his presence making a difference in the outcome.

The Buccs scored on special teams too. Returning a kickoff and a punt for touchdowns. Without the services of Balthis's toe, the Panthers resorted to a quick kick from a running formation on 4th down. On the other side of the ball, the Buccs seemed to punt OK, but they need someone to kick a bit deeper. The coverage was good on the kickoffs, which made up for the lack of distance on the kickoffs.

On the other hand, I saw that North upset Miami East. I saw their close score earlier in the season against Covington and figured that maybe they played a whale of a game and Covington was looking past them. It looks like North is for real.

So the upcoming North - South game will be interesting. Will North be overconfident after their upset win, maybe let down against South? Will South get Balthis back - he is a big help on both offense and defense.

Oh and speaking of play offs, I can't see any D5 schools in the CCC making it this year. With so many D6 schools in the conference, you can only have 1 loss at most. I don't it happening this season.

2010-09-30T14:43:00.001-04:00

As the 2010 season comes to a close, the American Junior Golf Association recognizes outstanding junior golfers and their achievements over the past year. Below, please find a press release announcing Hubert Heights native Michael Bernard as a 2010 HP Scholastic Junior All-American.

The HP Scholastic Junior All-America team honors 12 young men and 12 young women who demonstrate the ability to excel both on the golf course and in the classroom.

2010-09-26T14:21:00.000-04:00

Twin Valley South was aggressive with their front line against league rival Covington this past week. Despite the Buccaneers deploying a taller front line, South was able to set up some nice kills. Although South won the match, it was not in straight sets as Covington refused to lose easy and fought back. And the South team had an extra player in a boisterous home town crowd that was loud and proud throughout the match.

The first set would foretell the rest of the night. South took a lead, but Covington stayed on their heels – nipping away at the lead until late in the match where they tied South 21 all. Coach Roberts took a time out to set things right and several points later Laura Ingram, in another trend for the night, put the match away with a vicious spike for the game point. So South would win a close set 25-23.
The second set was a runaway for South. Covington took two time outs to try and stop the hemorrhaging, but South had an 11-2 lead at the 2nd timeout and Covington never did recover. They had problems handling South serves, and were making too many mental mistakes. They made a short run, but South easily put them away 25-14 to go up 2-0 over the Bucc’s.

Covington played with resolve in the third set. Taking an early lead until South woke up and battled back. And as it had happened in the first match, South then set the pace and Covington stayed on their heels. But this time, Covington tied the set at 24 all which woke up the visitor side of the stands and got them in the game. South had a mental lapse – letting the ball hit the ground on the ensuing serve, and giving up the winning point on poor play. Critical mistakes at a key point in the match allowed Covington to win this set 26-24.

For a volleyball match, the stands were about as loud as I have heard them for the start of the 4th set. A loose but purposeful South team gradually quieted down the visitors side as they started the set with a 6-0 run. They did allow the Bucc’s to catch up when they made some mistakes and let them close the gap 12-10. The Panthers composed themselves and went on another run thanks to aggressive play at the net. Sizzling spikes sliced thru the Covington defense. They did allow the Bucc’s to draw close yet again late in this set. South seemed to stall out and Covington inched back and closed the gap 21-19. South caught their breath and went on finish strong to close out the set and win the match 25-20.

After the match coach Roberts was asked if she was disappointed that the team didn’t win in straight sets. “ We were up 24-17 at one point in the third set. I was extremely disappointed that we couldn’t put them away and I let the team know that. We needed to step it up defensively at the net and not allow so many touches by Covington. “ Next she was asked about the team keeping their composure even as Covington tried to rally: “They are learning to focus on the next point, not the one that just happened. We don’t want them to just let things slide, but we don’t want them stone faced either.”

Next she was asked to comment on the play of the front line, “Laura [Ingram] and Taylor [Baker] played the roles of Batman and Robin tonight "The Dynamic Duo." They came out offensively stronger than any match in the past. We need them to do this consistently match in, match out.”

South also had wins against Bellbrook and Bethel this week – winning in straight sets each time. Asked to respond, coach Roberts stated, “It has been a total team effort this week. Everyone looks at the attackers, but we had players with digs and sets that got the ball in play for us. The role players really did well this week. “

Stats provided by the TVS coaching staff: TVS vs Bellbrook: Jordan Hickey 30 assists
Laura Ingram 15 digs and 12 kills ; Taylor Baker and Emily Froment 8 kills each;
Katherine Leach 2 aces, 11 of 11 on serve receive, with 7 digs, 3 assists, 3 saves and 7 kills.

TVS vs Covington: Laura Ingram 3 aces, 8 digs and 18 kills;Taylor Baker 2 aces, 15 kills and 2 solo blocks; Kim Perry 23 digs 2 saves; Emily Burge stepped up defensively going 22 of 23 on serve receive with 20 digs and a block assist with Emily Froment who was 100 percent off of serve with an ace, 8 digs and 4 kills. Katherine Leach chipped in with 2 aces, 6 digs and 5 kills.

TVS vs Bethel: Jordan Hickey 3 aces, 8 digs and 20 assists; Taylor Baker 11 kills; Emily Froment 8 kills; Kim Perry 15 digs; Katherine Leach 9 digs and 4 kills; Angela Nushawg 3 digs; Laura Ingram 4 digs and 4 kills;
Emily Burge chipped in with 6 digs and 6 kills.

Upcoming matches: 9/27 at Preble Shawnee, 9/28 at Ansonia, 9/30 w/ Tri Village, 10/4 w/ Arcanum, 10/5 at Newton. Reminder October 14th at 5:30PM VOLLEY FOR THE CURE MATCH between Bradford and TVS breast cancer awareness, education, door prizes, raffles, serving contest and breast cancer survivor story. All proceeds from the event to go to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. To make an online donation visit www.tvs.k12.oh.us. Thank you in advance for your support!

2010-09-19T15:10:00.000-04:00

Twin Valley South won their first game of the season, but had some second half drama on way to a 33-22 victory. Both Mississinawa Valley and TVS were 0-3 entering the game. And the Black Hawks had yet to score a touch down in their first three games. But after giving up a first half lead to South, they would find a groove in the second half and prevent a fourth straight shut out.

Steve Balthis put South up early with 71 yard touchdown run on the very first play from scrimmage. The Black Hawks tried to respond and despite three penalties, they drove to the South red zone. But South made a nice play on 4th and 11 to end the threat. The next South touchdown drive began when Ashley Dillon fell on a Black Hawk fumble in the second quarter. Tyler Leach would then carry the ball 45 yards to the 5, and he would later punch it in on a 1 yard carry. Steve Balthis would score the final touchdown of the half to put South up 20-0 at the 4:26 mark. He would turn around and end a Black Hawk drive with an interception.

In the third quarter it looked like the rout was on. South’s Michael Burke scored a TD on South’s first possession of the half. It was 26-0 South and it sure looked like another drubbing for the visitors. That drive consumed a good bit of clock time as well. When the Black Hawks got the ball back, there was only 3:20 left in the third quarter.

But at halftime, the Black Hawks must have googled “spread offense”, because they then began to run the spread and air it out. Gary Pease would run the ball in from 2 yards out. In a quick 2 minutes they had found the endzone for their first score of the season. But South responded with another clock eating touchdown drive. Balthis scored again on a 2 yard carry midway thru the 4th quarter. This put South up 33-6 entering the final quarter.

So South began substituting while the Black Hawks stayed with their starters. Now the game got a little sloppy with the Panthers giving up some late fumbles while the Black Hawks starters took advantage of the mismatch to score twice more. South freshman Kodey Hawthorne managed to block a Black Hawk extra point and help preserve a 33-22 victory. So it made the game entertaining in the 4th quarter, but South managed to win easily - the game was not as close as the score would indicate. Steve Balthis would score a total of three touchdowns to lead the team offensively. And Grant Kreitzer would lead the team in tackles on the other side of the ball.

Coach Shondelmeyer was happy to get the victory, “…good to get the first win – we were so close the week before. We had to practice this whole week that game in the back of our minds. And all of guys got to play and get some experience.” Next he was asked about the clock chewing drives, “Our line is our strong point. We believe that we can control the ball and that is all due to the guys up front.” Steve Balthis’s three scores, “He had a great run on that first sweep for a touchdown. He has been getting better this season, despite fighting injury. He was actually playing hurt in the Arcanum game, but he has been playing with toughness.”

Next Coach Shondelmeyer was asked about the defense. “I thought that both of our outside linebackers had good games, Dillon Ashley and Tony Combs. We played better team defense this game and really swarmed the ball and gang tackled.” Finally he was asked to look ahead to next week, “Bethel is 2-2, but they are an improved team. Their two losses are to Covington and Miami East, two teams that at the top of the league. Our defense will need to continue to improve. This will be a huge game for us.”

North: Not unnoticed was the North game against Covington. The game was scoreless at halftime and even though they lost, they played an always tough Covington team close.

Dixie wins against Shawnee, a tough test against Brookville this coming Friday.

Some more good games this next week, but I think that I will shift gears and cover volleyball this coming week.

2010-09-12T19:41:00.000-04:00

Ohio State - Despite giving up the points on special teams, I thought they played a great game. Pryor had a few moments, but overall I thought he did well. He still seems to do well when he creates from broken plays. Still would like to see more from him being a straight drop back passer. Running game was good from both Seine and Herron. Defense was on - take away the special teams points and you have a blow out. I liked the interceptions. Who didn't like Heyward lumbering down the field with his takeaway - a lineman's dream moment. I think this team has the possibility of being top 10 or better.

Bengals - Ugh, what a lame game. Defense looks nothing like they did last year. The Patriots were tearing big holes in the front line and passed at will. What happened here? And the offense did recover in the second half, but they never did establish that solid running game that was their trademark. Team seemed flat for the first game of season, hopefully Marvin can get them revved up next week.

Michael Vick. Had some company over, left the TV in the family room on and forgot about it. Came back and their was an injury timeout. I was going to change channels, but then Vick came on the field. Well, I'll just watch and see what happens. He played like a guy with nothing to lose. Made the most of his minutes, and almost lead a comeback. I think he made a statement that he can still lead a team. Fun to watch, time will tell if he gets his chance.

2010-09-12T14:59:00.000-04:00

Twin Valley South and Arcanum played a hard fought game on Friday night. By nights end, the winner would be decided by a single point. Each team sported a 0-2 record coming into the game. And each team featured their running attack on offense. Both teams are known for using a double wing offense although South would lean to a wishbone formation. In a lot of respects the teams were mirror images of one another, which made for such a close game. Scoring was lean for the first part of the game, with the fireworks occurring from the third quarter on.

The first half saw Arcanum dominate everywhere except for the scoreboard. They had the ball for almost the entire first quarter. But to South’s credit, Arcanum made three trips into the TVS red zone and came back empty handed each time. South made some big plays on 4th down. Steve Balthis had an interception to end one drive, another drive ended one foot short of first down on the 1 ½ yard line of TVS, the last ended at about the 20. So the South defense was bending, but showed no signs of breaking. In the first half, Arcanum had 3 pass attempts – one complete, one incomplete, and one interception. So I could see why they were leery of the pass. The rest of their yardage, they ground out with the run.

While the Trojans were racking up the yardage, the Panthers were having problems moving the ball. About midway thru the second quarter, the team did put together a drive into Arcanum territory. But the South could not stand good fortune – they fumbled on two consecutive plays, recovering the first one, but giving it up the second time. It was looking like a good old fashioned slugfest as the teams stood at 0-0 at half time.

But the game opened up in the second half. South came roaring back in their first posession when quarterback Michael Burke burst thru the center of the Arcanum line and sprinted 63 yards for a TD. The next score was set up by an Arcanum miscue. A high snap on a punt gave the ball back to the Panthers. A pass interference call on Arcanum gave the ball to TVS on the 10. From there Dillon Ashley plunged thru the line and scored. But South had problems with extra points – they whiffed on their first two attempts on way to a 12-0 lead.

But big plays would be the bane of the Panthers. Arcanum bounced back with a 67 yard TD run and nailed the extra point. South’s next score was set up in part by a Arcanum penalty for knocking over the returner on a fair catch during a punt. This put the Panthers at midfield. Again they took advantage of a short field, capping their drive with a Dillon Ashley carry for his second TD of the night. This time South went for two and got it.

Arcanum mixed the pass and run on their next drive with effectiveness. Capping the drive with a touchdown pass. Then late in the fourth quarter, South gave up another big play. Allowing a punt return to be carried all the way to the 4 yard line where Trojan quarterback Derrick Baker punched it in. They made good on their extra point attempt. With 2:26 left in the game, Arcanum had their first lead of the night up 21-20. South finally had to give up the ball on downs on their next possession and Arcanum would win a close one, taking a knee to run out the clock. Next week South will play against winless Mississinnewa Valley.

2010-09-04T13:58:00.001-04:00

Defense was the difference maker in North’s game against Mississinnawa Valley. The Panther offense was not silent, but I thought the defense set the tone Friday night. The offense sputtered at times, but North’s defense was stalwart throughout the game. Particularly in the first half. The offense was good for 14 points, but some miscues kept them from scoring more. Penalties and lapses in the pass blocking would derail several opportunities. But thanks to the defense, special teams, and a rambunctious home crowd, a good bit of the game was played in Blackhawk territory.
Late game heroics helped to seal a shutout for North. The Blackhawks only mustered a couple of first downs for their efforts up until halftime. The second half wasn’t much better. A swarming North defense kept their running game at bay. But then they nosed the ball into North territory late in the 4th quarter. And it was starting to look like the Blackhawks were poised for a 4th quarter rally. They had connected on a key 4th and 11 pass play with 3:43 left in the game to keep their drive alive. Blackhawk Gary Pease had found an open seam in the North defense and put the Blackhawks into North territory. But Caleb Lawson made a big play during the next set of downs, intercepting a pass to put any hope of a comeback to rest and ensuring a North shutout.
After the game Coach Derringer had praise for his defense, “We allowed about 25 yard rushing for the entire game, and about 60 yards of passing. We had big plays from our line backers, a pair of juniors – Jacob Schlater and Josh Daugherty. And Alec Brasher, our defensive end, had several tackles for loss. The defense played really well Friday night.”
North won 14-0; Freshman quarterback Austin Hutchins called his own number and scored from 14 yards out in the first quarter, then late in the second quarter he connected with Sam Judd for an 11 yard TD catch. In the second half, North penetrated deep into Black Hawk territory several times, but came away empty handed. “ We already had a starting tackle and guard out going into the game, “ stated Coach Derringer, “ Then we lost our other tackle to injury. So we had to start a lot of young guys on our line. “
Even with the patchwork offensive line, North was able to put 3 rushers past the 50 yard mark: Hutchins, Mike Olinger, and JJ MacPherson. Hutchins could have had even more net yardage, but sacks subtracted from his total. North was generous with the ball, giving 8 players touches on offense. Hutchins was 4/11 and 70 yards on the night. But the youthful line showed – there was one sequence where North had 3 penalties in a row – leaving them with an outrageous 1st and 35. And twice North advanced inside the 30 in the second half, but quarterback sacks pushed the ball backwards and ended the threat.
Coach Derringer was asked to look ahead at Bethel, “They still have the same coaches there that they have had for several years. They know what we do, and we know what they do. They played a tough game against Covington this week. When we play it has always been a hard fought and close game. We coaches are breaking down their film this weekend and getting the team ready.”

2010-08-08T12:47:00.000-04:00

Don't watch UFC fighting that much, but was at a sports bar last night and they had it up on the big screen. One of the early matches on the card had me scratching my head. The one guy was chiseled - very muscular and looked like a fighter. The other guy looked like his training regimen was eating a dozen glazed donuts while smoking a pell mell cigarette for breakfast. Lounging on the couch during the day and having a night cap of a 12 pack of old Milwaukee. I mean the guy had man boobs.

To his credit, he did have fast hands and could take a punch. But it was obvious that at the end of the match that he was spent. The decision went unanimously to the chiseled looking dude. The pilsbury dough boy is probably using his check for a weekend grazing at the Golden Corral buffet. Another interesting match was also on the undercard. A tall string bean looking guy against a bear like looking guy - a wrestler. The wrestler guy owned the string bean in the first round. Got him on the ground and pummeled him. It was like watching a play ground bully own the geeky kid.

At the break, they tried to patch up the guys bloody lip. Back out they went - my wife said 'why don't they stop the fight'? Well they must have given the skinny one piece of advice - use your reach and box. About a minute into the second round he got the wrestler on the chin and down he went. What a turn around.

I have to admit, I like it more than boxing.

2010-07-30T06:15:00.000-04:00

Well I can't say that I am enthused about the Bengals signing TO. The team will be more of a circus than ever. Ochocinco and Owens are O squared. A negative chemistry if there ever was one. Palmer will have to have a whip and chair to keep control of that huddle. Both recievers will be badgering him for the ball. And with Benson having probs in the off season, I can't see the team being focused.

2010-07-18T08:50:00.000-04:00

Well after a summer's hiatus, it is time to awaken from a July slumber and start looking forward to the start of fall sports.

CCC Football - Curtis Enis takes the reins at Bradford. The former NFL player has worked as an assistant, but now he will be head coach. I would think that this would pick up interest in the program, but don't know what talent the Railroaders will have this fall.

Reports from Covington are that the numbers are up a little and the weightroom is well attended. They only lost a handful of starters from a play off team. Look for them to be contending yet again.

Arcanum should be returning a lot of starters from a young team.

Trail will be under their second of coach Graher. Lets see if that program gets some traction this season.

North has some talent that quarterback I saw last year had a decent arm. Line will have to give him some time.

South has some holes to fill from a sub .500 team. Lots of openings in the line and skill positions. The senior class has some talent, but will the depth be there to fill out a competitive roster.

League champ Ansonia loses talent to graduation. But they still have their quarterback. I see them having a winning season, but don't think they have what it takes to repeat.

Speaking of fall football, how about Ohio State. Big year for Pryor, it will be interesting to see if his skills have matured as a quarterback. The team returns 16 starters, so there is plenty of experience. I didn't think that Herron or Saine were that steady of rushers. I saw them play well in spurts, but I would like for the leading rusher on the team for the 2010 season be a running back, not the quarterback.

The Bengals - I have been wearing my Bengals gear this summer. In the past, you kept it hidden away, broke it out in the fall, then in October when it was obvious that the team was going no where you put your gear away. Palmer is getting to the age where he needs to make that deep playoff run. Not sure how many more years he has in him. Chad Ochocinco is not focused this off season. When he should be working out, he is dancing and calling out Pittsburgh. I don't see him being a factor this season. And with the Benson getting arrested for fighting in a bar, it doesn't look like the Bengals are focused this season. I can see the cards falling right and the Bengals making the playoffs. But I can't see them making a deep run.

Now how about them Reds. Very surprising that they are in first place in July. I thought that they needed one more big bat to be a complete team at the start of the season this spring. But the team has done well. They have lots of pitching, so do they deal any away to strengthen the team this season and go for a play off run? Or do they hold onto the cards they have been dealt? Maybe trade a starter for a closer? Or move a starter to bull pen?

2010-05-30T10:43:00.000-04:00

Local Athletes Compete at the Regional Meet

If you remember the Wide World of Sports show from back in the day, they mention the joy of victory and the agony of defeat. The Dixie boys track team got a flavor of both extremes this past week. For the second time in two weeks there would be a rare rerun of an event and again it would concern hurdles. This time around it was the 300m hurdle event was where there was a disqualification and rerun.

Local track teams sent their athletes to the South West Ohio Regional track meet in Troy. Several of them responded to the challenge of a tough regional meet and qualified to participate in the state track meet in Columbus. Athletes finishing in the top 4 places were tapped to continue the season for one more week. Here is a list of qualifying athletes: 1600m run George Holman TVS 3rd, 4X100 Relay Dixie 2nd (Andrew Barnet,Tony Prater, Ryan Jordan, Billy Hauser); Discus Myranda Schoen TCN 3rd; High Jump Skylar Reckers TVS 4th; Pole Vault Jordan Krickenbarger TVS 2nd.

Going into the 300m hurdle finals Dixie’s DeAaron Isaac looked like a shoe-in to qualify for state. He had the second fastest time in the preliminaries. And as the runners came around the curve and came down the last 100 meters, young Isaac had the lead. But as he crossed the next to the last hurdle, he clipped it. That may have thrown his stride off, because as he crossed the last hurdle he had a horrendous fall. He tumbled out of control and attempted to recover. He ended up crossing the finish line last – and since he crossed into another lane while attempting to recover, he ended up being disqualified completely. The race was rerun at the conclusion of the meet since the officials determined that another runner had been interfered when Isaac went into their lane.

So that certainly was an agonizing moment for DeAaron Issaac. The camera was on auto during that last 10 meters and it captures frame by frame an athlete desperately trying to get to the finish line, then agony as he realized that it is all for naught. But the young man is a junior and something tells me he will be back next season with more determination. There was joy for Dixie however as their blazing fast 4X100m team were Regional runnerups. This is an event where timing is everything as a slow hand off can drop a team off the victory podium. Billy Hauser stretched over the finish line 1/100 of a second faster than the Mechanicsburg anchor for the second place photo finish. Look for them and other local athletes to do well in Columbus next week.

Local teams fared as follows: TCN girls 23rd, TVS girls 34th, Dixie Girls 42nd.
TVS boys 8th Dixie boys 22nd.

Other local athletes that placed: 110m hurdles DeAaron Isaac Dixie 8th. Girls 4X100m relay TVS 6th (Hayley Glander,Jessica Hickey,Katherine Leach,Laura Ingram); 3200m run Josh Hemmelgarn TVS 6th. Long Jump Jacob Hemmelgarn TVS 7th; Shotput Jesse Koeller TVS 8th; Pole Vault Megan Uzzel Dixie 8th;

This years high school sports season is almost over. Pictures from this entire year are available at: http://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=christ77&p=4010 Due to space limitations only a few pictures are selected for publication. So all pictures from an event are posted there. Past stories and other links of interest to local sports fans can be found at: http://christ77.tripod.com/sports.html. Comments: chrisaukcam@gmail.com

2010-05-30T10:42:00.000-04:00

South Wins District Title
J. C. Tilton

To me this an exciting time of year, when young athletes are giving it their all in hopes of getting a district win and a chance to qualify for state. Local athletes had some outstanding performances in Welcome Stadiums Division III District track meet. South’s boys track team has been fighting injury all season, but were able to bring it all together when it counted to capture another District Title. Coach Fahrenholtz attributed the title to team work and a strong showing in the field events.

During the meet there was a rare runoff involving South’s Jordan Krickenbarger. He tied for 4th place in the 110m hurdles with a runner from Cedarville. The photo finish showed a tie between the two of them. Since the top 4 go to regionals, the officials stopped the meet and had a runoff between the two runners. It was a close duel until Krickenbarger clipped a hurdle about ¾ thru the race, throwing him off stride. Although he lost the runoff, Krickenbarger will still be attending the regional meet since he won in the pole vault.

Some highlights from the meet - DeAaron Isaac of Dixie had an outstanding day, qualifying in 3 events for the regionals. First in the 110m & 300m hurdles, 2nd in the 4X400m relay. Dixie’s 4X100mteam was a winner. North’s Myranda Schoen qualified in two events – winning the discus throw and runner up at shot. Dixie’s girls team sent 2 girls in the pole vault, Megan Uzzel, the district champ, and Lindsay Seim 3rd place. South’s boys team did the same on the boys side with Krickenbarger winning and 3rd place Ryan Burns qualifying. South’s Skylar Recker won the high jump. South’s George Holman was a two even qualifier – winning the 1600m run and placing 4th in the 800m run.

“It was a total team effort” stated Coach Fahrenholtz of South, “We scored in every field event. In fact every field event will have at least one person going to regional. Reckers won the high jump which was an upset over the jumper from Cedarville. George Holman had a tremendous meet – the key was the 800. He had won the 1600m and came back and scored high enough to put us over the top. He did it in 2:01 which is a super time. And in the 1600m run our freshman, Josh Perry, got a 6th place. Every time we can score two kids in an event like that, it helps put us on top. That’s how you win championships, its not always the guys that get first place, it’s also the guys that go out and get 5th and 6th places. That’s what makes it a good team effort”

Coach Via of Dixie was pleased with her pole vaulters. “Both of them were excellent today, one tied her personal best and the other set a personal best. Sherry Myers qualified for regionals in the high jump. A surprise was freshman Adrianna Frizzel, she qualified in the discus, we knew that she was capable and today she went out and did it. The 4X100 team had a heartbreaker, the 4th thru 7th place teams were with a few hundredths of a second. Overall I was happy with the teams performance.”

Jack Sturgill boys coach from Dixie was pleased with the athletes that are going to regionals. “Our relay teams did well today. Stapleton had one of his best times and qualified in the 1600m run. Several athletes had their best times all year. DeAaron Isaacs had one of his best meets this year with two firsts in the hurdles. We are looking forward to see what we can do in the regionals.”

Other local teams fared as follows: Girls – Dixie 6th, TCN & TVS 7th (tie). Boys - Dixie 4th. TCN – no points.

Local Results, top 4 finishers go to the Regional meet next week in Troy: Girls 4X800m relay TCN 4th; Boys 4X800m relay TVS 5th , Dixie 8th; 110m hurdles DeAaron Isaac Dixie 1st, Jordan Krickenbarger 4th(tie). 100m dash girls Jessica Hickey TVS 3rd, Katherine Leach TVS 6th; 100m dash boys Ryan Jordan 6th. 4X200m dash Girls TVS 4th. 4X200m dash boys Dixie 5th.

1600m run girls Abbey Schlater TCN 4th; Boys 1600m run: George Holman TVS 1st,William Stapleton Dixie 4th, Josh Perry TVS 6th. Girls 4X100m relay 2nd (Hayley Glander, Jessica Hickey, Katherine Leach, Laura Ingram), Dixie 7th. Boys 4X100m Dixie 1st (Andrew Barnett, Tony Prater, Ryan Jordan, Billy Hauser), TVS 7th.

400m dash girls Abby Voge TVS 6th. 400m dash boys Zach Grubb Dixie 8th. 300m hurdles boys DeAaron Isaac Dixie 1st. Jacob Hemmelgarn TVS 5th, Jon Nygen Dixie 8th. 800m Run girls Makayla Conley TCN 4th,Hayley Glander TVS 5th.Boys 800m run George Holman TVS 4th. Girls 3200m run Morganne Hammaker TCN 6th. Boys 3200m run Josh Hemmelgarn TVS 2nd,William Stapleton Dixie 7th. Girls 4X400m relay TVS 4th. Boys 4X400m relay Dixe 2nd(Doogie Hauser, Toney Prater, DeArron Isaac, Billy Hauser), TVS 8th.

Girls Discus Myranda Schoen 1st, Adrianna Frizzel Dixie 3rd, Bailey Judd TCN 4th. Boys Discus Dylan Steffy TVS 4th, Girls High Jump Sherry Myers Dixie 2nd(tie), Haleigh White Dixie 6th, Jordan Hickey TVS 7th. Boys High Jump Skylar Reckers TVS 1st. Girls Long Jump Emily Robbins TVS 6th, Sherry Myers Dixie 8th. Boys Long Jump Jacob Hemmelgarn TVS 2nd, Steve Balthis TVS 6th

2010-05-17T06:33:00.001-04:00

CCC League Meet Results
By J. C. Tilton

The boys division was won by Bethel and the girls division was won by Miami East. Locally, TVS boys finished third by just 5 points, with TCN finishing 12th. The TVS Girls finished 5th, just ahead of TCN who was 6th. Juli Accurso of Miami East set a meet record in the 800m run with a time of 2:19.3. Nathen Mogul of Tri Village set a record in the 3200m run with a time of 9:56.1. And Freshman Leah Dunivan of Miami East set a record in the shot put with a throw of 36’1.5”.

The Twin Valley South Boys team finished in third place. But I think that coach Fahrenholtz would have liked to have done better. I first asked him about the dearth of sprinters. “During prelims, the baseball team was playing in districts, so we didn’t have several of those athletes. And Steve Balthis was sick, so he couldn’t compete at all. So we had no one in the 100m and that took out one of sprint relay teams. Jordan Krickenbarger (pole vault) has an injured back and could only clear 11’6” which may have been his lowest this season. So we lost a lot of points on the first day.”

But he went to say that, “The kids who did participate did great today.
George Holman in the 1600m won and did it with his best time. Josh Hemmelgarn had a personal best. Nick Guehring put on a show – running the 3200m run and turning around to run in the 4X400m relay. Jacob Hemmelgarn scored a lot of points for us. It was one of those meets where we didn’t have everyone, but everyone that we did have I was really proud of – they did a nice job. Districts are next week and we hope to have everyone and go after it.”

He further stated that, “The 4X100m and the 4X200m relay teams really ran well today”, said girls track coach Mabry when asked about the meet. “The 4X200m team took about 3 seconds off their best time. And the 4X100m team had their best time too. The two 200m runners also had their best times.”

“The girls did a great job, getting 6th place overall which is an improvement from last year,” stated the North Track Coach. “Considering where we came from, I am very, very pleased. Myranda Schoen - she did well with the disc and shot – she threw 32 feet today to finish 2nd and was 3rd in the discus. She was also 2nd place in the 100m, but had to scratch from the 200m. Makayla Conley was third in the 400m, and the 4X800m that got third. The 4X400m got sixth. So we had some good finishes today. Now we are still struggling on the guys side, with a lot of freshman and sophomores trying to run varsity. But we hope to hang onto them and in 2-3 years we will have a decent program with the guys.”

Finishes by local athletes. Girls 4x800 Meter Relay: TCN 3rd, TVS 4th. Boys 4x800 Meter Relay: TVS 2nd. Boys 110m Hurdles: 4th Jacob Hemmelgarn TVS, 6th Jordan Krickenbarger TVS. Girls 100m Dash: 2nd Myranda Schoen TCN, 3rd Jessica Hickey TVS. 5th Kathrine Leach TVS. The 4X400m relay team is coming around. The 4X800m team took almost 20 seconds off of their best time. Abbey Voge did a personal best in the pole vault. So they are all peaking. We still have a few nagging injuries for next weeks district meet, but we are hoping that everyone will be ready to go.

Girls 4x200 Meter Relay: TVS 1st. Boys 1600m run: 1st George Holman 4th Josh Hemmelgarn. Girls 4x100 Meter Relay: TVS 1st, 8th TCN. Boys 4X100m Relay: TVS 3rd. Girls 400m Dash: 3rd Makayla Conley TCN, 7th Abby Voge TVS. Boys 400m Dash: 6th Nick Guerhring TVS. Girls 800m run: 4th Hayley Glander TVS, 6th Abbey Schlater. Boys 800m run: 7th George Holman TVS, 8th Tony Combs TVS.

Girls 200m Dash: 3rd Kathrine Leach TVS. Boys 200m Dash: 6th Chris Eck. Girls 3200m run: 7th Bridget Jones. Boys 3200m run: 2nd Josh Hemmelgarn TVS. 6th Nick Guerhring TVS. Girls 4X400m relay: TVS 5th, TCN 6th. Boys 4X400m relay: TVS 4th.

2010-05-09T08:04:00.002-04:00

Dixie Fastpitch – Tough Season Winding Down.
J. C. Tilton

A tough season for the Dixie fastpitch team is closing shortly. To date, the team has eeked out one victory. But injuries have put a limit on the teams success this season. Senior pitcher Bethany Patterson missing a good part of April due to injury. Another player had a bad concussion and is lost for the season. One bright spot is that the team is sending a player to the next level at Wilmington College.

The coach talked about the seniors, “Carrie Ynnucci is a first year varsity player and this is her second year in fast pitch. She was the heart of the team, she keeps a positive attitude. Definitely one of our senior leaders. Bethany Patterson is our star pitcher, this is her third year of pitching varsity. She had shoulder tendonitis and was out the last 2 ½ weeks. So we are glad to have her back, she is a solid player.”

“The other part of our battery is Amber Neaves, catcher. She is a tough kid. She seems to be dialed in. She is probably overall our best athlete. She has been batting .479 with a slugging percentage over 700. She is an amazing athlete – as long as she keeps her eye on the prize. She was 2 for 3 today against Belvo, who is a tough pitcher. Against Hannah Kendrick of Madison, she has batted over .500 against her. And against Greenville the number 1 ranked team in Division 2 in the state, she had another 2 for 3 day. The better the pitcher, the better she seems to be. She will be playing college ball for Wilmington, she is definitely ready for that.”

“Nikki Harris, our third baseman and team captain. Another player like Carrie who is the heart and soul of the team. She is like having another coach on the field. She keeps the girls on task. She has had to play several different positions this year.”

He went on to talk about the teams most severe injury, “One of our better players was a sophomore, Courtney Hawk, and she had a play at second. A girl went into her with her helmet to her head and gave her a grade 3 concussion. It ended her season, and she is not even allowed to go to school. She is an amazing ball player and plays on a traveling team. Softball is the last thing I worry about for that kid, I just want her to get healthy. It has really opened up my eyes to concussions. We also had a kid get one in basketball and it affected her drastically. So we have just been snake bit this year.”

This week the team lost to Preble Shawnee, ending league play, and also Bethel. The team next faces a tough state ranked West Liberty Salem team in the state playoffs. It has been a tough season for the Greyhounds and it doesn’t get any easier. Comments: chrisaukcam@gmail.com

2010-05-09T08:04:00.001-04:00

Dixie Over Shawnee.
J. C. Tilton

Dixie prevailed over fellow South Western Buckeye Conference foe Preble Shawnee. The victory was due to solid relief pitching and scoring that was primed by the Hayes brothers. After tacking on some insurance runs late in the 7th inning, Dixie would win 5-1.

Both teams threatened early, putting runners on base in the first couple of innings. But then, starting pitcher Ethan Hayes got into trouble – loading the bases with Arrow runners. The score was 0-0, but Shawnee looked ready to break the game open. Coach Bingham made the decision to pull his starter, he would later relate that Hayes just didn’t have good stuff for this game. Then relief pitcher Wes Smith was called upon to put out the fire.

He coolly dispatched the next three batters – not allowing a single run. In the game, he would have three consecutive innings where the batters were sent down 1-2-3. Shawnee did score a run on a sacrifice fly. But the Hayes brothers – Ryan and Ethan would provide some offense, scoring first for Dixie and putting them ahead.

Coach Bingham commented on Smith’s relief work, “He came in with bases loaded and nobody out and got out of it clean. That was a big situation. He has thrown good all year, this puts him at 6 and 2. He has been a solid pitcher for us.”

Next he was asked about Dixie scoring, “Ryan Hayes reached on a walk and scored on a passed ball. Ethan Hayes singled to drive in a run. In the sixth inning we touched them up for a couple of hits. They walked Ryan Hayes, sacrificed him to second, and Ethan Hayes drove him in. The brothers have done a great job. Tyler Harris singled to drive in Ethan Hayes. Then in the seventh we touched them up again. Mike Hall reached first on a hit by pitch. We did a hit and run – Luke Bowling singled to right field scoring him. Garret Moore then singled and drove him in. Aaron Worley drove in the games final run.”

The team would later play Middletown Fenwick where they would play close until late in the game when Fenwick broke the game wide open and would double up the Greyhounds 14-7. This would put the teams record at 17-8 and third place in the league. The last league game is against rival Brookville and then Dixie will begin tournament play as a number two seed. Comments: chrisaukcam@gmail.com

2010-05-02T11:19:00.000-04:00

Dixie Wins at Shawnee
J. C. Tilton

The Dixie boys track team put it all together at the Preble Shawnee Invitational. The team had been beset by injuries. But on Friday they showed what they could do with the team at almost full strength. From talking with the other coaches it seems like the team that healed the best, did the best. The Greyhound team did this with a lot of strength in the speed events and showed that with top finishes in all the races that were 400m and lower. Dixie was lead by the following top performers: Billy Hauser finished 2nd and 3rd in the 100m and 200m dashes. Doogie Hauser was 3rd in the 400m dash. DeAaron Isaac was 1st and 2nd in the 300m hurdles and 110 hurdles. 4X100m team 3rd. 4X200m team 2nd. 4X400m team 2nd. Discus Mike Smiley 2nd.

Winning Coach Jack Sturgill of Dixie was happy to have his team back at close to full strength. “We are doing a lot better, we have some people healed up. Our top sprinter, Billy Hauser, is back with us. Our throwers are doing well now and our jumping has improved with kids coming back from injury. The team seems be peaking right now. We still haven’t had a full team yet. This meet is the only meet we had this week – and that was good for us. It gave everyone a chance to get healed.”

He continued, “This meet Mike Smiley threw 127 feet in the discus – the best he has ever thrown as did Greg Koth who threw a personal best 116 feet. DeAaron Isaacs did well for us in the hurdles. Next week we have a little meet at Northridge, then Friday we host a 6 team meet with some good competition – I am looking forward to that.”

The Tri County North track coach was asked about his week, “We did OK despite the injuries. Bridgett Jones, Cameron Gayhart, Billy Shrever among others were out. This hurt our relay teams, its kind of a skeleton crew that we are working with. When you have a small school and you lose a few, it really hurts. But we are hoping to get everyone back and make a strong showing at the CCC league meet. The girls finished 4th and the boys finished 5th at the Preble County meet. Myranda Schoen did well at that meet placing in the sprints as well as the shot and discus, Makayla Conley scored in the 800, as did Abbey Schlater.”

South girls track coach Mabry was likewise asked about this week, “At the Preble County meet, I thought that we did well. We lost some steam at the end, in the beginning we were up there – actually in 1st place for a while. In the end, the lack of depth hurt us. Jess Hickey had a real good race in the 100m dash and the 4X200m relay team won. We scored 3 places in the long jump, 3 in the 400m - in about every event we competed in, we placed.”

Coach Mabry went on to say, “We only have one senior and a lot of young kids are getting experience. I told the girls that if everyone did their best maybe we could get second, but if did poorly we could end up 4th or even 5th. But they did about what was expected and finished 3rd. We are a little banged up right now. Our hurdler hurt her ankle, Katherine Leach is fighting a hamstring, and Emily Burge has been out. But if your going to get injuries, you hope to get them now, not for league and district.”

TVS coach Fahrenholtz’s team was 2nd at the Preble Meet and 4th at the Shawnee Invitational. “Well at the Preble County meet we were missing the baseball players and others were out due to injury, but we still finished runners up which was amazing for being as short handed as we were. Jacob Hemmelgarn competed in the long jump and high jump and won both of those. George Holman won the 1600 and was second in the 800. Jesse Koeller was back from injury and was second in the shot put, he threw over 46’ tonight. Josh Hemmelgarn ran a good 3200. Jordan Krickenbarger cleared 13’ in the pole vault and won so that was a highlight. The 4X800 team did well. It was disappointing because we thought that we could win it this year, but the boys we had really competed well.”

All of the teams have one more week of regular season, the following week will be the league and district championships. As you can see, several of the teams success in the post season will depend up on how quickly that hurt athletes can come back from injury.

Coach Via from Dixie was unavailable for comment.

Local girls team finishes: Brookville 1st, TVS 3rd, TCN 6th, Dixie 8th. Local boys team finishes: Dixie 1st, Brookville 2nd, TVS 4th, TCN 12th.

Top finishers locally: 100m dash Myranda Schoen TCN 1st, Jessica Hickey TVS 2nd, Danielle Sedwick Brookville 4th, Erin Cummins Dixie 5th, Brindy Northcutt Brookvile 7th. 200m dash Brindy Northcutt Brookville 1st, Myranda Schoen TCN 4th, Danielle Sedwick Brookville 5th. 400m dash Makayla Conley TCN 3rd, Abby Voge TVS 5th, Callie Watkins Brookville 6th, Ashton Beneke TVS 7th.

800m run Hayley Glander TVS 1st, Makayla Conley TCN 2nd, Courtney Swink
Brookville 3rd, Abbey Schlater TCN 5th. 1600m run Courtney Swink Brookville 1st, Abbey Schlater TCN 3rd, Emily Mendenhall Brookville 5th, Rachel Hartwig TVS 7th. 3200m run Alissa Mayrer Brookville 2nd, Chelsea Tiley Brookville 3rd, Sarah Star Dixie 3rd.

100m hurdles Kelsey Limbert Brookville 4th, Kristin Hauser Dixie 5th. 300m hurdles Kelsey Limbert Brookville 3rd, Justice Thomas Brookville 3rd, Kristen Hauser Dixie 8th. 4X400m TVS 2nd, Brookville 4th, Dixie 7th. Girls 4X200m TVS 3rd, Dixie 7th, Brookville 8th.

Girls 4X400m relay Brookville 2nd, Dixie 4th, TVS 6th, TCN 8th. 4X800m relay: Brookville 1st, TVS 3rd, Dixie 6th. High Jump Rebekah Stout
Brookville 2nd, Sherry Myers Dixie 3rd, Jordan Hickey TVS 4th, Laura Ingram TVS 5th, Haleigh White Dixie 6th.

Long Jump Rebekah Stout Brookville 2nd, Abby Voge 4th TVS, Katherine Leach TVS 7th. Shotput Elisabeth Wheeler Brookville 1st, Myranda Schoen
TCN 4th, Lainey Linville Brookville 7th. Discus Elisabeth Wheeler Brookville 1st, Adriana Frizell 5th Dixie, Myranda Schoen 6th TCN, MaryAnne King Brookville 7th, Caitlin Highley 8th Eaton.

Boys 100m dash Billy Hauser Dixie 2nd, Nick Lipinski Brookville 6th, Andrew Barnett 7th, David Williams Brookville 8th. 200m dash Billy Hauser
Dixie 3rd, Doogie Hauser Dixie 7th. 400m dash Doogie Hauser Dixie 3rd, Billy Hauser Dixie 5th, Matt Sewell Brookville 8th. 800m run Ethan Leonard Brookville 1st, Sam Bench Brookville 2nd, George Holman TVS 3rd, Tony Combs TVS 7th, Landen Hicks Dixie 8th.

1600m run George Holman TVS 1st, Josh Hemmelgarn TVS 2nd, Doug Cook Brookville 5th, Chad Petitt Dixie 6th. 3200m run Matt Sewell Brookville 1st, Josh Hemmelgarn TVS 2nd, Matt Hangen Brookville 5th, Nick Guerhring
TVS 6th, Chad Petitt Dixie 7th. 110m hurdles DeAaron Isaac Dixie 2nd, Jon Nguyen Dixie 4th, Charlie Newsome Brookville 5th, Tyler Scott Brookville 6th. 300m hurdles DeAaron Isaac Dixie 1st, Jon Nguyen Dixie 6th, Kyle Rutherford Brookville 7th.

4X100m relay Dixie 3rd, Brookville 8th. 4X200m relay Dixie 2nd, TVS 6th. 4X400m Brookville 1st, Dixie 2nd, TVS 8th. 4X800m Brookville 1st, Dixie 4th, TVS 5th, TCN 7th. High Jump: Jacob Hemmelgarn TVS 1st, Landen Hicks Dixie 3rd, Charlie Newsome Brookville 7th, Nick Gillis Brookville 8th.

Long Jump: Nick Lipinski Brookville 5th, Shot Put: Jesse Koeller TVS 1st, Brent Kegley Brookville 5th, Greg Koth Dixie 7th. Discus: Mike Smiley Dixie 2nd, Dylan Steffey TVS 3rd, David Pierce Brookville 4th, Greg Koth Dixie 7th.

2010-04-18T09:45:00.000-04:00

Dixie Fastpitch – Young but Resilient.
By Chelsea Tilton

An interview with Dixie Varsity Softball coach Derek Jacobs revealed that it was a rough week for Dixie Varsity Softball team. The girls played Tri-County North on Monday and started the week off with a loss. The team had eight graduating seniors on the team last year leaving this year’s roster with only three seniors and few girls with varsity experience. This 2010 season will likely be a tough one for this young team, but will surely be a year for "experienced gained”.

However, Dixie did put up a valiant effort against Tri-county North, with a score of three to nothing at the bottom of the sixth. Tri-county North did not relent and battled back to win with a final score of five to three.

Dixie played two more games this week; Thursday the team played Waynesville. This game also resulted in a loss for Dixie with a final score of three to one. The team held them off until the fifth ending when they gave up the lead, but was not able to pull a win from Waynesville either.

The team however, did gain a win against Northridge. The final score was an impressive twelve to three. What was sure to be an appreciated victory for this young team. The ‘stand out players’ so far this year have been: Bethany Patterson, and Amber Naves. Defensively Patterson a pitcher that has greatly contributed to the win, and Amber Naves also left an impression on offense as a ‘stand out hitter’.

The team faces another quick week with games nearly back to back as they play three games in a four day time span. Monday they will be facing Monroe at Monroe. Preble Shawnee is the next game at home, what is sure to be a hard game as Preble Shawnee has beaten Dixie in past years. Then Dixie will travel to face Madison at Madison on Thursday. The team will be down a player part if not all of this coming week as Courtney Hawk is out due to injury. Which is too bad, as the coming week’s schedule is sure to be exhausting.