There are four Garrard County players among the 12 girls chosen for The Advocate-Messenger All-Area Softball Team announced today, including pitcher Jessica Speake, the first player to make the team in five consecutive seasons.
Three players from Boyle County are also on the team, which was chosen through balloting of area coaches.
The All-Area baseball team will be released in about a week.
Nine Advocate-area athletes won state championships in their respective classes at this week’s State Track and Field Championships.
Here are the links to the results for area athletes from Thursday’s Class AA section and Saturday’s Class A and AAA section, and there are no less than nine stories from the state meet appearing in Friday and Sunday’s Advocates and online at amnews.com.
Here’s the list of local champions:
CLASS A
Girls
CLASS AA
Boys
Girls
At long last, the pairings for the 12th Region baseball tournament were drawn today. And the first round is full of intrigue, especially for the three Advocate-area teams in the field.
There are no less than four teams in the field that were ranked in the final statewide coaches poll of the season — almost certainly a first for this region — and those four teams drew into two of Monday’s four first-round games at East Jessamine. No. 25 Danville will play No. 18 Mercer County in the second of Monday’s four games, and No. 4 West Jessamine plays No. 22 Boyle County right after that. There’s also a matchup of intra-county rivals in the final game as Southwestern plays Pulaski County.
The tournament will be played Monday, Wednesday and Thursday if the weather cooperates.
12th Region Tournament
At East Jessamine
First Round
Monday, May 31
Somerset (28-8) vs. McCreary Central (20-12), 11 a.m.
Danville (28-9) vs. Mercer County (25-10), 1:30 p.m.
West Jessamine (30-7) vs. Boyle County (25-11), 4 p.m.
Southwestern (22-15) vs. Pulaski County (17-17), 6:30 p.m.
Semifinals
Wednesday, June 2
Somerset-McCreary Central winner vs. Danville-Mercer County winner, 6 p.m.
West Jessamine-Boyle County winner vs. Southwestern-Pulaski County winner, 8:30 p.m.
Championship
Thursday, June 3
Semifinal winners, 7 p.m.
The 12th Region softball tournament schedule has been set — at least for the time being — with four first-round games to be played on two fields Monday at Millennium Park in Danville. (The schedule is below; read Larry Vaught’s story on today’s draw here.)
The tournament is scheduled to be played Monday through Wednesday, but graduation ceremonies at Danville, East Jessamine and West Jessamine could force some alterations along the way if those teams advance.
12th Region Tournament
At Millennium Park
First Round
Monday, May 31
Pulaski County (28-8) vs. Wayne County (18-17), 5 p.m.
Garrard County (30-8) vs. West Jessamine (17-20), 6 p.m.
East Jessamine (22-8) vs. Danville (21-17), 7 p.m.
Southwestern (19-18) vs. Somerset (24-13), 8 p.m.
Semifinals
Tuesday, June 1
Pulaski County-Wayne County winner vs. East Jessamine-Danville winner, 6:30 p.m.
Garrard County-West Jessamine winner vs. Southwestern-Somerset winner, 8:15 p.m.
Championship
Wednesday, June 2
Semifinal winners, 7:30 p.m.
The fields for the 12th Region baseball and softball tournaments are complete, with coaches awaiting the drawings to find out who plays who.
Pairings for the softball tournament will be drawn at a meeting 11 a.m. today, and pairings for the baseball tournament will be drawn at 2 p.m. Sunday. Check back here for the pairings.
The baseball tournament will be played at East Jessamine; the softball tournament is at Millennium Park in Danville.
Both tournaments are expected to begin Monday, but neither are expected to play any games Tuesday due to a conflict with graduation at Danville, which is in both tourneys. The baseball tournament is also expected to avoid playing on Friday (June 4) due to another graduation conflict.
Here are the teams that will play in both tournaments, with the winner of each district listed before the runner-up:
Baseball
Softball
The Kentucky Football Coaches Association has announced a format change for the retooled Best of the Bluegrass all-star game, which will be played Dec. 12 at St. Xavier High School in Louisville.
The game, co-hosted by the KFCA and the Greater Louisville Football Coaches Association, will feature a greater Louisville team against a team of players from the rest of the state. The Louisville-area made up of players from schools in Jefferson, Bullitt, Oldham and Shelby counties, as well as schools that play in football districts with Jefferson County schools and are GLFCA members.
Forty players will be picked for each side, with nominations and selections taking place later this fall. The game date falls on a Sunday on the weekend following the state finals. Kickoff is at 2 p.m. at the 6,200-seat St. Xavier Stadium.
The game replaces the East vs. West game that was played in June in each of the last two years but was canceled this year. That game in turn replaced the Kentucky-Tennessee series that was discontinued after the 2007 game.
CeCe Witten of Boyle County has been seeded No. 2 in the girls singles draw at the State Tennis Championships, which begin Thursday in Lexington.
Witten, a junior who is coming off her sixth consecutive 12th Region singles championship, is behind only Samantha Maddox of Lexington Catholic, last year’s runner-up and the girl who eliminated Witten when she reached the semifinals for the first time in 2009.
Witten lost in last year’s semis to two-time champion Lauren Kline of North Oldham, who has graduated.
Boys 12th Region singles champion Kyle Jeffries of Casey County, who has won four straight regional championships — two in doubles, then two in singles — had hoped to receive a seed but did not.
Postseason play begins for Advocate-area baseball and softball teams today with the start of district tournaments. All of the local tournaments in both sports will conclude by Wednesday.
The winners and runners-up advancing to the 12th Region Tournaments. The baseball regional will be at East Jessamine for the first time, and the softball regional returns to Millennium Park in Danville for the second straight year.
Here are the district schedules:
BASEBALL
45th District at Garrard County
Monday: Boyle County (24-10) vs. Garrard County (7-23), 5 p.m.; Danville (26-9) vs. Lincoln County (14-18), 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday: Championship, 6 p.m.
46th District at East Jessamine
Monday: Mercer County (24-9) vs. Burgin (11-15), 6 p.m.
Tuesday: West Jessamine (28-7) vs. East Jessamine (27-9), 6 p.m.
Wednesday: Championship, 6 p.m.
47th District at Rockcastle County
Monday: Somerset (26-8) vs. Rockcastle County (8-27), 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday: Pulaski County (17-16) vs. Casey County (14-20), 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday: Championship, 7:30 p.m.
SOFTBALL
45th District at Danville
Monday: Garrard County (26-8) vs. Lincoln County (5-22), 5:30 p.m.; Boyle County (26-9) vs. Danville (20-16), 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday: Championship, 6:30 p.m.
46th District at East Jessamine
Monday: East Jessamine (20-8) vs. Burgin (4-19), 6 p.m.; West Jessamine (16-17) vs. Mercer County (18-17), 7:45 p.m.
Tuesday: Championship, 6 p.m.
47th District at Rockcastle County
Monday: Pulaski County (26-8) vs. Rockcastle County (8-26), 6 p.m.
Tuesday: Somerset (23-12) vs. Casey County (15-18), 6 p.m.
Wednesday: Championship, 6 p.m.
Permit me a personal note to mark the passing of Rick Anderkin, the editor of the Mount Vernon Signal, who died Wednesday at age 48.
Anderkin gave me my first “professional” sportswriting position in 1983 when he accepted my offer to cover Jackson County’s boys and girls basketball teams as a stringer for the Jackson County Sun, which his family owned at the time. I was a high school senior who had been bitten by the newspaper bug a year earlier in my school’s journalism class, and Anderkin gave me the chance to write and a little walking-around money to boot. Some 2 1/2 years later, he gave me a summer job at the Sun, where I didn’t write much sports but did do everything from driving Anderkin’s truck with the press run to the Sun office in McKee and addressing copies for mail subscribers to typesetting obits and answering the phone.
I owe whatever I have done in my career to a small handful of people who gave me opportunities along the way, and Anderkin is high on that list. Our paths usually crossed once or twice a year at a football or basketball game, and I probably should have told him that.
Sports fans in this area would have seen Anderkin shooting photos at many Rockcastle County sporting events, including the 47th District and 12th Region championships won by the Rockcastle girls basketball team. His son, Aaron, was a football, baseball and basketball star at Rockcastle who went on to pitch for the Eastern Kentucky baseball team, and daughter Megan played volleyball for Rockcastle.
My condolences to the Anderkin family and to all his friends in Rockcastle County and beyond.
Congratulations to Advocate sports editor Larry Vaught, who has been chosen for induction into the Dawahares/KHSAA Hall of Fame.
Vaught is part of the KHSAA hall’s class of 2011, which was announced today and will be inducted in April 2011. He is one of only a handful of members of the media who have been recognized as contributors in the hall, which also honors athletes, coaches and officials.
Vaught has been with the Advocate since 1975 and has been the sports editor since 1996, and although he has gained notoriety for his coverage of University of Kentucky sports in recent years, much of his career has involved covering high school sports in the newspaper’s five-county circulation area.
All of us who work with Larry know how strong his commitment to high school sports has been through the years and how much he deserves this honor, and today we applaud him for being recognized as one of the most significant figures in the history of Kentucky high school sports.
