Thursday, February 15, 2018

Baseball season begins to get underway in and around Conecuh County

Like most high school basketball fans in Conecuh County, I’m looking forward to what’s become an annual trip to Dothan for the South Regional Tournament at the Dothan Civic Center.

I’m writing this column on Monday, so Hillcrest’s boys and girls still had to win sub-regional round games in order to punch their tickets for the regional tournament. I personally look for both of Hillcrest’s teams to make the regional tournament, which will put them just four more games away from winning a state title.

Both of these teams, led by head coaches Chenson Griffin and Tammie Patrick, have represented our county well on the hard court this year, and I look for that to continue as they head into the Dothan tourney.

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Elsewhere on this week’s sports page, you’ll see a story and picture about a recent round of promotions at the local karate school. I think it would be cool to be a black belt in karate, but I know there is a lot of work involved. Sometimes the idea of a thing is better than the thing itself, and I suspect that if I were to sign up for karate class, this would dawn on me the first time I got punched in the nose or in the belly.

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The start of baseball and softball seasons at Sparta Academy was scheduled to get underway on Monday, but wet weather postponed those games until today (Thursday). I hope the weather will be nice because you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything better to do on a Thursday afternoon than to go watch a high school baseball game.

I like football, basketball and softball, but baseball is my favorite sport. I played a little high school baseball, but I was a very average player. However, I played alongside and against some really good players and had a lot of fun doing so. I guess over the years, I’ve maintained my nostalgia for the game, which is why I harp so much on baseball. In the big picture, I guess there are a lot worse things to enjoy.

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Readers will also see on this week’s sports page a story and picture about Evergreen’s 10-and-Under youth basketball team, which finished runner-up in a big, 10-team tournament last Saturday in Elba. Many players on Hillcrest’s current varsity boys team, which is ranked No. 3 in the state in 3A, went through Evergreen’s youth basketball program, under the direction of Earnest Boykin. Boykin is one of the unsung heroes of local sports and more than deserves a pat on the back for his efforts with our young local athletes.

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Another of these unsung heroes is Brian Martin, who has led the local youth baseball and softball league for a number of years. Brian called me on Monday to say that Evergreen’s Cal Ripken baseball and softball leagues would be having sign-ups Saturday outside the Pic-N-Sav grocery store here in Evergreen. In my opinion, aside from maybe church activities, youth baseball and softball is about the purest form of good, clean fun a child could be involved in, so sign them up on Saturday if you can.

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