Thursday, December 30, 2010

Airline tourney wraps up

The Airline boys held on for an 85-81 victory in the boys championship of the Doc Edwards Invitational basketball tournament at the CenturyTel Center Thursday night. The Vikes took a 57-47 lead into the final quarter and built a 70-59 advantage with 3:17 left in the game. The Vikings win was led by Hayden Hildebrand and Josh Hagins did much of the damage from outside and big John Thomas did the dirty work inside to improve to 9-5. For Huntington it was just its second loss in 16 outings.

The Southwood girls led by tournament MVP Jessica Savannah's 14 points defeated Airline 44-35 in the girls championship. Southwood clung to a 29-27 lead going into the last quarter and eventually pulled away. Keona Favis and Jessy Ellis were also named to the all-tournament team for Southwood. Maddy Scheppers, an all-tournament selection, led the Lady Vikes with 14 points. Mykesha Brown was Airline's other all-tournament choice.

Earlier in the afternoon, Byrd's girls downed Plain Dealing 53-37 in the girls third place game and Bossier pulled away from Zwolle in the second half of a 62-47 win in the boys third place game.

The final championship session had an attendance of 3,015.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Busy weekend ahead

High School sports fans will have a nice pick of what they want to see this weekend.

If it is football playoffs you have both Louisiana and Texas right here in Shreveport. Evangel will host St. Charles on Friday night at Rodney Duron Field at 7 p.m. The Eagles will be going for their 3rd straight Class 2A State Final and 15th overall state championship game appearance. On Saturday night Longview, Texas will take on District 11-5A foe Mesquite Horn at Independence Stadium at 6 p.m. Both teams bring an 9-4 record into the game with Longview winning the regular season matchup 13-8. The Lobos are striving to make a return trip to the state championship game after losing to Lake Travis in last years Class 4A Division I title game.

Basketball fans will have plenty of action to pick from. There is a girls tournament taking place at Bossier High School and boys tournaments at Haughton and Northwood High Schools. The Bossier and Haughton tournaments begin on Wednesday with championship games played Saturday while the Northwood Tournament will start on Thursday and conclude Saturday.

Two soccer tournaments will take place, one at Tinsley Park hosted by Bossier and the other is the Gator Cup, a girls tournament hosted by Captain Shreve at Lee Hedges Stadium and Caddo Soccer.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Great run by Haughton

There were many voices before the Haughton-Franklinton football game was played saying it should have been the state final or at least semifinal. And now that it has been played many more, some that were a little skeptical, who chimed in too. Haughton erased any doubters with a legit chance at taking it the distance. The Bucs had their chance to shine and did just that in falling just short of advancing to the semifinals for the first time since 1990. It was a magical season for the Bucs that will leave good memories of a great season. Congratulations Haughton and Coach Guin on such a good year and best of luck for the years ahead. Best of luck to Dak Prescott and all the seniors on their futures.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Basketball Season opens

Basketball season tipped off Monday for schools in Class A and up or in other words real schools that play football. Besides single games two tournaments are taking place in Northwest Louisiana.

The Thanksgiving Classic is being played at Woodlawn High School this year. Schools entered in the girls bracket include Green Oaks, Bossier, Fair Park Captain Shreve, Booker T. Washington, Huntington, Woodlawn and North Caddo. Boys teams playing are Fair Park, Red River, Huntington, Green Oaks, Woodlawn at Booker T. Washington.

The other tournament is the annual Festival of Lights in Natchitoches.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Turnovers costly the most in playoffs

Haynesville is one of the most successful playoff high school football teams in the history of the LHSAA with 15 state championships in hand because it always took care of business on the field and didn't beat itself. This past weekend it ran into a very lethal Ouachita Christian and made too many mistakes, thus was eliminated prematurely from the playoffs.

On the other hand Haughton's extremely potent offense proved to be too much for Woodlawn of Baton Rouge in the second round playoff win 54-35. Dak Prescott set a school record in passing for 473 yards, the sixth most by a Caddo-Bossier quarterback. Only Phillip Deas, Josh Booty and Brock Berlin, all of Evangel, have thrown for more yards in a single game.

Parkway didn't take advantage of its chances in a hard fought 20-16 loss to Northside of Lafayette. Some mistakes cost them dearly in key situations.

West Monroe overcame 29 penalties and 241 yards in penalties to hold off Barbe of Lake Charles.

St. Augustine scored with 19 seconds left in the game to get past Ouachita 27-21.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Caddo Parish basketball jamborees

Basketball for football playing schools (Classes 1A and up) will begin with jamborees on Thursday.

The schedule for Caddo Parish will be:
Green Oaks will play at Captain Shreve, Southwood is at Woodlawn, Byrd visits Fair Park, Booker T. Washington at Huntington and Northwood travels to North Caddo.

All games begin at 5:30 p.m.

Parkway Boys win Class 4A State X-Country

The Parkway boys wouldn't be outdone by the Benton girls in claiming the Class 4A Cross Country title in Natchitoches on Tuesday. The boys had to wait however after Ruston was awarded the championship trophy thinking it had taken a one point victory over the Panthers. But a scoring change had Parkway as a two point winner over Ruston and the two schools exchanged trophies.

Steven Harville led the Panthers individually finishing third with a time of 16:46.88 and John Meehan was fifth sporting a time of 16:57.91. Haughton's Mitchell Landry won the individual witha 15:58.29 time in the 3 mile race. Haughton was ninth in the team standings.


Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Benton Girls State Cross Country Champs

Kaitlin Flattmann led Benton to the 2010 State Cross Country championship in Class 4A. Flattmann won the individual title with a time of 18:03.43 in the 3 mile race held in Natchitoches Tuesday. It was her fourth consecutive state title but the first for Benton as a team after finishing third last season, second the year before that and third in 2007.

She was followed by Parkway teammates Alison Ringle (19:57.87) and Alayna Nevins (20:04.5). Benton's Kaitlyn Jeter was fourth with a time of 20:15.69. Other Benton runners contributing to the win included Ashton Heinz (14th, 21:00.72), Jessica Nelson (18th, 21:19.12), Ashley Edminston (30th, 21:55.7), Brooke Guajardo (38th, 22:16.78)and Ashley Harrison (57th, 23:08.98).

Ruston's girls finished second, 14 points behind Benton, St. Michael third, Cabrini fourth and Parkway fifth.

Other Parkway runners were Codee Cowan (33rd, 22:01.46), Delilah Monterro (36th, 22:05.62), Savannah Cheney (52nd, 22:57.91), Madeline Wheelehan (63rd, 23:21.02) and Kaleigh Newman (93rd, 24:57.34.

Emily Lantz of Haughton finished 22nd with a time of 21:31.87. Caddo Magnet's best finish was Erika Koeniger at 28th and a time of 21:53.82.

Soccer season upon us

Along with the cold wet weather comes the soccer season as it usually does. Soccer had its first games of 2010-11 on Monday night.

The highlight to opening night action had Caddo Magnet's boys beating Loyola 5-2 at Messmer Stadium. Byrd's boys shutout Parkway 3-0 and Haughton took care of Southwood 7-1.

On the girls side, Byrd defeated Haughton 10-0, Neville downed Captain Shreve 3-0 and Southwood slipped past Mansfield 2-1.

Captain Shreve's boys begin its season at Messmer Stadium against Loyola today at 6 p.m.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Any defense out there?

It has been a season in which a record number of points have been put up by many teams. That means some teams have surrendered many points and by some pretty good teams. In the first round of the 2010 playoffs two local teams gave up more than 50 points and incredibly one of those teams won.

Haughton ran out to a 41-7 first quarter lead, led 57-21 at the half and held on for a 64-54 win. That is a score usually seen in basketball not football. Even though they had given up 30 or more points three times during the season, Loyola entered its first round playoff game with three consecutive shutouts. The Flyers season ended however after they gave up 61 points in a 61-30 loss to Crowley.

38 teams scored 40 or more points in winning first round games. Jennings scored 43 but it wasn't enough to beat Neville in a 49-43 loss. Eleven teams scored 27 or more points in losing causes.

As the playoffs progress it will be interesting to see if it takes a multitude of points to keep teams alive and advancing to the Dome.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Reclassification complete

The final plan has been released by the LHSAA and there are a few changes for some local schools. Here is a look at where the local schools will be placed for the next two seasons beginning the Fall of 2011.

District 1-5A remained the same with Airline, Byrd, Captain Shreve, Caddo Magnet, Haughton, Parkway, Southwood.

District 1-4A is the same with Benton, Fair Park, Huntington, Minden, Northwood, Woodlawn.

District 1-3A lost Farmerville to district 2 so it will be comprised of Bossier, Green Oaks, Loyola and North DeSoto.

District 1-2A will have Calvary, Evangel, Mansfield, North Caddo, Springhill and Booker T. Washington.

District 2-2A gets Homer and Lakeside to go with Ferriday, Jonesboro-Hodge, Lake Providence and Sterlington.

District 3-2A is made up of Menard, Lakeview, Many, Red River, Winnfield.

District 1-1A will have only five teams instead of the initial plan of seven. It will include Haynesville, Logansport, Plain Dealing, Ringgold, Sarepta.

District 2-1A has five teams as well with Arcadia, Cedar Creek, Grambling, Ouachita Christian, St. Frederick.

District 4-1A has St. Mary's, Block, LaSalle, Montgomery, Northwood-Lena.