BASEBALL TOURNEYS FILLING UP AREA SLATE

Summary:

There has certainly been plenty to watch for local baseball fans.

Fans of local amateur baseball must be salivating at what is being offered to them at this time of the year.

No less than four post-season tournaments -- including state and regional events -- either were played over the weekend or will be played later this week.

Finishing up over the weekend were the Senior American Legion District 14 Tournament in Sikeston and the Junior American Legion State Tournament at Cape Girardeau's Capaha Field.

Coming up this week will be the Senior American Legion Zone Tournament, also in Sikeston, and the big Junior American Legion Mid-States Regional Tournament in Chaffee.

That Junior Legion regional event for players ages 15 and 16, starting Friday and running through Monday, will feature state champions from Tennessee, Colorado, Arkansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, along with the host squad Chaffee, which has had an outstanding season and could make some noise in the tournament.

* Southeast Missouri State University athletic director Carroll Williams reports that the search for a new women's gymnastics coach is going well and the school hopes to have a person hired and on the job some time next month.

According to Williams, SEMO has advertised the position in several national publications and also sent every NCAA school that has a gymnastics team the advertisement that ran in those publications.

Williams said that SEMO has received a number of resumes and applications. The search committee will begin narrowing down the candidates and formal interviews should begin about Aug. 10.

* It might seem hard to believe, what with baseball -- both amateur and professional -- still going strong, but SEMO football practice will be getting under way in just a couple of weeks. Players are scheduled to report about Aug. 6 and full-squad workouts are slated to start just a few days after that.

And high school football players will also be getting started pretty soon, with the first official practices slated for Aug. 13.

SEMO's first game is set for Aug. 30 at home against NAIA foe Lambuth while the prep squads will all kick off Sept. 5.

* SEMO's 1997-98 men's basketball schedule has not yet been officially released by the school, but the season opener is tentatively set for Nov. 16, a Sunday, when the Indians take on Big 12 Conference member Colorado in Boulder.

Other high-profile opponents on the schedule are Louisville and Missouri, who the Indians will both face on the road. SEMO will also have a home game with Bradley.

The home opener is tentatively set for Nov. 21 against Central Methodist.

* Major kudos to Tim Mayfield and George Renick for the tireless contributions they made to the local baseball scene this summer.

Mayfield served as the primary public-address announcer for Cape Legion's games this year while Renick performed the same duties for the Kohlfeld Capahas.

Marty Mishow is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian