NEW PREP HOOP COACHES TO BE NAMED SOON

Both Jackson and Notre Dame high schools figure to announce their new basketball coaches by Friday.

Both schools started interviewing this past week.

"We've probably lined up eight to 10 candidates who we're going to interview," said Jackson athletic director Kevin Bohnert on Thursday. "Some have been local and some have been from out of state."

Jackson's position opened up in mid-February when Steve Burk, a coach for 20 years at the school, announced that he was stepping down.

Notre Dame athletic director Chris Janet said that there has also been a lot of interest in the Bulldog job which was left vacant after Chris Neff stepped down after one year.

However, Janet pointed out that Notre Dame, which does not have a full-time physical education teaching position, has to be more selective in its hiring process because it needs a coach that can teach mathematics or science.

Cape Central has not yet found a replacement for former girls basketball coach Darrick Smith. Central Athletic Director Terry Kitchen said the school has to wait until a teaching position opens up at the school before it can hire a new coach.

In other moves in the area, Nick Lanpher was named head coach at Kelly High School. Lanpher is a long-time teacher in the Kelly school district and coached basketball at Kelly back in the 1970s and 80s.

Also, Larry Boshell recently stepped down from his spot as Oran's head basketball coach.

Central track teams off to fast, long and high start

After two weeks of competition, Cape Central's girls track team has been impressive to say the least.

Until Saturday, Central has taken first place in every meet it has participated in this year, except last Saturday's huge meet at Maryville University in St. Louis.

Competing against almost 40 schools, Central took second place and was in first place until the last couple of events.

"The kids were motivated by the crowd," said Central coach Lawrence Brookins. "It was a state meet atmosphere. We hadn't gone since I've been here. There were some of the same teams you'll see in state and you had a good mix of 3A and 4A teams."

Of course Dionna Webb gets most of the attention. Webb is coming off a year where she was an all-stater in three events, including the long jump where she is the returning state champ.

But Central coach Lawrence Brookins is quick to point out that this is a well-rounded team.

"Some of our younger girls have a lot of potential and of course Heather Jenkins will get you a first or second (in the shot and the discus). A lot of our freshman girls are really talented and we've got a good base of a few older heroes."

Central's boys team is nothing to sneeze at either. The Tigers took sixth in the Maryville meet and have done well so far this season also.

The team is led by sprinters Demetrius Totton and Ross Conner and a host of other talented athletes.

Conner is rapidly improving in the long jump, also.

The 6-foot-5 senior posted a personal-record jump of 21 feet, 7 inches on Thursday at Carbondale.

"If he keeps that up he'll be going to state in that event," said Brookins.

See why baseball coaches are control freaks?

Location, location, location.

Coaches preach to their pitchers to get ahead in the count and avoid walks. And it's no wonder.

Consider some stats from three local high school baseball games this past week -- Jackson vs. Cape Central, Sikeston vs. Notre Dame and Jackson vs. Perryville.

All told, there were 56 runs scored in those three games. Of the 56 runners who scored, 19 of them -- or 34 percent -- reached base on a walk. Two more were walked in, including one game-winner, pushing the total percentage of runs which scored directly from walks to 37 percent. That translates into about 3 1/2 runs a game for each team.

Looking at it from a different angle, there were 34 walks issued in those three games which led to 21 total runs, meaning each walk led to .6 runs.

And those stats don't include the subtle complications of higher pitch counts, putting more pressure on the defense or having to hold runners on which means leaving bigger holes in the infield.

But if those reasons aren't enough to believe that walks hurt, consider this: In each of those three games last week, the team that walked the fewest batters won the game.