John King’s diamond ’Hawks came close to claiming the 4A-1 conference crown this past Monday evening.

Once beaten Pea Ridge was playing for the conference crown against unbeaten Shiloh in a game hosted by Prairie Grove. The ’Hawks seemed to have things in hand, leading 3-1 in the sixth inning of the seven-inning affair. Shiloh, however, fought back and scored 5 runs in the bottom of the frame to turn back the ’Hawks’ upset attempt.

The loss dropped the ’Hawks into a tie with Prairie Grove, and since the Tigers own an upset over the ’Hawks, the number 2 seed for the district tournament falls to Prairie Grove.

Prairie Grove and Shiloh received the automatic semi-final berths in the district tournament.

Pea Ridge will open tournament play this Friday evening as the number 3 seed opening against the winner of the Gravette/ Huntsville contest. Should the ’Hawks get past Fridays’ game, they will be playing Prairie Grove in semi-final action. If the seeds fall according to plan, the ’Hawks would play Shiloh for the district title if Pea Ridge gets past Prairie Grove.

Shiloh ended up taking second in state last year, and they have nearly their entire team back from last year. They are currently ranked second in state 4A polls, just behind Valley View, a school southwest of Jonesboro.

High school baseball polls in Arkansas are in their infancy and because of such, the polling results may seem a bit skewed from time to time.

The current state and district polls, according to the Freeman Poll on the Max Preps label, are as follows.

STATE DISTRICT

2nd 1st Shiloh

10th 2nd Farmington

16th 3rd Prairie Grove

18th 4th Pea Ridge

27th 5th Gentry

30th 6th Huntsville

33rd 7th Gravette

43rd 8th British Isles

Track on the upswing

While not setting any records and really threatening other schools track teams, the Pea Ridge tracksters made some strides this year. Numbers are up from former years and those who have chosen to compete seem to enthusiastic about it.

It was good to see the Lady ’Hawks take third in the district 4x400 meter relay, thereby passing Shiloh and pushing them into the seventh place position while giving Pea Ridge the final sixth position.

The junior girls team got all of their individual running points from seventhgrade athletes, so the future looks good for the future ’Hawks. Here’s hoping that the junior girls and boys can get uniforms to run in next year.

The district meet was particularly tough on head (and only) coaches Charley Clarke and James Ortiz, for the girls’ and boys’ teams, respectively. Each school had to provide one coach for each team to take care of scoring, measuring and timing duties. Clarke and Ortiz were tied up running field events until the evening hours where they assigned timing duties. It’s tough to coach kids when you are trying to do another job at the same time.

Shiloh juniors bid not-so-fond farewell

The 4A-1 District junior girls and boys track meet recently was the final junior high conference event involving Shiloh schools.

In the wake of turmoil and controversy relating to recruiting practices by fans and boosters of their Springdale-based school,the seven other conference memebers voted last fall to drop the Saints from membership in the junior high league. Shiloh High School remains in the district as the Arkansas Activities Association will not allow any school from the league the right to advance to regional or state play in any sports if those same schools will not compete with a member school as determined by the AAA.

The AAA did change the rules to force a “sit out” year on any athlete who transfers to Shiloh after the beginning of the seventhgrade. This will probably serve to deeply dampen the transfer enthisiasm of athletes from surrounding public schools if they have to sit out a whole year in order to transfer to Shiloh.

The school can still offer lots of perks to prospective athletes who may decide to move over to Shiloh but that year of sitting out may yet prove to be the magic bullet that puts a stop to the raiding of high school athletic talent.

The downside of all this is that the “magic bullet” that may serve to correct some imbalances that exist in this part of the state will probably “wound” other private schools in other parts of the state that have not been guilty of recruiting talent from public schools. Kids who may possess little in the way of athletic talent who live in some of the more urban areas who may opt to get out of the large school environment into a smaller one like the private schools provide will not be able to participate in activities ... all because of a rule enacted to basically reign in one particular school.

◊◊◊

John McGee is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The TIMES.

He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected]. The views of columnists are their own and not necessarily those of The TIMES.

Sports, Pages 8 on 04/28/2010