Arkansas high school All-Star week will have a definite Pea Ridge influence as a record eight individuals will be representing the Blackhawks in the multisport activities taking place this week in Conway on the University of Central Arkansas campus.
Local head football coach Tony Travis will be leading the West squad in the All-Star East/West battle this Friday in Estes Stadium in Conway. Travis was chosen by a vote of his peers after the breakout season the football ’Hawks had in compiling a 10-2 season going two games deep into the playoff s. The ’Hawks were featured as the team of the week and also had players of the week in local television broadcasts as Pea Ridge piled up numerous honors and awards in their fifth year as a 4A school.
Travis is joined on the All-Star staff by ’Hawk assistant coach Lafe Caton, after his second year in the Pea Ridge program. Other All-Star staff members include Randy Tribble of Greenbrier, Bobby Bolding of Pine Bluff , Ronnie Efurd of Magnet Cove, Mark Kehne of Glen Rose and Shane Patrick of Springdale. The Blackhawks’ Logan Rose and Will Klein will fill out the staff by serving as team managers for the West squad.
The local All-Stars themselves include Dayton Winn, Blake Roughton and Nick DeLeon. Winn had the best ever season for a Blackhawk running back, amassing over 2,000 yards to end the 2012 season as the top rusher in the entire state regardless of classification. Roughton was a dominant lineman for the ’Hawks this past season and became known for his Thor’s hammer routine after a successful play.
DeLeon brought the kicking game up to a whole new level for the ’Hawks, kicking a number of long field goals to go with great accuracy in point after conversions.
Only two other players from the 4A-1 conference will be on hand for the action Friday with Prairie Groves’ Jared Murphy and Gravette’s Peyton Rose suiting up with the ’Hawks to take on the East squad this Friday. Pea Ridge is the only school with three members on the West All-Star squad. Thirty-four high schools have athletes on the 46-man squad.
The other Pea Ridge athlete taking part in the All-Star activities is Jacob Hall. He is the only player from the 4A-1 to make the West basketball squad.
He will be joined by 14 other players on the West team which will be coached by Pottsvilles’ Shane Thurman. Teammates include Andrew Beck, St. Joseph; Alex Bernard, JA Fair; Ethan Ferris, Mountain View; Josh Ferrell, West Fork; Justin Gattis, County Line; Rick Gibson, Benton; Travon Harper, Stephens; Austin Heard, Bentonville; JaMal LaFord, Mountain Pine;
Dedrick Lee, Clarksville;
Kyle Roberts, Mena; Dashuan Stark, Springdale;
Bryan Torres, Benton; and Brock Widders, Alma.
The basketball game will tip off at 8 p.m. Thursday at the Farris Center at U.C.A.
Other sports to be contested Wednesday included baseball and softball which were played Tuesday with soccer and volleyball on the agenda Wednesday.
The girls basketball all-stargame will be played at 6 p.m. Thursday at Farris.
The All-Star week was held in Conway for many years until 2001 when it was moved to the University of Arkansas campus, home of the best athletic facilities in the state. However, with the U of A so far to the corner of the state, it was placing a hardship on athletes and fans to attend the activities with a declining attendance as a result.
Moving it back to central Arkansas was a good move financially and will help reverse the declining attendance.
The activities will cap o◊a sensational athletic year for the Blackhawks with this year’s senior class setting a bar of success that will be tough to match by successive classes. With the school growing and the facilities improving to the point of being most likely unmatched by any other 4A school in the state, the Blackhawk athletic program has tasted unparalleled success in Pea Ridge.
The future looks bright with a solid foundation being built.
The more things change …
Back in 1964, I fi rst became a St. Louis Cardinal fan at the age of 12. That was the year of the famous collapse of the Philadelphia Phillies which saw the Cardinals come from way back to win the National League Championship and face the New York Yankees in the World Series.
The Cardinals won that series in seven games and while New York has won the most World Series titles, St. Louis has the edge over the Yankees by having won three of the five series when the two teams played each other.
The Yanks have captured 27 titles all-time with the Cards having the second most titles at 11, best in the National League.
Two years ago, the Cards pulled the fast finish act again, coming from eight games down in the final month to make the playoffs, then taking the series title in seven games over the Texas Rangers. One of the original teams of the National League, the Cardinals rarely have a bad season and have developed a culture that is getting some notice this season in sports magazines calling their success, “the Cardinal way.”
This year the Cardinals were supposed to finishing the middle of the NL Central with great seasons expected from the Cincinnati Reds and the resurgent Pittsburgh Pirates. True enough, the Reds and Pirates are having great years, but the Cardinals are having a tremendous year.
Until last week’s series loss to the Marlins in Florida, the Cards hadn’t lost a series since mid-April, compiling the best record in all of major league baseball.
As a matter of fact, all three teams in the NL Central have the three best records in the whole National League.
Only 11 remain from the 2012 World Series championship roster, but there they are, back in the lead.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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Editor’s note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He 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 prtnews@nwaonline.
com. The opinions of the writer are his own, and are not necessarily those of The Times.
Sports, Pages 8 on 06/19/2013