TERRE HAUTE —
Greetings from the high school softball capital of Indiana.
Your Tribune-Star will be spending all day Saturday at Ben Davis, dominating the press box and elbowing those other newspapers to the back row where they belong. No other paper has as many teams to cover as we do (go Panthers, go Miners and go Patriots); The Times and Post-Tribune get off to a good start with Whiting (against Riverton Parke) and Wheeler (versus Linton), but couldn’t get anything going among the bigger schools (now that my cousin Keith Hauber no longer coaches at Lake Central).
This should be fun. You probably all know by now the names of the pitchers — Bethany Sullivan of North, Stephanie Fougerousse of Linton and Haley Chambers of Riverton Parke — but all three teams appear to have the defensive standouts that are a must in this sport as well.
I haven’t seen enough of any of the three teams to be definitive about their defensive leaders, but I’m pretty sure shortstop Danielle Ketner of the Patriots, double-play combination Sam Butt and Savannah Mason of the Miners and center fielder Sheldan Falls of the Panthers would be names that would come up pretty quickly.
I want to see more of Falls, in fact; she’s the first outfielder I’ve seen in 14 years that reminds me a little bit of Kim Newlin (Turkey Run ‘96), the gold standard for defensive outfield play.
I don’t ever anticipate seeing a better defensive outfield — softball or baseball — than the Warriors had that year, with Angie Crum in left and Melanie Newnum in right.
I wouldn’t mind a few more memories like that by the end of this weekend, however.
One more softball defensive thing: I never found a way to mention the best defensive play on a diamond that I saw all season, so I’ll do that now.
This one came against the Miners, in fact. West Vigo shortstop Cassidy Carlson dove to her left, stopping a hot smash up the middle with her glove while flat on the ground. Her momentum carried her to a supine position, from which she somehow threw the batter out a first while lying on her back.
n Tennis stuff — If you didn’t think South Bend was the girls high school tennis capital of Indiana, you were not alone, and the 5-0 wins by St. Joseph’s on Saturday over Center Grove and Columbus North were surprising to a lot of people.
The Indians had actually shared the first girls championship in 1975 with Bloomington South and Crawfordsville (coached by Lowell’s own Anita Rupar), when the tournament was in an entirely different format, but their wins Saturday made them the first state champion from north of Hamilton County since then.
Undoubtedly they were good — their losses coming by 3-2 scores to No. 1 Indianapolis Cathedral, No. 3 Park Tudor and perennial power Munster — but having witnessed the three previous matches played by both Columbus North and Terre Haute South, I have to wonder how much the Bull Dogs (or the Braves, had they reached the championship match) had left in their tank. More dramatic, draining tennis than those two teams played you couldn’t find — or perhaps even want to watch.
Terre Haute Junior Tennis Association gets a lot of well deserved recognition for turning out so many great players over the years. Even better, the THJTA — with considerable help from the parents involved — also seems to turn out a classy bunch of athletes on an annual basis.
I have seen opponents of our teams who don’t deserve the same praise.
n Not only that — Those tennis players are pretty good in the classroom too. Of the six valedictorians from North and South earlier this week, five — Andrew Huh, Sangeeth Jeevan, Eesha Purohit and two-time Mr. Math Sachin Shinde of South and Paige Cook of North — were tennis players.
And North’s prestigious Riddle Scholars were both athletes too — Cook and Dougie Collett. Sara Baugh won North’s Tim Sullivan Award.
n President Mitch? This is NOT a reference to our governor, but to someone I consider to have had a far better record of achievement.
Mitch Hannahs is stepping down as baseball coach at Lincoln Trail College, after many seasons of turning the Statesmen into a junior college powerhouse, and is now the school’s president.
“Interim president,” he corrected me by telephone earlier this week. “There’s a big ‘I’ in front of that title.”
The job is not necessarily temporary, however. It could be his permanently “if I don’t screw it up,” he said.
The fact that his son Derek, the clutch performer in Robinson’s Illinois Class 2A basketball championship a few months ago, is leaving home to play baseball at Ball State is part of the decision.
“That’s a piece of it,” he said. “I have a family that’s made sacrifices [for my coaching career] for so many years, and I hope this can give them some normalcy.
“I’ve tried moving [to another coaching job] a few times, but it didn’t work out,” he continued. “This was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
n Closer to home — And this is not a flashback Grand Funk reference, but news about Terre Haute North graduate Josh Conder.
One of the many great basketball managers of the Jim Jones era at North (and it takes one to know one), Josh has parlayed his hard work into a career that’s taken him several places and enabled him to do laundry for a lot of high-priced athletes.
Most recently with the Texas Rangers, Josh is now the head equipment manager for the Indiana Pacers. So he’s back in the Midwest and working his butt off doing something he loves.
Just don’t ask him to dance, Larry.
Andy Amey can be reached after 4 p.m. for comments or news items at (812) 231-4277 or at 1-800-783-8742; by e-mail at andy.amey@tribstar.com; by mail at P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN, 47808; or by fax at (812) 231-4321.
Amey Takes Aim
Amey Takes Aim: Wabash Valley is a softball powerhouse
- Amey Takes Aim
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Amey Takes Aim: NHL playoffs to put TVs to good use
If Jenny had known, she probably wouldn’t have bought that TV.
But four or five years ago, my Fathers Day present — for those unfamiliar with Amey family traditions, the Fathers Day one is “let’s get something we all really want and pretend it’s a gift for Dad” — was a 42-inch Vizio. It’s been used even more than the cell phone I never would have bought for myself, or the TomTom that disappeared since Jenny’s smartphone arrived.
And it came with high-def.
I’m not going to insult you by telling you how great high-def is, because to do so would be to imply that you are even farther behind the technological curve than I am. I’m guessing, however, that not all of you have yet discovered what it does for hockey. -
Amey Takes Aim: Can’t bottle the joy of Amey vacations
The first bad sign was the Gatorade bottle.
In the Bataan-Death-March drive to Orlando that got the Amey family spring break vacation off to a bad start, seeing it between lanes of I-24 — as we zipped along at a 100-miles-in-five-hours clip — filled with an ominous yellow liquid was a little bit scary. And although we didn't stop to check for sure, I'm fairly certain I knew about its contents.
And the person stuck in the same traffic jam with us, the one with the existential license plate YMIHR4, couldn’t have asked a more pertinent question.
But, after seeing a lot more of Oak Grove, Ky., than we’d planned, and after enduring more traffic slowdowns in Nashville, we were on our way. Even some rain in the dark in the Smokies didn’t slow us down much, so you would think our first-day troubles were over.
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ANDY AMEY: Farewell to basketball
I believe you’ve heard me say before — just about a year ago, perhaps — that a boys high school basketball season that ends with the Tribune-Star in Bankers Life Fieldhouse can’t be considered a bad one, which is why we have a little celebrating to do thanks to the Linton Miners.
Lover of irony that I am, I’ve also got to point out that this season was another branch sprouting from the Wabash Valley’s most legendary coaching tree, that of Joe Hart.
Joe never got much credit for his work at Dugger, but he took Brody Boyd, Clark Golish and the Bulldogs to a state championship game in 2000, and since then three of his former players — Joe Pigg, Clint Swan and now Joey Hart, his son — also have coached teams in the final game of the season.
Joe probably wishes he could take credit for Doc Nash, another down-home type who gave a banjo lesson earlier Saturday in leading Borden past a bigger, more athletic Triton team (banjo lesson is a Howard Sharpism, for you younger readers), but his lineage is still the best I can think of around here. -
AMEY TAKES AIM: Maroons, Rox final a true Classic
I don’t make predictions nearly as often as I used to, but I had one several months ago that was proven correct last week.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Nitpicking aside, West Vigo Hall of Fame selections spot on
I can’t imagine a better first class of inductees into the West Vigo High School Athletics Hall of Fame than the one that was feted Saturday night in the Jim Mann Green Dome.
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Tough bunch of people
I’m getting my warm clothes ready for a trip to Linton this week, and if a few thrills from the Miners, Casey or North Vermillion happen the next couple of weeks, I hope I get to see them.
But high school football is over in Vigo County for the season — as coach Chris Barrett of Terre Haute North said, prematurely — and I’m sadder to see it go than usual.
Walking the sidelines and doing midweek or postgame interviews enables me to meet quite a few of the guys whose names you are about to read, and haven’t been more impressed than I was this fall. What outstanding groups of young men. What a tough, tough bunch of people.
Many know that one of my favorite athletic adjectives appeared consecutively in the previous sentence. -
AMEY TAKES AIM: A weekend to remember with ISU’s ’72 football team
They’re all still pretty hale and hearty, the boys of the fall of 1972 who returned to campus over the weekend to honor their former football coach.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: ISU reunion raises more questions than answers
One of the wrestlers I used to hang out with occasionally claimed to be a pretty good second-story man — although he may have just been talking, since I never saw any of the goods — and it was with him in mind that I was able to get access to the Indiana State Wrestling Alumni Reunion late Saturday night.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Deciding not to ‘vacate’ during ‘vacation’ – & other ventures
Flaunting the law, setting a bad example for the kids in other ways, grooming and acquiring dogs … not a typical Amey family vacation, but an appreciated one just the same.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Huntsville’s Stars, Havoc take back seat to GGS
The second-best thing about the Amey family’s spring-break trip to Huntsville, Ala., is that we left a lot of things on the table to do the next time we’re down there.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Rox well represented on Amey teams
If having the state finals in town makes it a successful girls high school basketball season, then certainly having a team to follow at the state finals makes it a very successful boys high school basketball season . . .
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AMEY TAKES AIM: A feeling of pride, not disappointment, comes from watching Rox play
It’s not going to come as a startling admission that I — once the rest of the local opposition has been eliminated from consideration — am an unabashed fan of whatever team the Wabash Valley sends onward in postseason high school sports competition.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: This private school plays basketball the right way
Any girls high school basketball season that ends with state championship games in Hulman Center is a pretty good one — even though I wished I’d seen Riverton Parke and Seeger knock off a couple of private schools the week before to even the public school-private school battle a little bit.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Even 2 of state’s best once had doubts
Look at them now.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Getting ready for the dance
Terre Haute North got the good news Sunday night — or did it?
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Harrowing path for state hopefuls
The bad news is that the winner of Class 4A Sectional 13 in boys basketball heads northeast instead of southeast for regional play in March — to Hinkle Fieldhouse instead of Seymour as a result of Indiana High School Athletic Association’s changes.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: A superior all-star arrangement
I don’t work on Wednesdays, so I wasn’t able to attend the first Wabash Valley Football Coaches Association draft last week to set up the annual all-star game that will be June 23 this year.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: The biggest & baddest of a holiday classic
There are more things to love about the Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic than could fit in this newspaper, but one of this year’s best things was that for an hour or so on Wednesday, it was Justin Paddock’s world and we were just living in it.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Taking note of ISU’s latest football win
The biggest difference I’ve noticed, as I transition from the high school football beat to quasi-official status as the Indiana State football beat writer for a few weeks, is the length of the games.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: IHSAA playoff draw not as bad as it could have been
First reaction to the Indiana sectional football pairings drawn late Sunday by the Indiana High School Athletic Association? It could have been a lot worse.
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ANDY AMEY: Between the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame & a hard place
Just in case any of you noticed — with some anticipation — the recent lack of my bylines, I can tell you that your wish (and mine) did come true. It was vacation week for the Amey family.
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Amey Takes Aim: UFC fighter’s bloodines traced back to ISU brothers
As a mild-mannered reporter from a great metropolitan newspaper — or thereabouts — I admit I haven’t paid much attention to the burgeoning mixed martial arts scene.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Predators’ win is music to new fan’s ears
For many, many years, the number of live games televised on WGN has been cited as perhaps the main reason for the popularity of the Chicago Cubs (it’s got to be something besides masochism, right?).
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AMEY TAKES AIM: You’ll be having a good ol’ time on vacation with the Ameys
When one of the first people you meet is Tammy Wynette’s stepdaughter, when you’ve stepped on the feet of people you haven’t met while trying to navigate Ernest Tubbs’ old Silver Eagle tour bus, and when the activities director of your resort is, well, Elvis, you might be vacationing in Nashville.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: The Annual All-Amey basketball teams close out the prep season
The most encouraging boys high school basketball event I’ve attended so far in 2011 has been the Lafayette Semistate a couple of weeks ago.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Family remembers Cheryl Weatherman as caring grandmother
As far as Riley and Keely Davis are concerned, Cheryl Weatherman was simply their grandmother, and a pretty darn good one at that.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Honor to see Turkey Run girls close out memorable career
I don’t know if anyone in this part of the state could actually say they enjoy going to Fort Wayne and back, but I was glad to see the Turkey Run Warriors play one last time during the girls basketball state finals Saturday.
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So many matches, so many favorites
Go ahead, ask me anything about the 224 wrestlers who competed last week at the Indiana state finals — or at least about the 112 wrestlers who survived Saturday’s first round.
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ANDY TAKES AIM: A sportwriters’s lament: Oh, the games we missed
I was already tired of winter by the time that first bitterly cold snap passed through in mid-December, so it’s safe to say the season hasn’t grown on me.
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AMEY TAKES AIM: Time of the season for teams to tough it out
In the last month or so I figure I’ve seen at least four boys high school basketball teams with legitimate state-championship dreams as the season heads into its dog days.
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