Tennis and track region info, plus fishin’ Colonels

(Column by Trevor Sherman)

Things have been pretty straight forward over the past couple of weeks as I have been filling in as a part-time contributor here at the News Journal, but with district, region and state competitions all taking place during the course of the next month, the list of events to keep an eye on is about to increase pretty drastically.

For starters, we have high school baseball and softball postseason play now underway, which you can find details on by looking to my right. Last year one of our coverage area teams (Whitley County Baseball) made a run in the KHSAA state championship tournament. Will one of our local squads be able to pull that off in 2022? We will soon find out…

• As for our other spring sports, both tennis and track & field are about to hold competitions to determine who will be moving on to state in the coming days.

The 2022 regional tennis championships should be underway at Corbin High School by the time this paper hits shelves, and are scheduled to progress through the weekend. Assuming there are no rain delays, quarterfinal matches should take place on Thursday, followed by semifinal round matches on Friday, and regional championship matches are currently slated for Saturday, May 21.

Look here next week for more info on who was able to qualify for this year’s KHSAA state tennis championships, which will be held in Lexington beginning May 31.

• In track & field action, the Corbin Redhounds will travel to Harrodsburg to take part in the Class 2A Region 5 championship meet next Monday, May 23. Both the Whitley County and Williamsburg track teams will be appearing in their region meets the following day, with the Colonels running in the Class 3A Region 7 meet at North Laurel High School and the Jackets hosting the Class A Region 6 meet at University of the Cumberlands.

I will do my best to include some results from these track meets in next week’s edition, but it may be May 25 before I can elaborate fully on who was able to make it to the 2022 KHSAA state track & field championships, also being held in Lexington, on June 2-4.

• While looking over the KHSAA website to obtain information on upcoming state level events, I also took the time to review the official results from last week’s 2022 state bass fishing championships, held at Kentucky Dam Marina in Gilbertsville.

Out of 83 teams, Whitley County’s own Bracken Castle and Bryson Potter placed 16th, hauling in a total of eight fish weighing in at a combined 17 lbs, 11 oz.

Even though bass fishing has been offered as an officially sanctioned sport/activity for many years now, I still can’t get over the fact that our high school guys and gals have a chance to earn scholarships for doing something that many consider to be an enjoyable pastime. Same can be said for bowling, and now E-sports.

It’s a very cool thing that there are so many opportunities available to students these days, and as a parent of two young children myself, I am happy that such a broad range of options are there, as not every kid is going to be into basketball, football and/or baseball.

But, back to my original point, a big congrats to Bracken and Bryson on their recent accomplishment. I am a pretty terrible fisherman myself, so I can only imagine what it must be like to reel in the big ones like you guys did!

• Finally, before I wrap up this week I would like to send out a huge congratulations to the University of the Cumberlands baseball team on successfully defending their Mid-South Conference championship crown with an 8-3 win over Freed-Hardeman University out of Tennessee. The title game was contested in Bowling Green on May 9.

This is a history-making event for the Patriots as they have now secured back-to-back MSC championship titles for the very first time in the history of the program.

UC opened up play in the 2022 NAIA national championship tournament this past Monday, squaring off against Warner University out of Florida at Hunter Wright Stadium in Kingsport, Tenn.

For more information, visit www.naia.org, www.mid-southconference.org and www.cumberlandspatriots.com.

Okay, that’s going to do it for now. As I said at the top, things are heating up quickly in the world of local sports, so there is plenty to see and do right now. Be sure to get out and support these student-athletes, their coaches and the schools that they represent. Best of luck to all!