A quintet of former Logan County High School star athletes—two of whom are current coaches in the system—will become the newest members of the Logan County High School Athletic Booster Club Hall of Fame in January.
They are Kerra Cornist, Sarah Higgins, Kelley Jordan, Steven Lyne and Travis ‘Boo’ Williams.
A look at their credentials follows:
Steven Lyne (LCHS ’88) was a number one tennis player in the early days of Cougar tennis. It is, however, as a team founder, architect and coach that he has earned his inclusion in the Logan County Athletic Booster Hall of Fame.
When the Lady Cougar volleyball team was formed in the earlier years of this century, school law was that the head coach had to be a staff member. Tina Baker, also an LCHS grad who has graciously played whatever role the school system has needed from her throughout her career, accepted the head coaching position, but the key to hers and the team’s success was enlisting the services of Steve Lyne and Rob Imlay as assistant coaches.
It was clear that that duo—especially Coach Lyne—were teaching the game to the players and doing the strategizing during game action. They were also the ones who envisioned the concept of the five feeder schools having their own volleyball teams and competing against each other. They convinced Principal Bob Nylin to go along with that plan, which has proven to be a key factor in Lady Cougar Volleyball’s unprecedented success.
Lyne officially became head coach in 2011 and stayed in that role through 2018. During those eight years, the Lady Cougars won 216 matches and lost 90. He returned as head coach this season, and his team went 23-12, won the district and reached the regional semifinals. His current record is 239-102 as the head LCHS coach. His teams have won the district all nine years and have won the region twice, winning matches at state both times. He also coached a regional finalist team and five semifinalist teams. He was named Fourth Region Coach of the Year in 2013, 2016 and 2018.
From the time he was the top assistant coach and chief architect of the Logan County Volleyball program, the team has won 23 consecutive district championships and hasn’t lost a match to a district opponent since the 2004 season. There’s not likely to be another team in any sport in Kentucky to match that record.
He is co-founder of Mid South Volleyball Academy/MSVA and has trained and coached hundreds of girls in this community in the club season of volleyball, February-May each year.
After the 2018 season—one of his Coach of the Year years, he left Logan and coached Todd Central for six seasons. He returned to the Lady Cougars this year.
Steven was raised in Olmstead, attended Olmstead School and was a standout tennis player for LCHS. He has two older siblings who graduated from LCHS, Bobby Lyne (now deceased) and Kristine Lyne Eicher. He attended Liberty Bible College in Pensacola Fla. He returned home to help his parents, Tommy and Carol Lyne on the family farm in Allensville, where they have an indoor hog facility.
He married Michelle Rosser Lyne in 1993. They have two sons, Thomas and Andrew Lyne, who were multi-sport athletes at LCHS.
Travis ‘Boo’ Williams (LCHS ’98) was an all-tournament performer on the Cougars’ last regional finalist team to date in 1997. He helped the Cougars reach the regional tournament each of his final three seasons, and he was named all-district twice. He was selected to play in the Executive East/West All-Star Game as a senior.
His most memorable high school game came as a senior when he scored 26 points and grabbed 21 rebounds in a triple-overtime win over Warren Central.
He is often remembered playing alongside his brother, Michael Williams, who was also a Cougar basketball star. Their dad, Gabby Williams, was always along the sideline filming their games. Their mom, Linda Torrence Williams, was a star player at Auburn High School before consolidation.
Boo started his collegiate basketball career at Morehead State University and is one of only four Cougar boys to play NCAA basketball 43-year history along with Fred Tisdale, Trey Turner and his Cougar teammate, Adonis Hart.
He excelled, though, when he transferred to Faulkner University in Alabama and led his team to NAIA National Championship in 1991. He averaged a double-double in scoring and rebounding both years he was there, and was named All-Conference once and All-Tournament twice. He’s a member of the Faulkner University Men’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
As an adult he is in upper management with Spectrum in Louisville, and is a highly successful coach of elite-level teams. He currently coaches AAU ball with professional stars Rajon Rondo and Dana Evans.
Sarah Higgins Cheaney (LCHS ’95)
Sarah Higgins’ family was and still is firmly part of Russellville High School Athletics. Yet at the semester in her freshman year, she and her family decided for her to transfer to Logan County.
She played all-district basketball for the Lady Cougars all four years and learned countless fundamentals from her new coach, the late Mike Haynes, also a Logan County Athletic Boosters Hall of Famer. She was the kind of player Haynes loved to coach.
With point guard-supreme Amy Goodman (Hinton) by her side, the Lady Cougars were a force to be reckoned with.
Higgins had one of the greatest games in Lady Cougar history her senior year, scoring over 40 points in a win over Hopkinsville. That was in an era when the defensive-minded, patterned offense-minded Coach Haynes did not promote high-scoring games.
Higgins was named all-region her senior year.
Her greatest honor, which also brought great honor to the Lady Cougars was being named to the Kentucky All-Star team which plays Indiana twice each year after the season is over.
She was a key member of the Murray State basketball team all four seasons, finishing in the top five in scoring in three of them. In her junior season, she was first in assists (3.1) and second in both scoring (12.7) and rebounding (5.3).
Her oldest children have done well in sports and academics.
Kelley Jordan (LCHS ’03)
When Kelley Jordan began his Cougar career at Logan County High School in the fall of 1999, he established a record of sorts that can only be tied, not broken. He was a starter in the first game/match of every sport he played as a freshman. That would be golf, basketball and baseball.
He became a pacesetter in golf as the first Cougar to qualify for the state tournament. In the 23 seasons since his graduation, only three other LCHS boys golfers—J.T. Richardson, Will McKenzie, Braden Engler and Davis Switzer—have been able to duplicate that feat.
His golf achievements:
1997-2003 6th-12th. 7 yr. Letterman Varsity player
All Region, All District
2002- Regional Runner up individual (Tied 1st lost in playoff) Score (76)
2002- State Qualifier (1st Male in program history to make it to State)
2002- State Results (Tied 8th, score of 152 for two days) Top 10 finish (highest finish in program history for male)
2004 State Am Qualifier. (Finish Top 15)
All-time leader in matches and tournaments played for a career within the program.
His basketball achievements:
All Region, All District
30 points shy of 1,000 for Career.
2002-2003 - Averaged 17 points per game senior year
It was in baseball that Kelley made his biggest impact at LCHS. Ethan Meguiar—a former Cougar standout who is now both a Kentucky and Cougar Hall of Fame coach—was in his third season at the LCHS helm. His first two teams had not made it to region, but the 2000 squad had lots of talent, including pitcher/first baseman Zac Danks who went to UK on a baseball scholarship; pitcher/outfielder Aaron Johnson, who not only pitched in college but also became a college coach; and college players Chris Cartas, Harry Hendricks, Stephen Ross and Kyle Pendleton.
What they didn’t have was a shortstop. Coach Meguiar had seen up close Kelley lead an Auburn Little League team that was one of the best ever in Logan County. Meguiar inserted the freshman in the varsity lineup, a spot he manned for four seasons.
That 2000 team became Logan’s first to beat Franklin-Simpson since Coach Greg Sheleton’s Wildcats had been reassigned to the 13th District. With Kelley at short, the Cougars beat F-S twice during the season and in the district finals. They met one more time, in the regional finals. With Danks and Johnson unavailable to pitch again in the third round, the Wildcats won that round.
Playing with former Auburn teammates Seth Barnett, Kevin Jackson and Ryan Roche among others, two other Jordan Cougar teams won district championships and a game at region. The fourth year found them district runner-up. Current Logan County Board of Education members Kyle Wetton and Ethan Holloway were his teammates. Meguiar’s Cougars had a 77-46 won-lost record with Jordan as the shortstop.
His achievements in baseball:
All Region, All District
2002-2003 Elected to East/West All-Star Game (State)
2003 Stats: .420 batting avg, 14 doubles, 23 rbi, 29 runs scored, .564 OBP.
3 yr. Gold Glove award winner within the program
Kelley Jordan played golf for Campbellsville University his freshman year and was named all-conference, but her transferred to Brescia University where he played baseball for four years. He was all-conference baseball, too.
His college achievements: Campbellsville University: 2003-2004 Golf scholarship, (All conference in NAIA)
Brescia University: All conference and runner-up for player of the year in 2008 (.447 batting average, 5 HR, 35 RBI)
Held two records at Brescia: Highest single season batting average (.447) and most double plays turned in a career.
The son of former Auburn regional finalist basketball coach Larry Jordan and of Jeannie Jordan, Kelley is a former Cougar head golf coach and assistant soccer and tennis coach. He is now Cougar middle school baseball coach; his five teams have won a district championship and been runner-up four times. He is married to former Lady Cougar and Brescia softball standout Rendi Shoulders Jordan.
Kerra Cornist (LCHS ’18)
With all the success Lady Cougar Volleyball has achieved, only two have gone on to play collegiately for NCAA Division I universities. The first was Kerra Cornist in the fall of 2018. The second is active now, with Aubrey Sears playing a key role as a freshman for the University of Houston.
Cornist was an integral part of four excellent teams at LCHS coached by Steven Lyne. Her freshman team had a 29-9 record. Sierra Morrow, Chanler Steenbergen and Brianna Wooden were three outstanding seniors who set examples for her of expectations from Lady Cougar leaders. Morrow played well for four years on an NCAA Division II team at Kentucky Wesleyan.
That 2015 team, like her sophomore and junior squads, averaged over 25 wins a season, won the district title, won a match at region, and lost in the semifinals to Greenwood. Her senior team did all that except the loss was to another 14th District team—South Warren—in the first round. Cornist had 329 kills and 79 blocks.
The Lady Cougars—coached by new Hall of Famer Steven Lyne and featuring new Hall of Famer Kerra Cornist—won 105 matches and lost 47 during her four years on the team.
She set five school records up to that time in Lady Cougar Volleyball. Her high school accomplishments follow:
a. 2014 Freshman Player of the Year
b. 2014 School Record Hitting Percentage- 44.7%
c. 2014 School Record Solo Blocks in a Match- 11
d. 2015 13th District Volleyball All Tournament Team
e. 2016 KVCA Region 4 Player of the Year
f. 2016-2017 Volleyball Player of the Year
g. 2016 13th District Volleyball All Season Team
h. 2016 4th Region All Tournament Team
I. 2016 School Record Kill Percentage- .543
j. 2016 School Record Kills in a Match- 24
k. 2016 Honorable Mention All State Volleyball
l. 2017 13th District Volleyball All Season Team
m. 2017 4th Region Volleyball All Tournament Team
n. 2017 1000 Plus Career Kills (2nd in School History)
o. 2017 School Record Kill Percentage- 56.3%
p. 2018 KY Super Prep Student-Athletes of the Year
After playing a season at Evansville in which she led the team in blocks, she transferred to Oakland University in Michigan, also a Division I school.
College: University of Evansville / Oakland University
a. Evansville – Led in Blocks (71) and Blocks per set (0.63)
b. Oakland- 3rd in the Horizon League in Blocks per set
c. Oakland- Highest Vertical- 10’2.5
d. Oakland- 9th in the Horizon League in total blocks
High School: Logan County High School
a. 2014 Freshman Player of the Year
b. 2014 School Record Hitting Percentage- 44.7%
c. 2014 School Record Solo Blocks in a Match- 11
d. 2015 13th District Volleyball All Tournament Team
e. 2016 KVCA Region 4 Player of the Year
The daughter of LCHS graduate LaShall Blakey of Auburn, Kerra graduated from Oakland with a degree in communication. She is currently a customer service representative for Spartan Logistics in Bowling Green.