Speaking of Sports finds Logan teams dominating 13th District in 2016
The calendar year 2016 will go down as one of the most successful ever in Logan County High School sports history. The championship trophies have piled up in record numbers, and the honors continue to pour in.
Casual sports observers tend to judge a school’s athletic prowess on the two most high profile sports, football and boys basketball. But those with a wider perspective have much to admire in the over LCHS athletic program, headed by hard-working Athletic Director Greg Howard.
The most recent successes have been Coach Steven Lyne and junior Kerra Cornist being named Fourth Region Coach and Player of the Year in volleyball, and the boys cross country team placing second in a massive regional and 12th in the state.
Along the way, Logan County has won six of the seven 13th District championships played each year. Lady Cougar teams won the title in basketball, softball, soccer and volleyball. Cougar teams won baseball and soccer. The only other district tournament came in boys basketball, which was won by Franklin-Simpson over Russellville. Todd Central and F-S teams each reached the finals against Logan three times.
The six Logan district championship teams had a combined won-lost record of 117-48-4. Add in boys basketball and the total is 127-62-4, a non-losing percentage of 67.9.
Girls tennis, swimming, archery and both cross country teams also were highly successful, and the swim teams set new milestones.
A look at the sports individually:
Volleyball: This sport’s level of continued excellence is eye-popping. Their district championship last month was the Lady Cougars’ 14th in a row, starting with 2003 season. Their last district loss came on Aug. 16, 2003 against Franklin-Simpson. They started their district win streak a week later. When Logan beat Todd Central for the 2016 championship on Oct. 18, the win streak reached 104 straight matches. If you’re counting, the streak currently is 4,771 days.
Tina Baker was the head coach the first seven of those championship years. Lyne has officially been head coach the other seven. He and Assistant Coach Rob Imlay have been with the program since its inception and were the guiding force in creating a middle school feeder program which has helped in this remarkable stretch. James Imlay has been with the staff most of these years.
The Lady Cougars’ 2016 record was 28-10, ending in the regional semifinals against a Greenwood team which advanced to the state quarterfinals. The team has gone 112-45 during the seniors’ (Jaclyn Batchelor, Catherine Miller & Kailee Moore) four years in high school, which included a regional championship/
Girls Soccer: When the Lady Cougars beat Todd Central in the finals Oct. 13, it marked the fifth straight district championship for the program. This year’s team was coached by Barry McReynolds, a former factory manager who is now a full-time teacher at the school as well as the public address announcer for basketball and football.
Previous championships came under team founder Daniel McCarley and Dan Duncan.
The 2016 squad finished 8-10-2, including 4-1 in the district.
Girls Basketball: For the third straight season, the Lady Cougars not only won the district championship but also won their first game at region. Finley Baird, who was a star of the first Logan County team in 1982-83 before playing for both Lindsey Wilson College and Western Kentucky University, has led her alma mater to the district championship in all three seasons she has been the coach. She is 9-3 in the postseason.
The Lady Cougars finished with a 22-9 record while starting five seniors.
Baseball: Coach Ethan Meguiar’s team is not only the dominant program in the 13th District but has become a perennial contender in the 4th Region. This year’s district title was the Cougars’ fifth championship in the last six seasons. They were runner-up in the other season. Their average record during that half dozen years was been 24-10.
Even more remarkable, Logan has made it to the regional tournament the past 12 years, 8 of them as champions. Even in the worst years of Logan baseball history, 2008-10, Meguiar’s teams were district champs twice and runner-up the other.
During their four years in high school, the 2016 seniors were there for a 110-40 record with three district championships and one regional championship.
Softball: The Lady Cougars set two—make it three—new marks this spring. During the first season of former Lady Cougar great Brandy Nuyt Trimble and her sister, Amanda Nuyt Hampton, as the coaches. For the first time in school history, they won the district championship, ending Franklin-Simpson’s stranglehold on that title. Additionally, they won the most games in program history, finishing 18-14.
The other record has to be the age of the team. Twelve of the 14 varsity players were freshmen or middle schoolers. The guess here is the Lady Cougars were the youngest district championship team in the state.
The first coach hired for Logan County sports after Greg Howard was named athletic director was Brandy Trimble, who had turned Russellville softball around the year before. I told Howard at the time, “No matter how many coaches you hire, chances are you’ll never make a better choice that Brandy Trimble.” Nothing has happened to change my mind on that.
Boys Soccer: Just as the district championship in softball was the first in school history, so was the boys soccer title. Coach Eric Evans’ team had been runner-up to Franklin-Simpson the last two seasons, but won the finals this time 1-0. According to former F-S soccer standout Brady Murrey, this is the first district soccer match the Wildcats have ever lost.
Logan finished with a 12-6-2 record, which was third best in the region.
This was the Cougars’ seventh year of soccer. Evans has been the coach all seven years.
Cross Country: Despite losing their home track to construction of the new technology center, Coach Joe Dan Laster’s Cougar boys qualified for state by finishing second in the tough Class 3A regional meet. Then they finished 12th in the state last weekend, placing ahead of the only team that out-ran them at region, Central Hardin. Among the 83 teams that competed in all three classes Saturday, Logan had the 19th best performance overall, making them a Top 20 team in the state.
The young Lady Cougars also performed well in several dual meets and just missed going to state themselves.
Girls Tennis: The doubles team of Catherine Miller and Kara Nofsinger not only were the top seed in the regional tournament with a 12-2 record but became the first Lady Cougar netters to qualify for the state tournament.
They will be back this year, since Miller was a junior and Noffsinger a middle schooler.
Dan Duncan was their coach. With his moving on to another school this year, Noffsinger’s father, Jeff, is the new coach.
Swimming: Both the boys and girls teams made history when a swimmer from each gender qualified for state. Sophomore Riley Wharton made in the boys 100 Breaststroke and eighth grader Lily Morris in the girls 100 backstroke.
The team also gained great goodwill and performed a wonderful service by teaching youngsters in the Concerned Citizens’ summer camp the fundamentals of swimming at the Carpenter Aquatic Center.
They were coached by Rachelle Wharton.
Archery: Coach Jeanie Moore’s archery team finished seventh in the nation. I don’t know more, since we never get archery results reported, but they fared well in several regular season meets.
Boys Basketball: Although the 10-14 Cougars didn’t make it to the finals of the tournament, Coach Lonnie Mason has set a record this fall. He is beginning his fifth season as head coach. No other LCHS boys basketball coach has been at the helm more than four years. In the process, he led the team to its first district championship in over two decades. The three who were on the job four years were the late Gerald Sinclair, Dick Webb and Harold Tackett.
Football: The long-awaited end of a four-year losing streak came in the season finale as Coach Todd Adler’s Cougars broke a 42-game losing streak by winning 56-27 at Todd Central.
Under the new head coach, the Cougars had shown great improvement over the past few years, especially on offense. They scored 189 points in 10 games after having scored only 180 points total in their preview 24 games, dating back to Oct. 13, 2013.
The 56 points against the Revels was a higher total than the Cougars amassed in the entire 2014 season. It was also the highest point production in a game for Logan County football in over seven years. Coach Lee Proctor’s 2009 team beat Webster County 56-14 in their third game of the season. That was 78 games ago.
Following that streak-busting win, the Cougars were named Team of the Week in the state by a Louisville news organization while freshman quarterback Tyler Ezell was chosen Male Athlete of the Week by the Bowling Green Daily News.
Middle School Teams: Both the 7th and 8th grade football teams both won their opening rounds of the Middle School State Football playoffs. The 8th grade team went on to win another game that put them into the Regional Championship for the first time ever. Craig Bristow is the head coach.
Coach Amy Hinton’s middle school softball team had another great year, winning the district title.