Denton RC High School

The Dallas Morning News released its annual All-Sports Awards today, and to the surprise of no one, Southlake Carroll and Highland Park took home the first place in Class 5A and 4A, respectively.

But how did things come out in District 5-4A? Guyer won with a point total of 105.5, which was third among 4A schools behind only Highland Park and Waco Midway. Ryan finished third in 5-4A behind Wichita Falls Rider with a total of 75.

In my own formula in which I pitted Ryan against Guyer, Guyer topped Ryan, 57-55, a much closer total than the DMN.

Now-Ryan alum Ryan Salter hit a home run in the bottom of the eighth inning of the Texas High School All-Star Game at Dell Diamond to spark his team to a comeback win on Sunday.

His team trailed 9-1 at one point and won, 10-9, thanks in part to Salter's contribution. He started in center field.

It was Salter's final high school at-bat before he goes on to play at New Mexico Junior College. The game was a nice Father's Day gift for Mr. Salter, and not a bad way to go out for Master Salter.

Guyer junior wide receiver made his oral commitment to UNLV over the weekend after an in-person visit.

The first day he can sign a national letter of intent is Feb. 3, as oral commitments are non-binding.

Russell really picked up his play late in the 2008 season and into the playoffs, highlighted by a 221-yard game against Arlington Seguin, a 113-yard game against Wolfforth Frenship and a 118-yard game with a score against Longview.

We're about to be voting on the area's best games of the school year for all sports and will be revealing the results in the coming week or so.

Just off the top of my head, here's what sticks out to me. Feel free to add your suggestions:

Guyer vs. Ryan football, Guyer vs. Frenship football, Guyer vs. The Colony football, Guyer vs. Longview football, Ryan vs. Wichita Falls Rider football, Ryan vs. Lake Dallas football, Lake Dallas vs. WF Rider football, Argyle vs. Ponder basketball, Argyle vs. Dallas Madison basketball, Guyer vs. Arlington Heights baseball Game 2 & 3.

Again, that's just what came to my mind in about five minutes of thinking. I'm sure I'm leaving plenty out. That's where you guys come in. Let's hear it...

The Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association released its 2009 all-state baseball teams recently, and a few players from the area landed on the squads.

On the Class 4A team, Guyer's Brad Kottman earned second-team honors as a first baseman. Kottman hit .512 in district play with an .837 slugging percentage. He had a .983 fielding percentage as he committed just one error in district play. He was also 8-0 on the mound in district play with a 1.43 ERA, which helped earn him unanimous District 5-4A MVP honors. The senior will continue his career at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

Ryan was also represented on the Class 4A team, as senior outfielder Ryan Salter landed on the third team after his final season that helped land him on the 5-4A first team. He hit .381 in district play with 10 home runs and 12 stolen bases.

Ponder's freshman phenom Dalton Brown earned second-team honors at shortstop after helping lead the Lions to the Class 2A state tournament. Brown hit .458 on the season with three home runs and 34 RBIs along with 32 runs scored. He was also one of three pitchers the Lions used, going 5-2 with 58 strikeouts in 38 1-3 innings.

UPDATE: Ponder's Micah Easterling also earned all-state honors as a third-team pitcher. We missed him on the list because the press release said he was from Peaster. So props to Easterling, who went 6-2 with two saves off the mound this season. He struck out 88 batters in 60.1 innings of work and only walked 13 batters. Offensively, he hit .424 with 12 doubles, 5 home runs and 35 RBI. He only struck out 10 times in 105 at bats.

From the Associated Press:

Whitney Hand, an Liberty Christian graduate and a sophomore-to-be on Oklahoma's basketball team, is competing for a spot on the U.S. women's team for the World University Games, July 2-11 in Serbia.

Hand is among 15 players competing for 12 spots.

Ryan alum Curtis Petersen is the opening-day starter for the Jamestown Jammers of the New York-Penn League, who open the year at Mahoning Valley tonight.

Petersen has not pitched this year after playing the with the GCL Marlins last year following his fourth-round selection in the 2008 MLB Draft.

I'll have more on what Curtis has been up to a bit later. But you can keep an eye on our man here.

Krum standout athlete Klay Dodd signed a national letter of intent to play golf at Seminole State, a junior college in Oklahoma.

The signing caps off a big year for Dodd. On the basketball court he led the Bobcats to their upset win over rival Ponder, and then on the golf course he finished in fourth place in the Class 2A state tournament.

Dodd hopes to play two years at the junior college and then get picked up by a Division-1 program.

Dodd will join fellow Krum graduate Derek Howell, who will play baseball there. The two expect to be roommates.

Former Denton Bronco and current Oklahoma junior Aaron Baker was selected in the 11th round (325th overall) by the Pittsburgh of the Major League First Year Players Draft on Wednesday.

It is expected that Baker will not return to Oklahoma for his senior season and make the jump to the pro level.

Denton High School will host a 7 on 7 State Qualifier on Friday at its new track and football stadiums.

The Broncos, Lake Dallas and Guyer will be three of the 16 teams competing in the all-day event that begins at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m.

Denton is in Pool A to be played at Bronco Stadium. It will face Greenville at 8:30 a.m., A.M. Smith at 10:30 a.m. and Lamar at 12:30 p.m.

Lake Dallas is in Pool B to be played at the Track Stadium. The Falcons will face Midlothian at 8:30 a.m., Hebron at 10:30 a.m and Rockwall at 12:30 p.m.

Guyer is in Pool D to be played at the Track Stadium. The Wildcats will face Legacy at 9:30 a.m., Jesuit at 11:30 a.m. and Plano at 1:30 p.m.

Pool C consists of Sam Houston, Lewisville, Desoto and Mesquite.

The semifinals will be at 3 p.m. Pool A winner will face Pool C winner. And Pool B winner will face Pool D winner.

The championship game is at Bronco Stadium at 4 p.m.

Ryan receiver Bud Sasser apparently made some noise at a Texas Longhorns football camp over the weekend.

Burnt Orange Nation claims Sasser impressed the coaching staff after an unexpected appearance at the camp. It also speculates that the Longhorns could extend an offer to Sasser if their first WR choice falls through.

Sasser has offers from Texas Tech, Tulsa, Purdue, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas and Arizona, and more may be coming as people find out more about him.

This Web site is a gold mine for track on the world scale, the college scale and the high school scale. They're always at the Texas UIL championships, and they post videos of each and every race for each and every classification, as well as interviews with athletes.

The link I posted is to the Class 4A boys 4x400 relay, but if you look on the left side of the screen, you can choose any race you want to watch. Enjoy.

Lake Dallas quarterback James Franklin, who's already committed to Missouri, was recently at the Elite 11 camp for the nation's top quarterbacks, which was held locally at TCU.

He's actually mentioned in a story in the most recent edition of ESPN The Magazine as a previously unheralded guy relatively speaking with the bigger names at the camp.

But anyone who's seen Franklin plays knows he's nothing resembling an average quarterback. You can see some of his highlight video from the camp, which is actually kind of boring, just drop-backs and sprint-outs and the like.

Come August, tiny Liberty Christian will have two high-profile starters at athletic programs at the University of Oklahoma.

Both are 2008 graduates, as Whitney Hand started as a true freshman for the girls basketball team, and now Ben Habern is listed as the starter at center on the depth chart that Oklahoma released today.

Habern is probably the most dominant football player I've seen at the high school level, though some of his competition in high school was questionable. But now, there should be no doubt that the former U.S. Army All-American is a certifiable beast. Starting at Oklahoma as a redshirt freshman is not an easy thing to do.

Junior pole vaulter Samuel Retzloff took a gold medal with a personal-best vault of 16 feet, besting his previous best by three inches. Retzloff didn't miss a single vault until his first attempt at 16-3, hitting six straight after passing the first three rounds.

Field event people seem to be the most outgoing with the crowd, as sprinters are usually so intensely focused, and Retzloff is the epitome of a showman.

He even used the words "putting on a show for the crowd" and boy, did he ever. He was bowing, saluting, clapping over his head toward the crowd and being an all-around showman as he had the fans' support throughout the competition. It was fun to watch.

Ponder has reached an agreement with Jude Stanley to be the Lions new boys basketball coach, one school board member told me on Friday night.

He has already been hired. He was present during Ponder's baseball games this weekend.

This is a great move by Ponder. Stanley has done some good things at Sanger. He should fit in nicely as Doug Boxell's replacement. Both coaches run the same offense and have similar coaching styles. But he will have a lot of pressure on him. When the Lions take the court next season they will be playing as the Class 2A two-time defending champions.

One more interesting note: The last time Ponder's baseball team reached the state tournament, Stanley was an assistant baseball coach under Mark Low in 2004.

Stanley is back at Ponder. And the baseball team is back in the state tournament after sweeping Brock Thursday and Friday night.

Now, who will coach Sanger?

I will have more on this story this week in the newspaper editions.

Senior athletic do-it-all Jessica Bonfield just completed her high school athletic career with a third-place finish in the 3A girls pole vault with a vault of 11-6. The winner and defending champion, Whitney's Wren Bonner, hit a 3A meet record 13-0 vault, which was also the state's top vault this year at any classification.

The Eagles have seven more competitors to go today, which is the Argyle day as the Eagles are the only 3A representative from the area. It's highly likely that all of them could medal too, with the girls mile a lock to get a medal (Colbea Harris) and the boys mile just as likely with Stephen Curry and Jake Roberts. Curry and Harris both won the 3,200 yesterday.

So far this evening, Guyer's Joe Barb (400) and Garrett Montgomery (pole vault) have won silver medals -- Barb's second in two years in the event.

Barb finished eight one-hundredths of a second out of first place, just running out of real estate to make his comeback.

In other news, Class A Rochelle is on its way to a second-straight team title, with "team" meaning Bonnie Richardson. You may remember seeing the national news story last year when she won the team championship all by her lonesome. Today, she has two golds (high jump, long jump) and a silver (discus) and leads the team standings by 16 points heading into tomorrow when she has the 100 and 200. If one of those wasn't unprecedented enough, imagine two.

All that's left now on the local scene is the Guyer boys 1,600 relay, which is set to run in about 45 minutes to close down the evening in front of nearly 14,000 people.

Now that the 2008-09 school year is over for Ryan and Guyer, I got to thinking: which school had the better year in sports?

Guyer had a better early fall with the football and volleyball teams, Ryan dominated in basketball and baseball/softball was a push. While those generalizations are all well and good, I want to split the hairs and quantify successes and failures to see which school had the better year across the board.

So I've come up with a system to award teams points for each success throughout the season. I'll add up the points at the end, and whichever team has more had the better year. Disclaimer: This is absolutely not perfect. I know it is not perfect. I have not done the math before writing this, so I have not schmoozed the formula to benefit one school over another.

We're three hours into the state track meet and here's the ledger so far:

Two events for Argyle, two gold medals.

I figured coming into this meet that Argyle would be the area star, and so far, that's been the case.

Junior Colbea Harris started things off with a near wire-to-wire win in the girls 3A 3,200 in a time of 11:07.59, beating Canton's Heather Sterling by four seconds and setting a personal record. Teammate Stephen Curry won the boys 3,200 and led wire-to-wire. He's the defending state cross country champ as well, and both will go for gold in the mile tomorrow.

Aubrey's new head coach, and legendary Celina and Pilot Point head man G.A. Moore has been nominated for induction to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in Waco, with induction scheduled for early 2010.

The voting is done by media members across the state and by members of the public who are in the museum's voting program. To find out more, and receive a ballot, you can go here.

For a list of nominees, follow the jump:

Two Ryan Raiders will represent their team in post-season all-star games this month.

Ryan seniors Ryan Salter and Tyler Sain were invited to the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association All-Star Game and the North Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association All-Star Game, respectively.

The THSBCA All-Star game is on June 21st at Dell Diamond in Round Rock and will feature some of the top talent in the state. Salter is only the second Ryan player invited to the game this decade.

To quote Ryan head coach Bret Warnack: "It's a pretty big deal."

Catching up on some post-baseball/softball/spring football madness, there are some signings to report over at Guyer in the track program.

As I've said before, 400 specialist Joe Barb has inked with Stephen F. Austin, where he'll join former Guyer head coach Sean Lonnergan. Also, pole vaulter Garrett Montgomery has signed with UT-Arlington. Montgomery is a favorite in the pole vault this weekend at the state meet in Austin and fared well at the Texas Relays on the same track earlier this spring.

Finally, Kenton Jackson, who is accustomed to blowing away fields of 200 runners, has signed with UT-San Antonio. Jackson didn't qualify for the state meet individually, which was a bit of a shock after a sub-par showing at the regional meet. But don't be surprised to see him run in the mile relay in Austin this weekend, as he is one of the six runners going, of which four will be chosen.

The Lions will face Brock in a three-game series. All game's will be at Keller Central High School.

Game 1: 8 p.m., Thursday
Game 2: 8 p.m., Friday
Game 3: 8 p.m., Saturday (if necessary).

I don't know much about Brock yet. But I do know they are 30-4 and it has taken out 2A powers Gunter and Mildred during its path here.

One kid to watch out for? Zach Patino. He is Brock's ace and last weekend he went 6-for-6 with two doubles and a grand slam. This should be a good series. To make it even more interesting is Ponder head coach Mark Low and Brock skipper Chad Massey are best friends.

I'll see you all out there.

Former Denton standout and current Oklahoma Sooner Aaron Baker had a nice series at the plate this weekend.

The Sooners lost in the regional final to Arkansas, but a big reason why they played in the championship was because of Baker.

He went 0-for-3 in the final game, but went 5-for-10 during Oklahoma's first three games, with two home runs (one a grand slam) a double, four runs scored and five RBI.

The question now is, Will Baker get drafted next week by a Major League Baseball team? And if he is drafted, does he stay for his senior season, or jump ship to the pro level?

One thing to note: His brother, Abel, will be a freshman on the Sooner squad next season.

Ponder center fielder Landon Hendrix has signed to play baseball at the next level.
Hendrix inked a letter of intent on Monday to play at Austin College next season.

The news for Hendrix caps of a pretty good last couple of days for the senior.

On Thursday he hit the game-winning home run in Game 1 of Ponder's series-win against Edgewood. On Saturday he reached base all four times he went up to the plate and also made some nice defensive plays in the outfield.

Hendrix and the Lions will play for the regional championship this weekend against Brock.
I'll post game times and sites once I hear from coach Mark Low.

Before the playoffs, I blogged that Region I was a wishy-washy region that was open for the taking.

That turned out to be more true than even I intended it. This weekend's Region I final features Fort Worth Arlington Heights, the team that ousted Guyer, and Wichita Falls Rider, the third place team from District 5-4A.

Ryan and Guyer both swept Rider. The other Raiders won two close Game 3s and a one-game playoff against Crowley to get to this point. They also topped Stephenville, the team that beat Ryan in a one-game playoff, in three games.

Arlington Heights is less of a surprise. It finished second in District 7-4A, overshadowed by streaking Fort Worth Southwest. That team is usually in the thick of it in the playoffs. It was able to capitalize in a big way this year.