By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
CONWAY -- Take 100 student-athletes representing more than 70 Arkansas high schools and call it the "Night of Champions 2."
The second annual event was held Monday night before a standing-room only crowd at the Student Center on the University of Central Arkansas campus in Conway and was sponsored by Arkansas Prep Hoops.
Arkansas Razorback Coach Stan Heath and Lady Razorback Coach Gary Blair were the keynote speakers along with Mike Neighbors from the University of Tulsa.
For Blair, it was a bittersweet public appearance and more than likely his last within the state of Arkansas for a while.
Just hours earlier, Blair was offered and took the Texas A&M women's basketball coaching job.
Blair leaves Arkansas after 10 years as head coach of the Lady'Backs, five NCAA tournament appearances, including this year and one run to the Final Four.
Blair choked back tears as he addressed the high school athletes, coaches and parents in attendance.
"Today is a sad day for me," Blair told the audience, "because I'm leaving Arkansas and its wonderful Razorback fans behind. Wednesday will be a happy day...that's when I will be in College Station."
The Arkansas Prep Hoop banquet was put together to recognize and honor outstanding performances by Arkansas athletes on the basketball court each week during the prep basketball season.
Each male and female player named Player of the Week were honored as were the athletes who were named to the Future Stars Team, the All-Academic Team and the All-Arkansas Team.
Fayetteville's Ronnie Brewer was named Mr. Arkansas Basketball while the Ms. Arkansas Basketball award became a co-honor when Harrison senior Danielle Allen and Springdale's Krista Sanchez were named co-recipients. A single vote separated the two high school athletes.
During the basketball season, the weekly winners were announced on KATV- Channel 7 by Steve Sullivan and Paul Eells. Sullivan served as master of ceremonies for the Prep Hoops banquet.
"We are proud to see the turn out here tonight to support these athletes," said Warren Bane, APH Coordinator. "We did not know what to expect last year at the inaugural banquet, but we had a pretty good idea this year would be a sell-out. We give a lot of credit to the high school coaches across the state for helping us put this on, without their help we could not manage to gather the information and get this many players here."
Forrest City senior forward Caronica Randle was honored as being the first Player of the Week during the season and she was named to the All-Academic and All-Arkansas Teams.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
Last year, at the inaugural Arkansas Prep Hoops Banquet, Forrest City's Caronica Randle was named a Future Star.
Monday night, Randle returned for the second annual event and walked away with an armload of plaques.
Randle, a 5-11 senior forward, was named to the Arkansas Prep Hoops All-Arkansas Team and the All-Academic team. She was also honored by being the Player of the Week for the first week of the 2002-03 basketball season.
About the only thing left for Randle to do is decide where she will be playing college basketball.
She has at least 10 offers on the table and possibly more on the way. Among the contenders are Arkansas State, UA-Pine Bluff, UA-Fort Smith, UCA, Lyon College, The University of Huntsville in Alabama, South Plains College in Levelland, Texas just to name what appear to be the frontrunners.
And now that former UA Lady Razorback Coach Gary Blair is headed to Texas A&M, Randle may just add the Lady Aggies to her list.
"Coach Blair talked with me quite a while last night after the banquet," Randle said. "He told me he would be in touch."
Randle, a three-year starter for the Lady Mustangs, led the team in scoring this year with 596 points to bring her three-year total to 1,112 points, good enough for a three-year scoring average of 16.1 points per game.
Randle grabbed 242 rebounds this past season and had 63 steals while handing out 76 assists and 34 blocked shots.
She hit just over 72 percent of her free throws and shot almost 54 percent from the floor -- 33 percent from beyond the three-point arc.
She leaves with 470 total rebounds through three seasons and 120 steals.
Randle was one of 15 girls statewide named to the All-Arkansas team and the All-Academic team.
She was one of just four players from the AAAAA-East Conference to make the All-Arkansas Team -- sharing the honor with Jocelyn Love and Tamala Turner of West Memphis and Alisa Plumlee of Mountain Home and she was the only AAAAA-East player to be named to the All-Academic girls' team.
A year ago, she was the only AAAAA-East player to be named to the Future Stars Team.
Randle scored a 25 on the ACT and has a 3.93 overall grade point average, which ranks her 12th in the senior class.
She is ranked in the top 10 percent of the 2003 Forrest City High School graduating class.
Randle was joined at the banquet by her parents, L.C. and Doris Randle and Lady Mustang Basketball Coach Sue Jayroe.
Given Randle's numerous accomplishment's during her three-year career at Forrest City, she was never given the chance to play in postseason.
This year, the Lady Mustangs missed the state tournament cut by a single game, finishing fifth in the conference.
During her junior year, the Lady Mustangs finished fifth and during her sophomore year the team finished 6-15.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
The Palestine-Wheatley Lady Patriots shook off 12 days of inactivity Monday, which included the week-long Spring Break, to down Des Arc 15-6 in fast-pitch softball.
"We haven't touched a softball since March 18," said P-W Coach Lanny Allen. "And at times it showed. It was a rough game for us but we got the win and that's a good way to start this week."
The Lady Patriots have a full week, playing at DeValls Bluff today, at Brinkley Thursday and hosting Carlisle on Friday.
Fallon Parker led the way Monday by scoring three runs for the Lady Patriots while Jenny Loewer, Libby Martin, Andrea Cooper, Kara Siler and Brittney Gorden each scored two runs. Beth Varvil and Lauren Dover scored single runs.
Martin pitched the complete game, giving up the six Des Arc runs on four hits and one walk.
Des Arc pitching issued 14 walks and gave up seven P-W hits.
The Lady Patriots won the JV game as well, 6-4.
In high school baseball action, the P-W Patriots lost to Des Arc 20-0 in five innings. P-W managed just one hit in the game.
The Forrest City Mustang baseball team will host Blytheville today for a AAAAA-East Conference game at the Sports Complex. game time is 4:30 p.m.
The Lady Mustangs softball team is on the road at Brinkley.