By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
The future of the Forrest City Mustang track program looks bright -- thanks to Rich Trail and Stan Siler and the junior high boys' program
The Junior Mustangs won two meets this season and finished second in three others -- including the AAAAA-East District Meet at Jonesboro.
"Probably should have been three firsts and two seconds," Trails said.
But Trail and Siler are satisfied with the this season's results.
Forrest City returned to the one-team format at the junior high level this season after fielding two boys teams and two girls teams each of the past two years.
"Combining the Blue and the White teams into one team certainly helped," Trail said.
Trail and Siler had about 30 kids for each of the meets -- 25 freshmen and seven eighth-graders.
"It was just a big group of kids who enjoyed running track," Trail said. "I think most of the freshman will go on up and run at the high school level. At the junior high level, you can compete for a conference championship but at the high school level, you can compete for a league title and a state title. That's just more motivation for them to keep running."
The Junior Mustangs began the year with a win at Osceola and then took first at the West Memphis Meet.
The team ran second at Marion behind West Helena and then finished second at the Hoffman Relays in Jonesboro behind Jonesboro Annie Camp. They finished second at the district meet a week ago, once again finishing behind Annie Camp.
The success of the team this season provides a solid foundation for the future of the high school track program and new coach Clark McBride.
"We're sending him some good athletes and some good kids," Trail said. "The future of Forrest City track looks good."
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
You can come home again, and again. . .
Just ask Clark McBride, who is returning to the Forrest City coaching ranks for the second time in his still young coaching career.
McBride, a 1991 Forrest City High School graduate, began his coaching career at Forrest City in 1996 and stayed two seasons before leaving for Osceola.
He has spent the last year at Hoxie, coaching boys and girls' track and assisting with the high school football team.
Tuesday, he said "yes" to Forrest City's offer to return as an assistant coach on the high school football staff and "yes" to being the senior boys' head track coach.
His decision to return to Forrest City for a second time, has nothing to do with being unhappy or dissatisfied at Hoxie.
McBride likes his job with the Hoxie School District. He likes the kids he has been coaching for the last year.
That made his decision to return to Forrest City that much tougher.
"I enjoyed being at Osceola but I was ready to leave," McBride said. "Making the decision to leave Hoxie was much tougher than making the decision to leave Osceola. I'm very excited about coming back to Forrest City -- or should I say coming home. "
Wednesday morning, Mike Bender, Forrest City Athletic Director confirmed that McBride has been hired.
"We are looking forward to having Clark back on staff," Bender said. "We are in the process of making some needed changes within the coaching ranks at Forrest City and Clark will be a valuable person to have on staff."
McBride said Bender approached him about a possible return.
"I had thought about some day coming back to Forrest City to coach before I met Mike Bender," McBride said. "I didn't know it would be this soon. Some coaches have time-tables as to how long they will coach somewhere and in what sport, but I'm not that way. I have a desire to be a football coach. I enjoy track and other sports but my first love in football."
During McBride's first stay at Forrest City, he helped Jimmy Williams coach the seventh-grade football team in his first season (96-97) and then took over the junior high football program when former coach Clay McCammon left for Greene County Tech.
McBride says he hopes to be back in Forrest City by the end of May and is looking forward to jumping back into football.
McBride replaces Jeff Hudson who has coached the senior boys track program for the past three seasons.
The track position came available at the request of Hudson, who like McBride wants to concetrate on football.
"It was my decision to step down from track," Hudson said. "being just an assistant coach is fine with me."
Hudson has been a coach for seven years.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
The uniforms, most of them anyway, are in and the Forrest City Recreation Department is ready to kick off its 2003 youth baseball and softball seasons tonight as well as the adult men's softball league.
If the rain, still being forecast for the area holds off, the Sports Complex will be the hot spot tonight.
Tonight's schedule includes the adult men, the Minor (pitching machine) League, Bambino 11-12, Junior Babe Ruth and the 12-under and 16-under girls' fast-pitch softball leagues.
The remaining leagues -- T-Ball, Bambino 9-10 and the 10-under girls -- will open play Friday night.
There are some changes this year -- the most glaring of which is the absence of the adult women's softball league.
With just four teams last year and a short season, the women's league fell by the wayside this summer due to an apparent lack of interest.
The men's adult softball league has felt the sting of downsizing as well -- shrinking from 12 to just nine teams this season.
The men will play on Monday and Thursday nights, and all games this year will be played on two fields at 8 and 9 p.m. rather than beginning at 7 p.m. for the past few seasons.
The move enables the 12-under and 16-under youth girls' fast-pitch leagues, which move to Monday and Thursday night's this year, to start their games earlier
The lack of the adult women's league also frees up another field.
The 10-under girls' softball league will stay with the slow-pitch format again this year.
The 10-under league again fields 10 teams this year, the same as a year ago and will play on the same nights -- Tuesday and Friday with the first four games starting at 7 p.m., and the fifth game starting at 8 p.m.
The six-team, 12-under league will play at 6 p.m. each night this year.
Likewise, the five-team, 16-under girls' league will play their games at 6 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. this year, rather than the 9:15 p.m. starting time last summer.
The 16-team T-Ball League is open to four-year-olds this season and all games will be played on Tuesday and Friday nights with a 6 p.m. start time.
The Minor League or pitching machine league will continue to play each night of the week, except Wednesday and remains an eight-team league.
The only change involves the start time for the second game each night, 7:45 p.m., rather than 7:30 p.m.
The Bambino 9-10 League lost a team and becomes an eight-team affair this summer, playing on Tuesday and Friday nights.
The second game will start at 7:30 p.m., rather than 7:15 p.m.
The Bambino 11-12 League remains the same -- an eight-team league playing on Monday and Thursday nights at 6 and 7:30 p.m.
Finally, the Junior Babe Ruth League goes back to a six-team league this summer and will utilize two fields again.
The league plays on Monday and Thursday nights at 6 and 7:45 p.m.
WEST MEMPHIS -- Jonesboro's tennis teams completed a perfect run through the AAAAA-East conference by winning the boys' and girls' team championships Wednesday.
The Forrest City Mustangs won just one match in boys' singles when Curtis Northcutt won his first-round match.
Northcutt fell in the quarterfinals.
Forrest City's Tanner Montgomery lost to Mountain Home's Dylan Edwards 6-1, 6-2 and the doubles team of Kylan Erving and Robert Edwards lost to Cabot.
Both singles championships and both doubles championships went to JHS, which had 11 players qualify for next week's Class AAAAA state tournament at Rebsamen Tennis Center in Little Rock.
The Mustangs were shut out of state play.
Jonesboro's Chris Jones earned the singles title by beating Cabot's Matt Petty 6-0, 6-4 in the finals.
Jones got to the championship match by beating Brandon Middleton of Searcy 6-1, 6-0 and Dylan Edwards of Mountain Home, 6-0, 6-0.
Matt Williams finished third in boys' singles, beating Edwards 8-1 in the consolation contest. Williams beat Searcy's Alex Collier 6-1, 6-0 and then handled Mountain Home's Clark Grant 6-0, 6-0 before losing 6-2, 6-4 to Petty in the semifinals.
Jonesboro's Libby Woodruff beat Searcy's Maria Hernandez 6-0, 6-2 to win the girls' singles championship. Woodruff reached the final by beating Mountain Home's Rose Mary Wynne 6-2, 6-0 and then handling Cabot's Whitney Noechel 6-1, 6-0.
Megan Barker, the Lady Hurricane's No. 2 singles player, lost 7-3, 6-4 to Mountain Home's Kayleigh Alexander.
Jonesboro's Adam Hurst and Ryan Young beat teammates Jacob Harvey and Tyler Ponder 6-0, 6-3 to win the boys' doubles title.
The Hurst-Young duo beat teams from Cabot and Searcy to reach the final.
Harvey and Ponder beat teams from West Memphis and Mountain Home to get to the final.
The girls' doubles final was another all-JHS event as Amanda Troutt and Whitney Williams defeated teammates Katie Hurst and Evan Hall 6-0, 6-3.
Troutt and Williams defeated Cabot's Brittany Barker and Bliss Hyke 6-3, 6-0 to get to the final.
The Palestine-Wheatley Lady Patriot fast-pitch softball team placed four on the Class AA Region 4 All-Tournament team this week. The Lady Patriots finished second in the regional tournament and will open play at the Class AA State Tournament Saturday at Brockwell against defending state champion, Benton Harmony-Grove. Team members are: Libby Martin, Fallon Parker, Andrea Cooper and Jenny Loewer. Martin, Cooper and Loewer are seniors while Parker is a freshman. Loewer, Martin and Parker were also named to the All-Conference team this season. The Lady Patriots are 12-5 for the year.