By CHARLOT M. DENMON Staff Correspondent Back Mountain High School soft- ball coaches, Florence Finn of Lake-Lehman, and Jay Pope of Dallas, agree that this year’s Wyo- ming Valley Girls High School Soft- ball League will probably be the strongest it has been since they have been coaching. “I have been coaching for 12 years,” said Coach Finn, “And this is the first year that all the teams appear to be strong. Many of the teams have most of last year’s players returning. Dallas, Crest- wood, Wyoming Valley West and Nanticoke — all of them are good. Bishop O’Reilly and Bishop Hoban could surprise. I also expect our girls to be competitive.” WEAK TEAMS GONE Coach Jay Pope said the day of Wandel. are also power hitters and The seniors are showing good leadership for the team and all the girls are playing with confidence. They are good at coming from behind to win and did just that in their recent scrimmage with Lake- land. The Lady Knights biggest prob- lem is in the outfield where they need some additional work. DALLAS HAS 19 Coach Jay Pope has 19 girls out for the varsity squad at Dallas Senior High School, nine of them returning starters from last season. Starters returning, who most likely will see action again this season include Lori Bartleson, catcher; Tammy Daveski, first; senior Kim Rinehimer, second; sophomore Joyce Tinner, shortstop; (See SOFTBALL, page 10) By CHARLOT M. DENMON Staff Correspondent New to the Dallas High School Girls’ Softball program this year is Mrs. Yvonne Mould, who is assist- ant to Head Coach Jay Pope. The former Yvonne Giberson of West Wyoming, Yvonne now lives with her husband, James, in Idetown. “She is an outstanding asset to this season’s team,” said Coach Jay Pope. “We are very fortunate to have obtained someone with her qualifications and experience.” Yvonne has coached Back Moun- tain soccer and also was assistant coach of girls field hockey at Col- lege Misericordia. : She has enjoyed all sports since a child, but unfortunately for Yvonne, there were no softball teams in West Wyoming where she lived until this past year when she and her husband moved to the Back Moun- tain. “When I was a youngster, there were no softball teams in our area and although I graduated from Wyo- ming Area High School, I never played in high school because I was (See ASSIST, page 10) Meskers is MVP Dallas Post/Ed Campbell Dallas Post/Ed Campbell Dallas Post/Charlot M. Denmon Boys and Girls Little League Hardball and Girls Softball will hold final tryouts on Saturday, April 5 (raindate April 6). Hardball-Dallas, Shavertown and Trucksville hardball tryouts will be held at the complex on the upper fields at East Center Hill Road and Church St. Any player wishing to move-up must attend at least one tryout, and all 10, 11 ‘and 12 year olds not on a major league roster must tryout this year. Players 12 years old report at 9 a.m., 11 years at 10 a.m., 10 years at 11 a.m., 9 years at 1 p.m. and 8 years at 2 p.m. In case of rain, 12’s report the following day at 1 p.m., 11’s at 2, 10’s at 3 and 8’s and 9’s at 4 p.m. Hardball-Lehman area-tryouts will take place on same date as above at the Lehman Junior High with 12’s and 11’s reporting at 10 a.m. and 10’s, 9’s, and 8’s at 11 a.m. (Raindate) 12 and 11’s report the following day at 1 p.m. and others report at 2 p.m. Girls Softball-All girls softball players, except Lehman 9 to 12 years old, report to Dallas Junior High on the same date at 10 a.m. Lehman 9 to 12’s report to Lehman Senior High at 10 a.m. on same date. (Raindate) All girls report to their fields the following day at 1 p.m. Late registrations will be excepted during tryouts at the fields mentioned above. Back Mountain Baseball Inc. will conduct a girls softball meeting on Tuesday, April 8, at the Dallas American Legion beginning at 8 p.m,. All managers, coaches and inter- ested volunteers are asked to attend. NCAA must take look at itself % By RICK ROGERS Sports Columnist A maa Dallas Post/Charlot M. Denmon Back Mountain Baseball will con- duct a Little League meeting on Monday, April 7, at the Dallas American Legion beginning at 8 p.m. All managers, coaches and inter- ested volunteers for the 1986 season are asked to attend. b Now that the National Champi- onship of college basketball has been decided, it’s time the NCAA does a little spring cleanup, namely formulating new policies that will help curb the rash of underhanded dealings currently plaguing collegiate athletics. The number one priority should be how to stop under-the- table payoffs to athletes, a prac- tice that is all too common in big-money sports such as basket- ball and football. I think that a solution that should get a hard look is that of paying the ath- letes openly, upfront, stipend style. This would be the surest way to keep win- happy alumni}: and gamblers} from getting their == claws into the athletes. Unfortunately, in the past, the NCAA has shied away from such a proposal because it claimed the practice would promote profession- alism in college athletics and Kill the spirit of amateurism. The NCAA should get its head out of the sand. Big-time athletics with its multi-million dollar TV con- tracts, its high priced coaches and stadiums is already of professional status; furthermore, the fact that the NCAA would seemingly rather slap players and colleges on the wrist for rule violations, instead of doing something about the root of the problem, just shows how out of step the NCAA is. On the lighter side, here are my choices for the upcoming baseball season: the Mets in the National League East; the Dodgers in the National League West; the Yankees in the American League East; the Angels in the American League West. These picks are contingent upon bad arms, no manager firings and no flunked drug tests. All this means that I get to choose new teams at the All-Star break. BITS AND PIECES Philly fans should take in a Pirate/Philly game so they can watch which team is going to be sweeping the cellar and which is going to be holding the dust- pan...Look for Reggie Jackson to make rumors of his demise and lead the Angels to the top of the Ameri- can West..Wanna bet that we hear of another drug scandel before the All-Star break? Did you ever wonder why teams like Minnesota, Cleveland, Texas, Seattle and Hous- ton even show up for opening day? Chuck Tanner’s leaving of Pitts- burgh was the best move that he could have made; however, Ted Turner doesn’t deserve such a fine manager and gentleman in Atlanta. The best athletes in the world are basketball players, bar none...Louis- ville showed how good a team it really is in the championship game against Duke. Although one of its stars, Milt Wagner, had a terrible game, it still beat a very good Duke team that played well...Johnny Dawkins of Duke already plays like a pro...Duke Coach Mike Krzy- zewski may have cost his team the game when he took Duke out of its offense with five minutes to play. The slow-down game is now what got you to the championship, Mike. What do they say about dancing with the one that brought you? It looks like Dallas and Lake- Lehman’s spring sports teams should do quite well this year. In AAA, Dallas appears strong in track, baseball and softball, while in AA, Lake-Lehman has fine teams in track and baseball and very strong volleyball and softball teams. Dallas appears to have either won or lost the luck of the draw, depend- ing on how you look at it. The Mountaineer’s baseball, softball and track teams run into some of its stiffest Wyoming Valley Conference competition very early in the season. In fact, all three Dallas teams must face preseason favor- ites on Tuesday, opening day: The Lady Mountaineers play defending WVC champ Crestwood, at Crest- wood; things don’t get any easier for the baseball team as they host last year’s AAA champion Crest- wood; to round out the grueling schedule, the track team, who some consider one of the teams to beat this year in AAA, plays host to a Pittston Area team that hasn’t lost a track meet since 1979, Pittston has won six consecutive overall WVC track championships. (Rick Rogers is a sports column- ist whose column appears weekly in The Dallas Post.) Have a news tip? Call The Dallas Post at 675-5211 ROGERS
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