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.)
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ROGERS