Unbelievably, fall sports season starts today with girls' golf action

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Today is the first official competition date for high school girls' golf teams, while the other seven fall sports may start tryouts/practice sessions today.

Greencastle is the first local team to open up the 2016-17 season, hosting Monrovia at 10 a.m. today at Windy Hill.

The Tiger Cubs and Cloverdale will travel to Terre Haute tomorrow to compete in the Braves' Invitational hosted at Rea Park by Terre Haute South.

North Putnam will start its season on Aug. 10 by hosting Greencastle, while South Putnam will open its season on Aug. 11 by hosting North Montgomery.

Putnam County schools combine to field 26 of a potential total of 32 fall sports teams. Stay tuned to the Banner Graphic in the next few weeks for preview stories on each of those teams. The annual football special section will be published on Aug. 17.

North Putnam and Cloverdale do not field boys' tennis teams, while Cloverdale and South Putnam do not participate in boys' or girls' soccer.

* Hoop honors continue to roll in -- Greencastle senior basketball player Mia Stevens is included in the "Top 200 senior girls to watch" list produced by the Indiana Girls Basketball Recruiting Report.

The 5-10 Stevens averaged 9.4 points and 5.5 rebounds last year in helping the Tiger Cubs to an 18-5 record, while shooting 44 percent from the field.

She played this summer for the Central Illinois Storm travel team.

Cascade's Makayla Collier is also on the top 200 list.

Cloverdale's Cooper Neese has accepted an invitation to compete in the Top 80 Camp on Oct. 2 at Lawrence Central High School sponsored by the Phenom Hoop Report.

Neese closed out his illustrious summer travel career with the UA Indy Hoosiers by competing last week in the Fab 48 tourney at Las Vegas.

The Indy Hoosiers went 2-1 in pool play, defeating Team Beastmode 94-64 and the NY Rens 73-66 before losing 64-62 to DC Premier.

In the championship bracket, the Indy Hoosiers defeated the LA Rockfish 52-50 before being eliminated 78-69 by the Omaha Sports Academy Crusaders.

* Some coaching spots still open -- With the impending start of school, it would seem that all schools would have their coaching lineups firmly established, but several area schools are still looking for basketball coaches in particular.

Western Indiana Conference member Owen Valley is currently advertising vacancies for all three positions on its girls' basketball staff following the recent resignation of coach Todd York.

York had a 54-62 record in five years at OV, but the school is seemingly set for a powerful run over the next two seasons with every player back from last year -- and several promising players still being only sophomores or juniors.

Steve Goddard, who preceded York as the OV girls' head coach, has returned to his alma mater at Rushville as the school's new boys' coach.

Bloomfield is still looking to replace boys' basketball coach Matt Britton, who resigned this summer. Former Cardinals' head coach Steve Brett, who last coached at Shakamak two years ago, is a name being mentioned prominently in connection with that opening.

Shakamak is also looking to fill its boys' basketball position, after J.B. Neill left this summer to replace Dave Mahurin at Edgewood. The Lakers are expected to announce their new coach today.

* Grand Park impressive -- Had a good time one night last week attending the Carlos Knox Pro-Am basketball league games in Westfield. I was most interested in watching my good friend Matt O'Leary, a 6-8 senior at IUPUI, play along with one of his Jaguar teammates. There was much more going on, however, at the impressive Grand Park complex.

The 400-acre complex, built in 2014 for $49 million, is every bit as massive and awesome as those numbers would indicate.

The complex has 26 baseball/softball fields, eight of which have artificial turf; 31 soccer fields, and a gymnasium with eight basketball courts. A much larger building hosts indoor soccer and baseball/softball events.

Players in the Pro-Am league consist of Indianapolis-area natives, who either play professionally or for college teams, along with other players who compete for Indianapolis-area colleges. The games were officiated by what appeared to be NBA referees-in-training, and the quality of play was excellent.

The two-week league will conclude this week with games on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights.

Among the professionals who competed last week were Former Indianapolis Tech, Kentucky and Utah Jazz standout Trey Lyles (a good friend of Cloverdale's Jalen Moore), rookie Georges Niang and vetean Glenn Robinson III of the Indiana Pacers and Hamilton Southeastern grad Gary Harris, who starred at Michigan State and averaged 12 points per game last year as a rookie for the Denver Nuggets.

Harris smoothly dropped a few 3-pointers from well beyond 25-foot range, but didn't dominate his game as he easily could have.

To watch this week's games, and see the most impressive facility anywhere, go to www.knoxindyproam.net for the schedule.

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