Former Snead State and Gaylesville pitcher Dustin Crane recently picked up his first win in Class A Short Season baseball with the Vermont Lake Monsters.
To help get players and fans ready, Sand Rock will host a jamboree on Aug. 20 beginning at 5 p.m., featuring Cherokee County schools Cedar Bluff, Gaylesville, Spring Garden and the host Wildcats, along with Geraldine and Glencoe. Admission is $6.
“By this time, everybody’s wanting to see some football, and it gives everybody a chance to come see a lot of schools in one night,” Sand Rock coach Russell Jacoway said.
“I look at it as a way to break up the monotony of practice a little bit. It’s kind of fun thing. After a while, you get to the point of where you need to see somebody else. Even though it is the week prior to the season, we will primarily play a lot of our young kids in that game. Nobody shows anything. Everybody stays real basic. If anything, it’s a reward for the kids, and it’s a way to make some money.”
Sand Rock takes on Spring Garden to get things started at 5 p.m., followed by Geraldine and Spring Garden at 5:45 p.m.
Cedar Bluff has the next two games, beginning at 6:30 p.m. with Geraldine followed by Glencoe at 7:15 p.m.
Gaylesville faces Glencoe at 8 p.m., with the nightcap being Gaylesville and Sand Rock at 8:45 p.m.
Each game segment will be played like a half, meaning no change of possession at the end of the first quarter. Quarters will be 15 minutes of a running clock until the last two minutes, which will be regular time. There will be one timeout allowed per quarter.
There will be no kickoffs. The ball will be in play at the 35-yardline to begin each half and after a score.
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Just a couple of days after being called up from the Washington Nationals’ Rookie Gulf Coast League team in Florida, former Gaylesville and Snead State pitcher Dustin Crane picked up his first win in Class A Short Season baseball with the Vermont Lake Monsters.
Crane pitched three innings and gave up two hits with a strikeout to help the Lake Monsters earn a 5-3 win over the Lowell Spinners on Aug. 3. The Spinners are an affiliate of the Boston Red Sox.
Since joining the Lake Monsters, Crane has pitched in three games and has a 1-0 record.
As of Monday, Crane had pitched 5 2/3 innings and hadn’t allowed a run. He’d given up just two hits with two walks and two strikeouts.
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The Alabama High School Athletic Association recently announced that T-Mobile has awarded the AHSAA the 2009 T-Mobile Invitational basketball tournament.
The only basketball tournament sponsored by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), the T-Mobile Invitational features only school teams from NFHS-member associations. The AHSAA is one the NFHS’ 51 member associations that oversee and administer athletics within their states.
The high school tourney, now in its fourth year, will feature four of the nation’s top high boys basketball teams and four of the nation’s most outstanding girls basketball teams. An Alabama team in each division will represent the AHSAA. None of the schools invited to compete have been announced.
The tournament is tentatively scheduled to be played the last week of December in Birmingham at a site to be determined. T-Mobile and NFHS representatives along with AHSAA officials toured three sites last week: the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex, Bartow Arena on the University of Alabama-Birmingham Campus and the Pete Hanna Arena at Samford University.
Two-time defending Class 6A state champion Bob Jones played in the T-Mobile tourney at Muncie, Ind., last year, falling to Washington High School of South Bend, Ind., in the finals at Ball State’s Worthern Arena, 64-55. Lawrence North of Indianapolis beat South Atlanta, Ga., in the boys finals in 2008.
LeFlore High School of Mobile reached the boys finals of the inaugural T-Mobile Invitational at Seattle, Wa., in 2006. The Rattlers fell to Fairfax, Va., in the finals 52-42. The 2007 T-Mobile tourney was held at Albuquerque at the University of New Mexico with St. Anthony, N.J., winning the boys title and Long Beach Poly of Los Angeles winning the girls title.
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