Sports Archive

Crestview’s Elesi Simmons was on a roll early in the second quarter of the Pensacola Sports Association All-Star Game Friday night.

She was hyped up. Motivated. Unstoppable on the court.

You don’t have to be a baseball expert to know that if a team strikes out four times the number of hits it has, it probably won’t win.
That’s exactly what happened to the Crestview baseball team on Thursday night its game with rival Niceville. Bulldog batters produced just three hits while striking 12 times, five of which were watching a called third strike.

Things were kind of rough when Ciera Ezell started out in weightlifting. She could barely bench 95 pounds. Her clean and jerk never got higher than 115 pounds.

Last month at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland, it was obvious Ezell has come a long way from those days.

To paraphrase the old poem, Casey at the Bat, there was no joy in Baker on Thursday as the Gators were shut out.
Not too many things, if any went well for the Baker baseball team against Walton. Misplayed fly balls, poor base running and a lack of quality at bats were not what Gator fans ordered.

Laurel Hill softball coach Diedre Harrison didn’t do her team any favors when she scheduled rival Paxton for the season-opener. And although the Hoboes and Bobcats are now in different districts, the rivalry should remain as intense as ever.

Michelle Howard enters her seventh season as the Crestview High School softball coach with great expectations for the Lady Bulldog program.

“I think that we have a really high expectation, the coaching staff does,” Howard said. “I think that we have the ability to do some really big things.

It has been a banner year for Crestview High School athletics on the field and in the classroom.

The school recently recognized the 15 student-athletes that have signed athletic scholarships so far this school year.

It takes more than mastering the skills in a martial art like Taekwon-Do to advance to the next belt level. As students at the Gordon Martial Arts recent advancement ceremony proved, dedication is also required.

The five candidates for black belt spent many an arduous hour perfecting their craft — and that was before they tackled the belt test. One challenge they faced was that academy owner Master Tom Gordon and his instruction team don’t hand out gimmes.

Laurel Hill head baseball coach Cory McSween was a young assistant coach to Ronnie Smith the last time the Hoboes were in the playoffs. That was more than a decade ago in 2012 and McSween, now in his fourth year leading the program, would like to see that drought come to an end.

Crestview High School flag football coach Damon Welch didn’t need many words to describe the way the Lady Bulldogs played on Thursday.
“Great,” he said when asked to describe the game.