Steroid scandal hits close to home
Jeremy Heath

Jeremy Heath is the Dispatch Record's sports editor. He can be contacted via e-mail at jheath@lampasas.com.

Wednesday night started as a proud one for me.

My 8-month-old son, Landry, finally decided to crawl. The power. The grace. The skill. It was a sight to behold.

Unfortunately, there is a bit of controversy surrounding the event. See, Landry picked up a pretty bad cough at day care last week, and his doctor prescribed some breathing treatments and a steroid (oddly bubble-gum flavored) to help his lungs clear out whatever was in there causing problems.

Since technically he was under the influence of the steroid when he did crawl, my wife reluctantly put an asterisk next to its notation in his baby book.

I blame the media.

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As of today, every Lampasas High School spring sport will have started their respective seasons.

Soccer and powerlifting have been rolling along for more than a month. Both the boys' and girls' soccer teams have had a bit of a rough go in a strong district, but the powerlifters have certainly brought home their share of medals.

While Jesse Tobar and Brandon Skelton have been solid on the boys' side, junior Stephanie Smith has emerged as a potential state-meet qualifier for the girls. Smith has won three meets this season and is ranked in the top 5 in the region.

After this weekend's meet at Del Valle, the powerlifters have two weeks until the regional meet.

The softball season opened last week, and of all the spring sports, this one might just turn out to be the most fun to follow. That's because first-year coach Chris Gaffney has a foundation of seniors (pitcher Kirby Crow and infielders Taryn Brown and Vonzella Underwood) and juniors (catcher Shelby Wilson, outfielders Mariah Jones and Stacey Dickens and infielder Maricela Rodriguez), but he also has a contingent of freshmen starting at key spots.

The plus side of this is that this freshman class of girls proved its skill and competitiveness during basketball season, and getting these girls some on-field experience as freshmen will pay huge dividends the next few seasons. The minus side is that they're freshmen, and, quite simply, freshmen tend to make freshman mistakes.

That could make for quite a roller-coaster ride.

The baseball team opened its season Tuesday with a 7-1 road loss to Copperas Cove.

This could be another interesting group to watch. Head coach Brian McBeth is fired up about his pitching, and if Tuesday's game is any indication, he has good reason to be. His ace, Cody Bailey, allowed just two earned runs in 4.2 innings and got on a pretty serious roll in the third and fourth innings, striking out 5 of 6 hitters. Chris Hair also looked solid in relief, allowing one earned run in 1.1 innings and demonstrating decent control and good movement on his pitches.

McBeth will find out more about the rest of his rotation this weekend in the Bulldawg Baseball Classic.

He should also find out about the other two aspects of his team. In the opener, LHS hitters lacked aggressiveness at the plate despite facing a pitcher with pretty good control -- a factor that usually lends itself to an aggressive approach. The LHS defense also had a few breakdowns late in the game.

Good pitching will keep a team competitive in the majority of the games it plays, but it more often than not goes to waste without run support and consistent defense.

If the Badgers prove better in these areas than they showed on Tuesday, they could find themselves with opportunities to win games.

The LHS golf teams have been playing for a couple of weeks. Both teams are young. The boys' team has the potential to be strong, led by freshman standout Stayton Lindeman. The girls' team, anchored by junior Carey Yeary, just needs a couple of tournaments under its belt.

The LHS track teams open their seasons today at the Bangs Meet.

It'll be a pretty good opportunity for boys' head coach Jimmy Randolph and girls' head coach Trent Lancaster to evaluate strengths and weaknesses.

Both teams have their share of regional qualifiers returning. The coaches already have a pretty good idea of what to expect from those kids. The key, from a team standpoint anyway, will be to identify which athletes have the courage to compete hard in actual competition. Those athletes, whether natural athletes or not, are the kinds of kids who make entire teams better.