A little bit of this and that, from a basketball baby to the Badger baseball team
Jeremy Heath

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

I got some great news on Wednesday.

I talked to Lampasas High School head girls' basketball coach Mitzi Lancaster, and she told me she brought her infant son Cash home for good last week.

Cash wasn't due on this rock until March but decided he liked the first week of January better.

Mitzi, who said she got tremendous support from her family and friends, spent a month and a half at the Ronald McDonald House at Scott & White Memorial Hospital.

The coach, who only missed a few games despite living out of a suitcase in Temple (think about that for a second), said Cash is doing fine.

I'm not surprised. It sounds like Cash takes after his momma in the toughness department.

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It was nice to see five LHS players selected to the All-District 25-4A basketball team. First-teamers Heath Hopson and Clay Tyner, second-teamer Heath Cofield and honorable-mentions Warren Scott and Jacob Maceyra certainly contributed plenty to the 19 wins the Badgers recorded this season.

What is more impressive to me is the fact that 11 Badgers earned academic all-district honors. Hopson, Cofield, Tyner, Maceyra, Marcus Swatzell, Coleton Lucas, Barry Postell, Jonathan VanLiew, Jordy Carnes, Phillip Weber and Vann Millican obviously are keeping their priorities straight.

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The LHS softball team gave one of the top teams in the state a run for its money Tuesday night.

Waco Midway brought to Lampasas a No. 5 state ranking, but the Lady Badgers, who were coming off a second-place finish at the Ennis Tournament, didn't seemed fazed by that ranking in a 5-2 loss.

The Lady Badgers (6-4) had plenty of opportunities to win the game. They left the bases loaded in the seventh and stranded two runners in the sixth. They made Midway ace Lizzy Kelly work hard for the majority of the 21 outs she recorded. In turn, LHS ace Kirby Crow made the Lady Panthers scrap and claw for their runs.

Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the game was the Lady Badgers' defensive play. After being hampered the past two weeks by poor defense -- particularly in the outfield -- Tuesday's outfield of Kallen Vann (left), Kat Strickland (center) and Shelby Wilson (right) was outstanding. All three made dazzling catches, and Vann recorded assists at both home plate and second base.

The infield was a little shaky at times, but third baseman Vonzella Underwood made a sparkling play to knock down a sharply hit ball and throw out the runner from her knees.

The only real weak point Tuesday was baserunning. The Lady Badgers ran themselves out of a couple of prime scoring opportunities. The plus side to that is good baserunning is 100 percent mental, so it can be fixed.

* The LHS baseball team put together an interesting showing in the Copperas Cove Bulldawg Baseball Classic last weekend.

Kyle Landry and Cody Bailey recorded shutouts in the opening and closing games, respectively, with Landry throwing a five-inning one-hitter and Bailey throwing a seven-inning three-hitter. LHS won the opener against Killeen Shoemaker, 10-0, and the fourth-place game against Killeen Ellison, 6-0.

Against Shoemaker, Justin Rainwater drove in three runs, and both Bailey and Cody Singleton had multi-hit games. Against Ellison, Bailey and Singleton again recorded multiple hits.

It was these terrific efforts that made the three games sandwiched between them so strange. In Games 2, 3 and 4 combined, the Badgers were outscored 36-11 by Harker Heights (16-4), Gatesville (8-5) and Taylor (12-2). In those games, they committed 17 total errors, including 11 against Taylor.

Keep in mind, early season tournaments are a grind. Playing five games in three days lends itself to some lapses in focus. That's one of the reasons coaches schedule them. They provide opportunities for players to get some of that sloppiness out of their systems before the Tuesday-Friday district slate starts on March 14.

The Badgers have two more tournaments scheduled. They opened the Shoemaker tourney Thursday and play one in Brownwood March 6-8. It's hard to stress the importance of these tournaments. They will go a long way toward determining what this team does in what should be a solid District 25-4A.

On the year, Bailey has allowed two earned runs and struck out 15 hitters in 13 innings; Landry threw 8.1 scoreless innings in his first two appearances before a strong-hitting Cedar Park team knocked him around a little on Tuesday. With Stetson Magilke, Chris Hair, Rainwater, Singleton, Seth Fry and Coleton Lucas providing depth, the pitching staff has the earmarks of a potentially good one.

Strong pitching gives a team the opportunity to be competitive with any team on any day.

If the Badgers can solidify their defensive play and provide a little bit of run support -- good baserunning and timely hitting is all it takes -- they have the potential to compete for a playoff spot, no matter how strong the district.

If they can't, they won't.