ScotSports.com Blog

Highland Park's volleyball program moves to Miami this week, as four of its star players participate with the Skyline Juniors program at the USA Volleyball Girls' Junior Olympic Championships.

Katherine Culwell, the Auburn-bound outside hitter who helped lead HP to the state championship match last year, is attacking with Skyline's 18 RoShamBo team. They won their tourney opener, rallying from a 2-1 deficit to beat Portland VBC 18-Black in five sets. They'll play five more pool matches through Friday before bracket play begins.

If anyone thought the Lady Scots might have a dropoff in talent level following the state runner-up finish, they're wrong. Caroline Culwell, Hope Ogden and Margeaux Mendenhall are all upcoming juinors and accomplished players with Skyline too.

Caroline Culwell's 17 Molten team lost in the second round of the Silver Division playoffs after going 4-4 in pool play in the Girls' 17 American Division. Ogden and Mendenhall play on Skyline's 16 RoShamBo  team, which lost in the first playoff round after going 0-6 in pool play.

Caroline Culwell, Mendenhall and Ogden were members of HP's varsity last season and expect to start for the Lady Scots this fall. Skyline Juniors has 11 teams playing at the Junior Olympics.

HP's 2009 volleyball schedule looks a lot like the 2008 version. Almost identical, actually. But a change in some of the sites has the Lady Scots playing one of their best home schedules in years.

District 10-4A is still top-heavy, so don't expect too much from the district matches outside of Richardson Pearce. But wow, what a non-district slate of games at Highlander Fieldhouse this year.

HP opens the regular season with a target on its back as the Class 4A runner-up from last year. It's first opponents on Aug. 11? Regional power Red Oak and Lake Highlands at home. Lake Highlands reached the Class 5A state tournament last year, but will be missing two of its all-staters and will be working with a new coach.

The Duncanville Tournament Aug. 14-15 will test every team in the bracket. The Justin Northwest Tournament Aug. 21-22 brings the state's top 4A teams into one bracket. Hereford, the team HP lost to in the state title match last year, should be there for a possible rematch.

The Pearland Tournament offers a test against Houston's best teams, and dual matches against Flower Mound Marcus, Plano East and Wylie will more than ready HP for district play that begins Sept. 11 at Rockwall.

The complete volleyball schedule is available through our event calendar off the home page.

The Dallas Morning News published its annual High School All-Sports Awards today, and once again HP is at the top of the Class 4A standings. The Scots ran away with the title, their seventh in a row and 21st overall going back to their Class 5A days.

State championships in team tennis and girls swimming, state runner-up finishes in boys golf and volleyball, and top-six state finishes in girls cross country and girls golf helped secure HP's 20-point separation over Waco Midway.

HP soccer player Kelsey Bass and the 94 Girls Red Dallas Texans won the Under-15 division of the US Youth Soccer Association's Region III championship today up in Frisco, beating NASA Elite II out of Georgia, 3-1 in overtime in the final. The win advances the Texans and Bass, a rising sophomore, to the national championship tournament July 21-26 in Lancaster, Mass.

The 94 Girls Red were the only team from the North Texas Association to win a regional title, but three other Texans teams will also make the trip to nationals. Brooke Herrick, Kelsey Shimmick and Mary Alissa Lonsberry scored the goals for the Texans.

The Red squad won the round-robin Bracket A with wins over the Little Rock Football Club (4-0) and Florida Rush Nike Premier (1-0) before tying the Charlotte ASL Spartan Elite (0-0). The Texans beat Charleston East Soccer Club 2-0 in the quarterfinals, and Houston's Challege '94, 1-0, to reach the championship match.

We mentioned Clayton Kershaw was starting tonight at home against Seattle. He turned in one of his best outings of the season, striking out eight batters in six innings of work. He gave up only two earned runs and five hits and earned his fifth win of the year to even his record at 5-5.

Some things don't change - of Kershaw's 96 pitches, 64 went for strikes. That's two-out-of-three if  you're scoring at home. His new earned-run average is 3.70, not bad for a 21-year-old who's only been in the bigs for a little more than a year.

Kershaw was also 1-for-2 at the plate and got an RBI, the first of the season for the .182 hitter.

I saw a note on ESPN tonight while channel-surfing past a few baseball games. Going into tonight's start against Seattle, HP's own Clayton Kershaw is one of the hottest pitchers in the majors. He's gone 12 consecutive innings without giving up an earned run, according to the broadcast.

And don't think the young phenom's going unnoticed. My contacts on the left coast tell me he's receiving a few hundred write-in votes on the All-Star ballots. And they're not all coming from California.

We mentioned this a few weeks ago, and we were right. HP will be third in this year's Lone Star Cup standings. The scoring projections we made in the previous blogs were right - Friendswood will win the Cup with 92 points, followed by Waco Midway with 90. HP is third with 84, followed by Boerne Champion (80) and Austin Lake Travis (78) and Canyon Randall (78).

Friendswood's win marks the first time that a school other than HP or Southlake Carroll has won the Class 4A Cup, and snaps a six-year win streak for HP. The current standings, which still must have track and field points added, are below. Those results won't affect the top 10, however. 

Class 4A

There's more coaching turnover at HP this summer. Randall Allen, a 25-year veteran coaching soccer with the last 13 at Cleburne High School, was named the Scots' boys soccer head coach last week.

Let's hope he goes by Randall, and not Randy, HP's athletic director for boys sports and head football coach. Otherwise this post will read far stranger than it already does.

Allen previously served as athletic director, coach, teacher and head of the physical education department at the Rosslyn Academy in Nairobi, Kenya, and as head boys soccer and cross country coach at Abilene High School. He has coached nine teams to the UIL state playoffs, advancing as far as the area round.

"We are very excited to have Randall Allen as the boys soccer head coach," Randy Allen said. "He brings lots of winning experience to our program, but more than that, he is a wonderful man who cares deeply about young people."

Like Randy Allen, Randall Allen has Abilene roots. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1984 and a Master's degree in 1989 from Hardin-Simmons University. He will teach biology at HPHS.

"It is an honor to be chosen to be a part of the staff at Highland Park High School," Randall Allen said. "I am looking forward to the challenge of working with a strong program at an outstanding school.  I have been a spectator and competitor of Highland Park in the past and have always been impressed with the quality and spirit shown by the fans, athletes, and coaches.  It is my goal to enable the students to represent their school and community at the highest level possible."

Randall Allen replaces Beal Pumphrey, who guided the Scots to the state playoffs for the first time in four years in 2009.

We'll have more on Randall Allen later.

It's been Clayton Kershaw week here, and why not? He makes his first appearance back in the area recently, and he pitched great on national TV on Sunday. So we offer this one last mention of HP's former pitching ace - it's an online chat on MLB.com.

Read it - after you read our home-page story - and you too can see how this kid is going to make it big as he progresses in the bigs.

HP's own Clayton Kershaw has been our poster boy all week, and now the nation will get to see more of him too.

Kershaw has the start on the mound Sunday night when his LA Dodgers visit their cross-town rivals in Anaheim. ESPN is carrying the game nationwide, with the first pitch at 7:05 p.m.