ScotSports.com Blog

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.

I just saw the SportsCenter news ticker say the San Diego Padres have placed HP-ex Chris Young on the 15-day disabled list. San Diego manager Bud Black said Young, who is 4-6 with a 5.21 ERA, wouldn't likely need "a lengthy rehab."

That's good news, but it's still a bummer. Young might have made a start against the Rangers in next weekend's series with the Padres' rotation in flux with a host of injuries. Instead, he contributed to the flux.

Young has experienced soreness in his shoulder in his past four starts, according to MLB.com. He allowed five walks over 2 1/3 innings at Anaheim on Sunday, including four straight at one point. Wade LeBlanc, called up from Triple-A Portland, takes Young's spot in the rotation for now.

In three weeks, San Diego faces the LA Dodgers in another series. We've been waiting for a year now on an all-HP pitching matchup between Young and the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw, who also missed pitching in front of his hometown crowd last weekend when his rotation spot didn't come up during the series with the Rangers. How is it that Young and Kershaw play in the same division but haven't faced each other yet as starters?

If the all-HP duel doesn't happen during that July 3-5 series, San Diego and LA play five more times before the season's out. We'll keep an eye out for it.

We mentioned in a blog item earlier in the week Dave Campbell's Texas Football's predictions for District 10-4A. HP was picked the win the title, followed by Rockwall-Heath, Richardson Pearce and Rockwall.

In a spare five minutes today, I filled out a Region II playoff bracket based on DCTF's predictions. If McKinney, Sherman, HP, Pearce, Carter, Kimball, Samuell, Woodrow Wilson, Longview, Texarkana Texas, Whitehouse, Nacogdoches, Lancaster, Forney, Waco Midway and Waco sound familiar, they should - 15 of the 16 teams in DCTF's predicted bracket for Division I were in the same D-I bracket last year.

The only differences in the predicted 2009 bracket from 2008 is Woodrow Wilson replacing Bryan Adams out of 12-4A, and Sherman placing above McKinney in 9-4A.

Congratulations go to HP volleyball coach Michael Dearman and just-graduated Katherine Culwell for their appearance at the Texas Girls Coaches Association All-Star Game next month in Austin.

Dearman will be an assistant to Lake Highlands' Cory Williams coaching the 4A-5A West team in the July 15 All-Star game at Austin's Burger Center. Culwell was a co-captain and an all-state outside hitter for the Lady Scots last season, leading HP (39-9) to the state championship match, where they lost to Hereford.

The 4A-5A West team is below. Each player just graduated from their respective school. Despite the blended 4A-5A All-Star roster, Culwell is one of only three members of the 12-player team from a Class 4A school.

Katherine Culwell, HP
Lauren Beville, Hereford
Jessica  O'Shoney, Hutto
Torri  Campbell, Amarillo
Tori  Mellinger, Lake Highlands
Angela  Morgan, Lake Highlands
Ashley  Collier, Midland
Andrea  Hannasch, New Braunfels
Jasmine  Norton, Rowlett
Lydia  Werchan, Smithson Valley
Lauren  Martin, Euless Trinity
Elly  Barrett, Austin Westlake

The encyclopedia of Texas football at all levels, Dave Campbell's Texas Football, is on the newsracks today. As thus officially begins preseason football for 2009.

Any true football fan in this state will buy the magazine, which this year celebrates its 50th edition. But here are some of the relevant HP details you must know in its first hours on the racks:

The state coaches ranked HP at No. 3 in their preseason poll, with five first-place votes. Austin Lake Travis, the defending Division I champion, is No. 1, followed by Div. I runner-up Longview.

The State Farm/Texas Football Class 4A state poll has HP ranked No. 7 in the state. Longview, which is in Region II also with five other teams in the top 10, got the No. 1 nod in that poll. The state's premier region was easy to determine - 8 of the top 17 teams in the SF/TF poll came from Region II.

HP is picked to win District 10-4A, followed by Rockwall-Heath, Richardson Pearce and Rockwall. Luke Woodley, HP's senior quarterback, is the Texas Football's Preseason Offensive MVP. Tristan Farley, a linebacker at Greenville, is the Preseason Defensive MVP, an interesting pick off a team picked to finish seventh.

One last item on Kershaw, and yes, I'm sharing all the information I milked out of my seven-hour stay at Rangers Ballpark on Saturday.

Anyone who grows up in Dallas can't help but be a Cowboys fan, right? Well give it Clayton Kershaw that in his first visit back home as a major leaguer, he arranges a tour of the new Cowboys Stadium, which happens to be right next door to the ballpark.

You think he could have pulled off a private tour of the new stadium if he still pitched for the Jacksonville Suns instead of the Dodgers?

Here's the link to MLB.com's report on Kershaw's "awesome" tour.

Joe Torre said Saturday that he didn't slip comparing Clayton Kershaw with Sandy Koufax. The media, me included now, continue to give Torre an out in putting Kershaw and Koufax in the same sentence. But he won't take it.

Torre first put Kershaw and Koufax together in spring training, answering critics of Kershaw having only two pitches by saying Koufax only had two also when he first hit the big leagues. Torre even reiterated the comparison last month after Kershaw had a no-hit bid into the eighth inning in a win at Florida. 

"He's got that Koufax dominance, stuff-wise," Torre told MLB.com following the Florida game. "He has the same type of curveball. Sandy pitched with the fastball, he was able to spot it. (The comparison's valid) assuming this kid gets to the point where he's more consistent, throwing it where he wants to."

Kershaw shrugs at the comparison.
"Right now, it is unfair to compare," Kershaw told MLB.com after finishing his one hitter that night, his 29th start in the bigs. "I haven't done anything to consider myself in the same breath as him. That's my dream to someday be at that level. But Sandy Koufax was one of the greatest left-handed pitchers, if not the greatest left-handed pitcher.
"It's the greatest compliment to be mentioned with him. That's the only way I think about it."

Nice to see Kershaw maintain the humble approach. That's his style, rather than buying into the hype. For more of Kershaw's humbleness, read our review of his first year in the majors on the home page.