Libertyfan

I believe that Chester County will present some match up problems for Boliver tonight and that their more methodical style will frustrate Boliver to an extent as Boliver would probably rather keep it a fast paced game. Never the less, I believe that Boliver should prevail in this game, although I think that it should be very tight throughout!

Mental, Why are you saying that it is going to be 8 on 5 several hours before the game even begins? Chester County did not assign the officials for the district tournament. Sounds to me like you are already making excuses just incase Boliver were to loose tonight. Even though I believe that Chester County will present some match up problems for Boliver, I think Boliver should win this game.

Mental, Comments like yours speak for themselves. I will make no further comment on what you said other than to say that your comments are clearly designed to get a pi$$ing match started. Well, it is not going to work here with this poster!

First, let me offer my congratulations to Chester County on their win tonight over Liberty. Chester county built an early 11 point lead in the first. They seemed to be hitting everything that they threw up at the basket. Liberty cut into the lead, and the score was close by half time. Liberty made some defensive adjustments at half time and they really started to click. In the second half, Liberty lead by as many as five points. But, credit goes to Chester County as they fought back late in the game. They hit a few free throws late to regain the lead. With only a few seconds left in the game, Liberty ran the same play that the beat McNairy Central with just days earlier. Liberty drove the ball down the court then cut at the baseline to drive in for a layup that would of tied the game and sent it to overtime. Unfortunately, for Liberty, the ball rolled around the rim and came out. Liberty started three freshman and two juniors in this game. It is my understanding that Chester County is fairly young as well. Both teams should be dangerous in the years to come. Again, congratulations to Chester County on the win last night. Congratulations also go out to Coach Dexter Williams and the boys from Liberty. With a first year program, you guys went out and faught hard each and every night and provided many exciting moments throughout the year. Good things are going to come in the near future for Liberty.

Unfortunately, there is no high school wrestling in the part of West Tennessee where I live. That makes it very difficult for me to judge who some of the top teams in the state are. I know that Father Ryan is always good. I can tell you this, if you want to find out just how good a wrestling team you have, you need to call up Mike Goebel, the head wrestling coach at Evansville, IN Mater Dei High School. You need to travel up there and wrestle in their holiday tournament or get a duel meet with them. They have won the Indiana title I believe 9 years in a row. The JV team at this school has not lost a duel meet since 1977. I know because I was on the last team to beat them. The coaching staff at Father Ryan can tell you all about how tough Evansville Mater Dei is. They have made several trips up north over the past few years only to come back home a beaten team. I am quite sure that Father Ryan's experiences wrestling Evansville Mater Dei have helped to make them one of the powerhouse teams in Tennessee. If your team wants to better themselves, they need to travel up north and challenge Evansville Mater Dei.

Before we go off and crown Boliver the state champions, let's remember that they have to get there first. It will not be an easy task winning the 12AA district. On any given night, I believe that South Side, Liberty, or Humbolt could deal Boliver a loss. I am not taking anything away from Boliver, they are a fine team, but this smack talk about how Boliver is going to take it all will do nothing but fire up some very tough opponants that Boliver will have to face in the district and regional levels, and beyond.

I attended the girls opening round of the district 12AA tournament tonight down at Chester County. First of all, congratulations go out to South Side and Boliver on their wins tonight. I may have seen the worst 6 officials in West Tennessee tonight. The calls, or lack there of, in the first game tonight were unexcuseable. Both teams were ripped off by the poor excuses for officials that were assigned to this game. It's called basketball, not rugby for crying out loud. I thought that the officiating in the first game was bad. Then the three blind mice for the second game walked out onto the court. Boliver's #55 is a very talented player. Unfortunately, the officials let her get away with murder in the paint. I believe that they only credited her with 2 or 3 fouls all night long. She was using the Liberty girls backs as a step ladder for most of the night. Like the first game of the evening, the second game more closely resembled a rugby match than a basketball game tonight. The teams that should of won tonight did win the games. It is just unfortunate that the officials in both games were named Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest! If the officiating in the boys opening round tomorrow is not any better, you can count on alot of hacked off fans and coaches for all of the teams involved.

I was just informed that The Jackson Sun was notified of the error that they printed concerning the 12AA boys tournament start times. The call was made very early Sunday evening and The Jackson Sun STILL could not see fit to make a correction. Way to go Jackson Sun!!! You guys are really on top of things!

She is a very talented player. However, it should be noted that she scored her points over a five year high school career.

For the second day in a row, The Jackson Sun reports the incorrect starting date for the District 12AA boys tournament.

The Jackson Sun also has very poor coverage of high school basketball. To my knowledge, district standings were not posted even one time during the season. To make matters even worse, for the last two days, this paper has been reporting that the District 12AA boys tournament starts tonight when that is not the case. I notice that papers today are asking coaches to fax, or call in schedules and stats. Many schools seem to be left out on this deal. During the day, why don't some of these sports reporters get on the horn and call the schools and ask that the coaches, athletic directors, or SID's, send information to them as a reminder.

Coacht, I talked with one of the coaches involved in the District 12AA boys tournament tonight and he says that the tournament does in fact start on Wednesday and not Monday as you stated in your reply to my question. If you got your information from The Jackson Sun, they are in error with the schedule they printed. It would not be the first time that this sorry excuse for a newspaper was wrong about something. Their sports department does leave something to be desired. According to information I got from talking to coaches involved in the 12AA tournament, boys games will be played on Wednesday, Friday, and Monday the 23rd. Girls games will be played on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Thanks for the update. One thing I do not understand is taking Wednesday off for the District 12AA tournament. That forces the boys consolation and championships to be played on a Monday. By playing on Wednesday, the boys consolation and championships could have been played on either Friday or Saturday, depending on how it was scheduled. It seems logical to me that you would ensure a bigger gate by having the championship game on a Friday or a Saturday instead of a Monday. Plus, you would give those teams an extra day of practice before the district tournament begins.

Does anyone know the correct District 12AA Boys schedule? I have heard that it begins on Wednesday. I have seen elsewhere where it begins on Monday. Please, which is correct?

One senior night, the Liberty Lady Crusaders defeated Greenfield by the score of 41-32. This win broke a 14 game winless streak dating back to late December. The leading scorer tonight for Liberty was Irish McDonald with 9 points. Liberty's lone senior player, Kassie Kirk scored 7 points tonight in her first start of the season. In my opinion, the game ball goes to Latoya (B.B.) Woodson who had 8 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 steals. Congratulations Liberty on a job well done tonight!

One thing that I would be in favor of is getting rid of all of the different officiating organizations that are out there. They should all be brought in under ONE governing body. I know that supervising officials do grade the refs that are out there. However, if they are not already involved, the coaches should be brought into the grading process with mid season and season end surveys that they can submit without the fear of reprisal from supervisors and crews. Coaches should also be able to submit tapes to a single governing body if they have a specific problem with an officiating crew or an individual official if no officiating supervisor was at a game in question. I would also like to see Tennessee go back to a two man crew during the regular season. This, in its self, would help to get rid of the shortage of officials that many claim is a problem. It would also hopefully weed out many of the officials that are out there that really should not be in officiating. Having officials work together as a team would also help out the situation. Working with a different official every night is not a good thing in my opinion. These are just a few things that I would like to see implimented. I believe that my suggestions could help raise the bar as far as officiating goes. Are bad calls still going to happen? You bet they are. But hey, any suggestion that might help would be better than what is going on this season.

First, I want to state that this post is in no way bashing the girls basketball team at Chester County. I wanted to calm down a bit before I posted this message. I am a fan Liberty High School, located in Jackson, TN. On 2/6, we traveled down to play a very good Chester County ball team. In the end, our girls team lost by the score of 64 to 49. Liberty lead the game at half time and was still in the game deep into the fourth quarter. The coaching staff for the Liberty girls team, Joe Holloway and Shay Piercy, did an outstanding job of putting a game plan together for this game, and the girls almost pulled off what would of been one of the most shocking upsets in the state this season. While the Liberty girls team does not have a very good record, they have shown steady improvement all season long. The coaching staff and players have done an outstanding job and they are to be commended for their efforts this season. I have been watching high school basketball for more than 30 years. The Liberty vs. Chester County game last Saturday night had to be one of, if not, the worst officiated games that I have ever seen. The Liberty girls were flat out robbed by the poor excuse for officials who worked this game. The favortism shown to Chester County by these officials was disgusting. It was so bad, that one of the security officials at that game told me that these guys were the worst that he had seen in a long time. I don't know the names of the officials, but the two white officials were the worst that I had ever seen. The short bald official seemed to be taking great delite in his calls against Liberty. He was constantly making calls that were not his to make and he was out of position to even have been making most of those calls that he did make. This crew has no business calling high school basketball games. I sure hope that they don't get any post season assignments. They were really that bad. Like I said earlier, Chester County has a fine ball team. They certainly did not need the help of the officials. But, they certainly did get a healthy dose of home cooking from this sorry excuse for an officiating crew.