SOUTHERNFRIED

For those interested, Coach Parker stepped down a week or so ago to be able to watch his daughters play high school softball. Justin Martin has since been hired to be the new head coach. Please welcome him to the district whoop whoop : https://www.facebook.com/GoodMorningPortland/photos/a.641160359237891.1073741828.627648447255749/1538309189522999/?type=3&theater

High school sports here in Middle Tennessee are cyclical. We played all the Wilson County schools this past season. Mt Juliet, Lebanon, Wilson Central and Watertown. All four schools had solid teams, and outstanding facilities. I have not seen a bad facility yet at a Wilson County School, in any sport. Give them a couple of years, and they will all be very close to one another. MJ is the largest of them all, and all the facilities pretty much rank with the size of the school. Honestly, they are all solid in my opinion, better facilities than any we have in Sumner at the schools. Hville has a turf field that is nice, but its not at the school......now the education part, I have no idea, I dont teach lol.....depending on timing, are they not building a new school in Wilson County?

Yes he is, be happy for him, Coached baseball for 19 years, #31 in wins for baseball coaches in TN. Leaving on his terms, to watch his kids. His coaching days arent over, just for now, baseball is. Maybe my fault, I told him at the beginning of the season if someone had told me I couldnt watch my son play high school sports, Id never forgive myself. He agreed...good stuff all the way around.

Yes he did. His daughter and step daughter are both softball players. The same reason I cant be there 100% of the time next year. We both want to watch our kids play. My son plays at Cumberland, and his daughters are a Fr/So in high school. Your kids are only in high school and college once. You can coach till ya die, but this is the only time they are this age. Mr Woods, just posted his opening this past week on TSSAA bulletin board. I will still help when I can, just wont be full time.

Agreed, been a pleasure coaching against him and the rest of the district. As most know, I may or may not be back next year. I know I wont be back 100% full time. The rest will be up to the new head coach, and it should be....Keith, I wish you all the luck in the world brother in yalls play this weekend. . You have a nice bunch of boys, and it was a pleasure playing yall. I had some of the best conversations I have had this year with your first baseman lol Nice young man.

Exactly, dont mis read into my comments, I think MJ is the best team in the entire middle Tenn area, just on pitching alone. I know several of the players, and will pull for them the remainder of the season no matter what. My point, IF they get to the state tourney, the only thing I can see that will keep them from winning it this year, will be due to their hitting. IF it stays the way it is, IF it does not improve. Thats a lot of IF's with plenty of time left to correct it. Yes they have put some runs up, they put 7 up against us, but on 4 hits, and 4 errors, 4 earned, 3 unearned. BUT that was enough against us. IF their hitting was at the same level as their pitching, MJ would be the finest team I have seen in my 50 years. Even with all the Knoxville teams and their history. Like I said, I support MJ 100% just because I know some of the players, coaches, etc. But to win the state, their hitting will have to step up, cause you will catch everyones #1 when it comes to that time of the year......now the new pitch count rule, I think actually favors MJ, since you all have so much depth. I for one cant wait to see yall there. I see we have a lot to look forward to when we play Hville and Beach. Seems like our district is ate up with pitching. That I think is awesome.

Im sorry, MJ is not the best team in the state, case in point tonight. When a pitcher strikes out 15 batters and lose 2-0? It simply boils down to the fact they are not a good hitting team. Portland faced them at Vandy, they struck out 17 of ours, we k'd 10 of theirs, we lost I think on only 4 hits, we had 2. IF they get to the state tourney, it will be on their pitching, they are so blessed with these great kids, but you have to hit to score, scoring runs wins the ball games, the defense should take care of itself. The way it is looking you cant count out Beach as well. I think we have a great district this year. Specially good luck wished on all our Sumner County teams, whoop whoop! Oh and Portland won over Lebanon 8-7 in the last inning. I hope the young man in left field that got hurt will be ok. Our prayers are with him. it was one of the most fun games I have been part of in a long time. Wish Lebanon all the best the rest of the season. We could play those guys any day. Kids understand the game, act like they should act, just a great night for baseball that could have went either way.

Thanks for the kudos on Kemper, he wound up going to Cumberland alone, and he loves it there, best decision he ever made he said, the other player backed out. Besides Kemper as catcher, we lost our starting fb, 2nd, third, center, left, 6 starters in all...as far as our team this year, it may be the youngest team we have ever had, least in the last 5 years I have been helping. Right now we have one senior, with some playing experience, one with none( first time the kid has played baseball, but man he is working his tail off and earned a starting spot.) We have 2 freshman starting, 2 sophomores, 2 seniors, and 3 juniors. The ones with the most playing experience in this whole group is one jr and one sophomore. We played MJ had Vandy and of course ran into a buzz saw with their pitching, they K'd 17 of ours, but our Freshmen, Soph and Jr K'd 10 of theirs. We lack depth, we are down to 14 players, lost one to ACL a week before the season, who would have been our #1 pitcher, but he will be back next year, so our young kids are getting a ton of playing time and gaining experience. They also have grit and heart, and that will be what carry's them through this season, cause it will be an up hill battle. Right now we sit 5-3. Lost to Barren County, MJ and Station Camp. SC has been the best hitting team we have played this year so far. We just did not hit against SC, BC was beatable but young mistakes cost us. and MJ just had the pitching. Plain and simple, hitting wise against MJ they had 4 hits I think and we had 2.... But all in all we are blessed with the kids we do have, they should be a tight group by the time they graduate in a few years. Let me just say, we could not have a better bunch of young men this season to go through what we will go through. Great young men all the way around. Thanks again. Randy

Its out http://www.coacht.com/tennessee/article.cfm?id=570344

Right we were up 3-1 in the 3rd, and our pitching ran out....The kid we threw tonight got his second varsity start on the mound. He actually threw really great. The score was not indicative of how we played tonight. 2 errors in the outfield at a bad time, and we just dont have enough to over come it. Great attitudes though, and MJ has by far the nicest field in our district. Coach P has done a great job with it.

From the meeting yesterday on the south side. Friday you have Leb playing Beech at 4pm, at 7pm Portland plays MJ. Now Saturday due to Portland and Leb having the prom. If Beech and MJ win, they will play Saturday at 7pm. If Leb loses and Portland loses then they play at 12pm, IF Portland wins they will play the winner of Leb or Beech at 3pm. The same goes for Leb, if they win they play at 3 against MJ if MJ wins against Portland. If Leb beats Beech and MJ beats Portland then Portland and Beech play at 12pm. lol I hope my notes are right....on the North side, they were at the end of the table lol and I didnt hear, except Gallatin has the prom Sat as well, and they will be accommodated. After that my brain hurt lol ....Tickets are 5 per person and kids 8 and under are free....or is it 12 yrs old.........

LOL Parker thought youd like that, whoop whoop!

I sent Logan a link, Farragut is looking for one........... Ya think they will split concessions as well? hahahaha See ya Wednesday Coach

Mondo44 here are the photos from the Hville vs Portland series, please pass them on to any Hville parent. https://www.facebook.com/randy.dixon.35/media_set?set=a.10206362332912436.1073742074.1090911915&type=3&pnref=story bigcheif here is the Portland vs East Nashville https://www.facebook.com/randy.dixon.35/media_set?set=a.10206218559838199.1073742067.1090911915&type=3 Our season as most know has took a turn. Against Hume Fogg, we had 3 sr starting and 6 Sophomores and Freshmen playing, we have also lost two for the season last week due to injuries. Will be interesting to see how they respond. Good luck to the rest in our district.

over a decade, they were bumped up 2-3 years after winning the state in football. Football dropped down last year, we hear it may be a year or two before the other sports get to. We have right at 1000 kids in the school 9-12. It is what is. Still have to play. We have 22 total players, Freshman, JV, and varsity.....

We lost last night 15-1, Brown threw a whale of game for MJ, not to mention we gave up 17 hits and we only had 4, we lost 2-0 tonight to Lebanon on our 2 hits.

We (Portland) took it on the chin tonight. Station Camp won 12-2. SC's starting pitcher Lucas Gross, gave up 2 in the first, after that he settled down and threw great. Glad to see him getting things turned around and proud of him for signing with WKU. He was a teammate of my son a couple of years ago. Great breaking ball. SC's Blake Gay came in for relief and closed the door on us. Solid kid. He has an offer from Cumberland and I hope to see him there. We flat out just made too many errors. Injuries have decimated our normal solid defense, and we gave up 6 errors last night. We had mostly Freshman and Sophomores in the game last night. They got invaluable experience, and should respond from it......not often you have 5 players on the same field that have signed or committed some where. We had: SC-Lucas Gross-WKU SC-AJ Weed-Lincoln Memorial SC-Blake Gay-Cumberland University P-Kemper Dixon-Cumberland University P-Nick Lingo-Cumberland University Hate to see SC had their starting catcher hurt as well. We knew it was going to be a weird night, how many times do you have two starting pitchers, starting the game, with red hair?

Thanks, we are a little banged up right now as well. The only bad thing about the tourney, we were on a clock, and I hate baseball on a clock.

We beat Moore County 8-1, Lost to Sycamore 4-0 on 1 earned run, and lost to Clarksville Academy in the last inning 3-2, that was a great, great game.

So far, it has been a good start for us. Won 5-2 over Watertown, and last night defeated Hume Fogg 10-0 in 7. We are a young, young team. Last night (after our Sr 2nd baseman hurt his shoulder on a dive) we had a Freshman 2nd baseman, Soph 3rd, Soph SS. Looking forward to a great season if we can stay healthy. Our future is bright with our Freshman and Sophomores, but they are being baptized by fire right now. Hope everyone can stay healthy. Should be an interesting weekend playing in Clarksville in a wood bat tourney.

So far we (Portland) have had two scrimmages with Springfield and Barren County Ky. The varsity won 10-3 against Springfield and 3-1 over Barren County. We are a young team, only starters coming back are out first baseman, second baseman, inf/pit, and our catcher and center fielder. The remaining are either first year senior starters or Freshman/Sophomores or our one lone jr. So far we have been well pleased with their efforts and attitudes. We have 2 signing on the 14th with Cumberland, our catcher, and our firstbase/pitcher. Looking forward to the season. Good luck to everyone!

Here are the photos of the Portland at Kenwood game, please pass along to any Kenwood parent https://www.facebook.com/randy.dixon.35/media_set?set=a.10205384562948798.1073742055.1090911915&type=3&pnref=story Good luck to them and Springfield this week.

I agree, just wished Greenbrier had been able to move up to ours. Throw all the "northern" towns in the same region, makes for some great Friday nights. Just wished they had done the same thing for baseball. But we will play yall this Spring, always love coming there to play. The new coach, I watched that kid grow up with his dad showing me photos at work lol . Weve been in Portland over 10 years, and it always seems like the kids we know the most are Portland, Greenbrier, Westmoreland, Macon County, Springfield. Must be cause of Dixie and the PYFL football league our kids played in growing up. The player that got hurt I think was the qb, they were in victory formation with 40 sec or so less, on their own 20ish yard line. For what ever reason, he would take the knee all the way to the ground, and held the ball up, the second time our players came. Ball came loose and the poor kid got hurt and they let the clock run out. From talking with my son, he always gives me a report lol on the type of players the other teams are in how they played. He said they were great, in fact up until the last 30 seconds, each team was picking up each others players and patting on the head. Take out the last 30 seconds and it was really a great football game. I just think Sfield has more athletes, and better speed. My son tackled #3 several times, and got ran over by him several times lol and he said he had the most powerful legs of any rb he has faced this season. Wishing yall well, and see ya in the Spring.

Having been beaten by both, saw both games from the side lines. I will go with Springfield. Springfield just has more weapons. Though, that #3 for Kenwood, is one of the best backs Ive seen. I havent see us play a rb that was that hard to tackle since we played Beech and Hurd. Our kids never gave up, hate to see this group of Senior graduate. Including my son #27. So proud of him, how many kids get to score a TD on their last play? We played the entire season without a kicker. Gotta give credit to our #62, not many lineman can step in and do kick offs. Our punter had never punted till this year, and a lot of the seniors changed positions their senior year, just to be able to fill other gaps with younger players. Even though we only won 4 games. At least this senior class showed the younger group how to play as brothers. That they all make mistakes, no one individual cost you the game, you just pick each other up, and give your best. If it works out, I honestly think Sfield and PC will meet up. I dont know how PC did tonight yet, though. Really good game tonight, and a fitting way to end their season. No shame at all in the game tonight. They fought till the clock ran out.......hope the young man hurt on the last play will be ok. He took a pretty good hit to his legs.

To the Macon County parents, here are the links to my facebook page, help yourself to the photos of the Portland/Macon County game. Just please send me a friend request so I dont get 1200 emails. Thanks. https://www.facebook.com/randy.dixon.35/media_set?set=a.10205350028725464.1073742053.1090911915&type=3 https://www.facebook.com/randy.dixon.35/media_set?set=a.10205350186689413.1073742054.1090911915&type=3