Seasons continue for the younger players

Wednesday, November 19, 2008 Football and soccer season has ended for all Hopkins County high schools, but the sports are still in session for some of the area’s youngest and most avid athletes. Members of a U9 football team and three local soccer standouts continue their athletic endeavors as the last leaves fall from the trees and winter begins to close in on western Kentucky. Soccer players Tate Burris, Courtney Gentry and Miranda Kuehne each participated in the Elks statewide shootout on Saturday in Princeton. The event matched each local player against individuals representing the eastern half of the state. Kuehne took top prize in the U8 girls bracket while Burris and Gentry finished in second in the U10 boys and U14 girls sections respectively. Mark Kuehne, father to Miranda and president of the Hopkins County Youth Soccer Organization, said the specifications to win varied with each age level. “With the younger ones, it’s just going at progressively smaller goals,” he said. “For the U12 and the U14, you actually have to loft the ball into specific areas of a large goal in which you get a certain number of points.” Before Saturday’s shootout, Kuehne, Burris and Gentry each won events in Madisonville and Draffenville to qualify. As for competitive play, Burris spends his time with the Madisonville Soccer Club and Gentry, a seventh-grader, contributed to the Madisonville-North Hopkins junior varsity team this season. Most participants in the Madisonville qualifier came from the Hopkins County Family YMCA, MSC, or North, Mark Kuehne said. With his daughter’s latest victory, Mark will accompany Miranda to the next level of competition, a multi-state regional contest to be held in Hagerstown, Md. the first week of March. The trip’s expenses will be covered by the Elks. For Mark, who hails from the Silver Springs, Md. area, the trip will an educational and civic opportunity as well for his daughter. “We’re going to make a little mini-vacation out of it and she’ll get to see the nation’s capital,” he said. Even though Miranda has a long ways before high school and choosing a college, her father hopes she can take in this experience as she carves her path to the future. “I hope she has fun and that’s what I told her,” Mark said. “I would love for her to win without a doubt. I would love for it to be a notch in her résumé. “I have high hopes for her in the future, maybe one day she can get a college scholarship is what I would love to happen and this could just be one little notch in the resume along the line.” Football On the gridiron, another group of young aspiring athletes have been learning important lessons. Todd Crist and a group of coaches from the Alliance Coal-sponsored third and fourth-grade YMCA football league amassed an all-star squad to take part in various fall tournaments. Most coaches and players came from the undefeated Warrior Coal team, but the 17-member all-stars boast kids from throughout Hopkins County Winning is not the sole message the coaches are trying to push though, Crist said. “It’s not just the football, it’s teaching these kids lifelong lessons as far as teaching them discipline and respect and sportsmanship, things you carry on your whole life,” he said. “The sports is key as far as we want to teach them to play well and win and that, but the bottom line is teaching these kids to be responsible citizens as they come up through the community and teaching them what it is to sacrifice and have discipline in their lives to succeed.” On Saturday, after just three practices together, the team participated in a 12-team, U9 tournament in Owensboro. After defeating Montgomery County 33-0, the local all-stars lost 34-0 to Owen County. Crist said the conditions for play were less than ideal. “When we played Owen County it was 38 degrees and it was raining,” he said. “I mean them kids were out there slopping around in that mud, they were cold and wet. You know how miserable it is when you’re cold and wet. Those little fellows were miserable, but they were fighting.” The youngsters play 11-on-11 with four seven-minute quarters and otherwise observe high school rules with the exception of special teams. During the team’s victory against Montgomery, Camron Johnson rushed for three touchdowns to earn the game’s MVP trophy. Chandler Crist and Drew Webb added the team’s other scores. The U9 Hopkins County team will hit the practice field this week and next in preparation of its next tournament, the Kentucky Cup — a Kentucky State Youth Football Championship in Owensboro during Thanksgiving weekend.