mirror sports 6-2

Installing a 3-4 defense was supposed to address the Midlothian defense’s need to stop the run. The new scheme put more reliance on linebackers to stop the run while the defensive line could force the issue in a certain direction.

But as the defense did its work in Fri-day’s game, a new wrinkle arose – the Panthers were getting into the backfield.

After struggling to contain and limit an opposing team’s backfield last season, the defense was able to showcase its new style of play in the spring game. The two defenses combined for four sacks and 13 negative yardage plays on the night.

That effort started with defensive end Vincent Panza who was able to get two sacks in the first quarter of play. His pur-suit in the backfield for the Blue team set the tone for the day.

“I love it. It’s a lot of fun, it allows me to move around more and just pursue the ball,” Panza said of the 3-4 defense. “It kind of let the pressure off of us a little bit and put a little more on the lineback-ers. Like you said, we had a lot of trouble with it last year.”

Panza’s push was just the start of posi-tives for the Midlothian defense. The Blue squad defenders had the best night of the two units allowing just 47 yards rushing on 16 carries. The White squad

wasn’t quite as effective as it gave up 192 yards. But 100 of those yards went to quarterback Dillon Fairbanks who gained a lot of that yardage on scramble plays when things broke down.

The Blue defense’s biggest statement of the night came just two snaps into the fourth period as the coach staff decided to give a situational set-up to the White team offense. Pinned down at the one-

yard line, the White team chose to run the ball and try to move out of the end zone. Linebacker Chase Stokes would have none of it as he burst through the gap to grab the runner. Seconds later, teammate Colton Clanton joined him to finish the play as the Blue team added a safety to its score.

“Our number one thing in the spring has been stopping the run. That’s our main thing. Run first, run first, run first. And I think we’ve accomplished it,” Stokes said.

Of the 20 combined drives for the of-fenses, there was an even split of drives that ended with and without points. Sev-en drives ended in touchdowns and three added field goals.

While that might not sound overly im-pressive, the defensive coaches were not worried about the numbers as much as they were the improvement shown by the unit in the 18 days of practice.

“I think that we’ve gotten better as the spring went on and that’s really all you can ask is to get a little better each day,” defensive coordinator Chris King said. “If you take the tape from the first Sat-urday morning we were out here and you look at the next three Fridays I think de-fensively we’ve gotten better. And that’s

Sports irror Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Photo by Gary Puckett/Special to the Mirror

Midlothian wide receiver Jordan Diedrich, 85, tries to shake off a tackler after a reception during Friday’s spring game. Diedrich finished with a game-high 97 yards on six receptions for the Blue team as the squad picked up a 36-24 win.

Taking to the airReceiving unit displays talent, shows little sign of drop off

When a team loses three of its top four receivers from the previous sea-son, there are a lot of questions left to address. On Friday night, some new faces were more than happy to pro-vide the answer.

A cadre of young pass catchers stepped up during Midlothian’s spring game to show the Panthers could still toss the ball around. The high flying offense led to a 36-24 victory for the Blue team. It also displayed a new generation of receiving talent.

The Panthers lost receivers Eddie Johnson and Mason York to gradua-tion while Alec Humphries will not return to football next season. Those three players combined for 1,534 yards and 12 touchdowns last season.

The biggest body of work belonged to rising junior Jordan Diedrich who came on to become incumbent quar-terback Dillon Fairbanks’ favorite target for the night. The duo hooked up for six passes, good enough for 97 yards and a touchdown. Five of those six passes were for 10 yards or more.

“I feel pretty good. That’s the first time I’ve ever been the go-to guy. It felt great,” Diedrich said.

With the game tied at 7-7 early in the second quarter, Fairbanks got the Blue team offense rolling on a dou-ble-reserve pass play that landed in

the hands of Diedrich. Handoffs to a pair of players eventually led to a flip back to Fairbanks who heaved a pass down the middle of the field.

There wasn’t a defender within 10 yards of Diedrich as the former junior varsity player made the catch for a 44-yard scoring play that put the Blue squad up for good. Shaking off de-fenders and weaving through traffic are a feeling that come easy to Died-rich. The wide openness of that play was a little bit tough to handle.

“I was nervous. I didn’t want to mess up,” Diedrich jokingly said.

The Blue team’s passing game wasn’t limited to just Diedrich as seven different players caught at least one pass for positive yardage. Ris-ing senior Kyler Brown, who was playing baseball just a few weeks ago, showed he could quickly adapt to the new playbook as he hauled in five balls for 57 yards and a 33-yard touchdown.

Not to be outdone, the White team’s passing game showed promise as well with six players grabbing at least one pass in the game.

The biggest performance went to rising senior Colton Thigpen who made the most of his two receptions from quarterback Bryce Murphy. The

By ALEX RILEY Mirror sports writer

See RECEIVING, Page 6C


Midlothian quarterback Bryce Murphy finished with 199 yards passing with two touchdowns on 11 com-pletions for the white team.

Passers get final shot to impress

There was one thing Bryce Murphy knew going into Fri-day’s spring game – it would be hard to topple Dillon Fair-banks as starting quarterback. After all, Fairbanks was the district passing leader last season and posted incredible numbers in his first varsity season.

If nothing else, he gave it a heck of a run.

Murphy and Fairbanks both posted solid numbers in the passing game throughout the spring finale as each passer neared the 200-yard mark and tossed a pair of touchdowns. In the end, it was Fairbanks’ Blue team that got the better end of the score with a 36-24 win.

“It felt good. I haven’t done it in a long time. I was banged up during spring, got well and I got to show what I can do,” Murphy said of his perfor-mance.

Both quarterbacks show-cased a variety of talents, starting with Murphy. The ris-ing junior opened the game with a three-play sequence that featured a 45-yard pass to Colton Thigpen, a sack for a five-yard loss and a 34-yard touchdown run to put the White team up 7-0.

While it took a few plays for Fairbanks to settle into a groove, the rising senior quickly found his rhythm, starting with a double-reverse


See PASSING, Page 6C

Spring Game Notebook

Finding a way into the backfield


Midlothian defenders Colton Clanton, left, and Chase Stokes, right, wrap up a white team run-ning back for a safety during Friday’s spring game.

See DEFENSE, Page 6C


Now the real fun gets goingIf you thought Friday was the hardest part of the

spring practice session, you haven’t seen anything yet.

The pads are put away, the coaches aren’t offering any more instruction and the drills are over. But now is the most important element of spring practice. Now is when it really matters.

After his first 18 weeks of working with the players, new coach Lee Wiginton and his staff will sit down and begin work on creating a depth chart from the players who dis-played the best talents during the spring workouts. Up-downs, sprints and developing chemistry might turn out to be easy compared to sorting each position out.

Every time the coaches called players together for the final words before practice ended, they stressed that no position was safe and that anyone could become a starter (or back-up) at any given time. If those state-ments are true, then the process is far from over.

Wiginton talked as he walked off the field Friday about the process of watching tape and evaluating

Alex Riley

Mirror SporTS WriTer

See RILEY, Page 6C

Box score

Blue 36, White 24Blue 0 21 3 12White 7 3 7 7

passingBlue: Dillon Fairbanks 20-of-28, 207 yards, two touchdownsWhite: Bryce Murphy 11-of-21, 199 yards, two touchdowns

rushing:Blue: Dillon Fairbanks 11 carries for 100 yards, Justin Seeton 14 carries for 65 yards and twotouchdownsWhite: Bryce Murphy 9 carries for 23 yards and a touchdown, Chris Lampkins four carries for 19 yards and a touchdown (receiving)

receivingBlue: Jordan Diedrich 6 receptions for 97 yards and a touchdown, Kyler Brown 6 receptions for 57 yards and a touchdownWhite: Colton Thigpen 2 receptions for 88 yards and a touchdown, Derrick Agbaroji 3 receptions for 66 yards

Sports

Amber Beacham has never really gone with the typical way of doing things. So when the Midlothian senior decided she wanted to play golf collegiately, she figured she might as well take the non-conventional route.

The plan worked perfectly. After a solid career as a Lady Panther golfer,

Beacham signed her national letter of intent to play at Ouachita Baptist University on May 25. The signing was the mid-point of a sojourn that has been anything but ordinary.

“I didn’t start playing golf until my sopho-more year and like coach said it’s really late in the game to start so it’s exciting to be able to get out there and play college golf,” Beacham said.

From not playing her freshman year to finish-ing as one of the best golfers in recent memory, Beacham’s road to college and success have been off the beaten path.

This season, she was named a team cap-tain and earned her third letter. For her career, Beacham was a member of two district cham-pion and two regional qualifying teams, as well as earning academic all-district honors in 2008. She earned four top five finishes and five top-10 finishes.

Her college time will be a little off the norm as well as Ouachita Baptist will be starting its girls golf program next season, making Beacham a

The way coach Austin Guest looks at it, the 2010 class of Midlothian soccer players was a formula. Consisting of two parts, the group was big and talented. When mixed together, the two aspects combined for a memorable season.

That combination came to a close May 25 as seven of the 15 seniors on the boys soccer team signed their letter of intent to play col-lege soccer next season.

“Easily, by far the biggest signing class for boys ever. We’ve never had more than a couple boys for a variety of reasons. No. 1 – with NCAA, federal laws and Title IX there aren’t very many opportunities for guys to go and play. It severely limits the schools that they can go to,” Guest said. “So you take that factor and No. 2 factor in they’re a very, very special group and a very big group, much bigger than we usually have. You put those two things in the formula and you get an answer to the equation that is something really special.”

The seven players consisted of Kevin Er-matinger (Hill College), Preston Williamson

(Hill College) Eric Haston (Hill College), Jordan England (Missouri University of Science and Technology), Kort Munoz (Vir-ginia Military), Jake Walker (UT-Permian Basin) and Chase Robertson (University of Charleston in West Virginia).

Each of the players had different reason-ing behind their choices. But the one com-mon thread remained the same – their efforts

had not gone unnoticed. “The program here is great, it’s strong and

it’s recognized in Texas. When we go play against other teams they know us. We’re a big soccer competitor,” England said.

With a 16-5-6 record this season, the Pan-thers claimed their fifth straight district title and advanced to the regional semi-finals in the state playoffs.

The success on the field was supplement-ed with numerous honors off the field. Each of the seven players earned some form of all-district honors this season with two players (Robertson and Haston) earning superlative honors. The signing served as a showcase for exactly how good the team was.

“It just shows we’re a well rounded group, we’re a really good group and I honestly think every single senior that graduated this year could have signed if they chose to. I’m really proud of our guys and the way they handled it,” Haston said.

The three Hill College signees each made the decision independent of each other but quickly came to realize the advantage they could have by continuing to play together. Currently, four players on the Rebel roster

are from Ennis meaning the list of players who have spent time playing together at oth-er levels will be growing.

That continuity could turn into a huge ad-vantage in the long run.

“We’ll have some good chemistry going so that’s going to be helpful because it’s kind of different playing with a completely new team,” Ermatinger said.

For the players traveling to further schools, the allure of playing soccer in a new environment was simply too good to pass up. Munoz plans to use his time at VMI as a springboard to a career in the Marines. England will take on a chemical engineering major. Robertson joins an NCAA II school that advanced deep in the national playoffs last season.

After having just one person sign last sea-son, the seven-man list was a big change but a positive change.

“It is. It’s a lot bigger than last year be-cause only one person signed. It’s exciting to see everyone go play at different places,”

Beacham continues being a trendsetterBy ALEX RILEY Mirror sports writer

Photo by Alex Riley/The Mirror

Midlothian golfer Amber Beacham signs her letter of intent to play for ouachita Baptist University with her family and coaches looking on. Beacham will be part of the inaugural team for ouachita next year.

Photos by Alex Riley and Amy Nutt/The Mirror

Seven of the 15 seniors on the Midlothian boys soccer roster will play collegiately next season. From left, Kevin ermatinger, Jordan england, eric Haston, Kort Munoz, Chase robertson, Jake Walker and preston Williamson became the largest signing class in panther soccer history.

The magnificent sevenTeammates, friends sign letters of intent to play at college setting record for largest class


See GOLF, Page 3C

See SOCCER, Page 3C

Seventh heavenThe seven signees for Midlothian boys soccer comprised the largest class in program history. Kevin ermatinger (Hill College), preston Williamson (Hill College), eric Haston (Hill College), Jordan england (Missouri University of Science and Technology), Kort Munoz (Virginia Military), Jake Walker (UT-permian Basin) and Chase robertson (University of Charleston) will all play at the next level.

one final hurdle

Photo by Chad Wilson Riley/The Mirror

Brandon russell earned a trip to regionals by claiming the 300 meter hurdles district title this season.

MIDLOTHIAN – Brandon Russell’s senior year has basically been one exciting moment after another. As if a final year in high school wasn’t enough, Russell has been successful in the classroom and on the track, with numer-ous memorable moments in each.

On Friday, the final high school moment came to pass as the track and field standout signed his letter of intent to participate on the team at Texas A&M-Kingsville next season.

But just like everything else this season, the road to a scholarship was anything but easy.

During a meet this season, Russell was ap-proached by a coach from Kingsville to ask if he had thought about continuing his career into college. While he wanted to, the offers hadn’t been overwhelming and Russell was still trying to decide what to do. After a visit a few weeks ago, the senior was hooked and ready to run.

“At first I was kind of shocked. I was at a state track meet and the coach just came up to me and I didn’t know what to say at first be-cause I hadn’t talked to any coaches yet so it

See RUSSELL, Page 5C


2C Midlothian Mirror, Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Alex riley, Sports Writer469-517-1456 | [email protected]

Russell signs with Kingsville

Still keeping the paceLowman makes decision to continue cross country career

There is no hesitation in Cameron Low-man’s athletic abilities. When he’s on the field of play at least.

After wrestling mentally with the decision to continue his cross country career beyond high school, the senior finally chose to keep running at Hardin Simmons University this fall. In the end, the opportunity to compete at the college level was just too good to pass up.

“It feels good. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to do it but I think I just want to com-pete and try and be successful and that was the big key for me,” Lowman said.

Throughout his career at Midlothian, Low-man has shown athletic prowess on numer-ous fronts. That trend did not change this sea-son. As a member of the district champion basketball team, Lowman averaged nearly nine points per game, was named second team all-district and tabbed as the program’s defensive MVP for the season.

All that seemingly paled in comparison to his efforts on a cross country course.

During his years as a runner, Lowman claimed an individual and team district title. He placed third individually this year to help

Photo by Lezley Norris/Special to the Mirror/www.photosbylezley.com

Cameron Lowman will continue his cross country career at Hardin-Simmons next season.


See LOWMAN, Page 6C

SportsWednesday, June 2, 2010 Midlothian Mirror 3C


Photos by Alex Riley/The Mirror

With their family and friends in atten-dance, Midlothian soccer players, top from left, Kevin ermatinger, eric Haston, Kort Munoz, Chase robertson, preston Williamson, Jordan england and Jake Walker signed letters of intent to play college soccer. The seven play-ers led the team to a deep playoff run.

member of the first signing class and a potential member of the first graduating class with the team.

She joins former teammate Megan Richardson as two Midlothian golfers to sign with a program in its first year of ex-istence.

“She’s just growing the level of expec-tations for the kids coming in. She’s the second girl for me that’s going on to play college golf. Megan Richardson’s playing at Midwestern State and Amber’s much like her,” coach Brant Bennett said.

“She’s helping start a women’s pro-gram at the university which is always a neat thing to be basically a pioneer in that. And in a lot of ways they’ve been pio-neers for us in the fact that we had Laura Cross obviously but besides her I don’t know of any other girls playing college golf.”

Beacham’s excitement about playing at the next level was tempered as the ex-pectations were something only she and her future teammates could set and ac-complish. The prospect of being the trend setter at such an early stage in her career was an odd feeling for the young player but one she was ready to handle.

After all, Beacham is much for con-ventional wisdom and that appears to be a good thing.

“It’s exciting. It’s kind of takes some stress off because you don’t really have any standards. Really we’re going in and we’re going to set the standards,” Beacham said. “It’s exciting to get there. We have pressure because you want to start out with a good reputation but if not we can always build from there.”

Contact Alex at [email protected] or at 469-517-1456.

Walker said. The fact that players signed with

schools both in Texas and thousands of miles away was a tribute to the success of the Midlothian program.

The training in high school for both the school and club teams ended up being a huge payoff for the players who were ready to show they are as good as advertised.

“I think it’s really good for us. You’ve got schools that are way out in different parts of the country that are coming to look at us and look for the way we play the game. That’s

really good for us to get recognized from so far away,” Robertson said.

“It’s great to know that we have a good name around here, especially Midlothian High School. It’s good that all these schools around the country are looking at our guys and scouting out our people,” Munoz added.

In the end, the players hope the

signing day festivities were just the beginning of the success for both themselves and the Panther pro-gram. With the team making the jump to 5A competition next year, the level of play will raise.

But when you’ve been there and done that, the standard you’re held to doesn’t change. And if anyone knows that, it’s this intrepid group

of seven. “We’ve got a lot of great guys that

are going to do big things in college. We just left a high standard for the team next year. But hopefully in 5A they’ll be able to live up to it,” Wil-liamson said.


The North Texas Wado-ryu School of traditional Japa-nese-style Karate an-nounces the follow-ing promotions: At left, Jordan Honeyc-utt and Trevor Lars-en, at right, were pro-moted to purple belt. Also shown are Sen-sei John and Valerie Honeycutt, and black belts Agatha Ulibarri, Sebastian Ulibarri, and Benny Ulibarri.

The North Texas Wado-ryu School of traditional Japa-nese-style Karate announc-es the following promotions: Jon Bowers (back center) was promoted to first brown belt. Joshua Johnson (front left) and Bryson Shull (mid-dle left) were promoted to blue belt, rebecca Honeyc-utt (front center) was pro-moted to purple belt and Ja-cob Bowers (middle center) was promoted to green belt.

Six members of the NTWr Karate School traveled to Columbia, Tenn., to participate in the Wado-ryu national tournament with other members of the U.S. eastern Wado-ryu Federa-tion. The results for its students were: first place sparring in the Black Belt 13-15 years boys division – Sebastian Ulibarri; first place sparring in the Black Belt 13-15 years girls division – Agatha Ulibarri; second place sparring in the Black Belt 9-11 years boys division – Benedict Ulibarri; first place sparring in the orange/blue belt 9-11 years boys division – Bryson Shull; third place kata in the orange/blue belt 9-11 years division – Bryson Shull. Jon Bowers and Jacob Bowers also competed in their respective divisions and acquitted themselves very well. The North Texas Wado ryu Karate School also received a very prestigious U.S. eastern Wado-ryu Federation award, the C.T. patterson Memorial Award, in recognition of the sup-port and participation of the school in the Federation.

The North Texas Wado ryu Karate School announces that Sebastian Uli-barri achieved 1,000 hours of study under the Wado ryu Karate system. Ulibarri is the first NTWr stu-dent to achieve this distinction. He began his studies with the NTWr at the age of 7 on July 5, 2001.

Karate school honors successful students

SoccerContinued from Page 2C

GolfContinued from Page 2C

Sports HappeningsMidlothian sports camps

Midlothian ISD will be offering numerous sport camps throughout the summer. Here is a breakdown of when camps will be.

June 7th - 10thBaseballSession 1 (Age 7-10) 9 a.m. - NoonSession 2 (Age 11-14) 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.Soccer8:30-11 a.m. (K-5th Girls or Boys)1-3:30 p.m. (6th-9th Girls)Girls Basketball9–11:30 a.m.(those going into 7th– 9th)1–3:30 p.m. (those going into 3rd– 6th)

June 14th - 17thBoys Basketball8:30 – 11:30 a.m. (for those going into 3rd

– 5th)1–4 p.m. (for those going into 6th – 9th)Soccer8:30–11 a.m. (K-5th Girls or Boys)1–3:30 p.m. (6th-9th - boys)Softball9 – 11:30 a.m. entering grades 3rd – 6th1 – 3:30 p.m. entering grades 7th – 9th

July 26th-29thFootball8 – 10:30 a.m. grades 2nd – 6th11:30 – 2 p.m. grades 7th – 9thVolleyball8:30 - 11:30 a.m. entering 3rd – entering 8th

grades12:30 – 3:30 p.m. entering 9th gradeAll flyers and information on the camps

can be found on the website at: http://www.midlothian-isd.net/athletics/camps.html.

Midlothian tennis newsThe Midlothian Tennis Association will be

providing lessons for adults and kids along with a summer tennis camp for kids and adult leagues beginning in June.

Youth and adult lessons will begin on Sat-

urday, June 19 and continue each Saturday for six weeks. Two adult ladies’ doubles leagues will be offered this summer beginning 9 a.m. Wednesday, June 16 and Thursday evenings beginning 7 p.m. June 17. Signups will be held at the Midlothian Brookshire’s from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, June 5 and from 6-8 p.m. on Monday, June 7.

For further information and to obtain a reg-istration form, please visit our website at www.midtennis.org.

The Midlothian Tennis Association would like to congratulate this year’s MTA scholar-ship recipients in seniors Tanner Hill, Kyle Mentzel and Jacquie Liekis. The organization would like to wish each the best of luck in col-lege.

The Midlothian Band Boosters and MTA are holding a raffle. Prizes are an Apple iPad, two tickets to the US Open in NYC, NY, Fender Squire Strat Electric Guitar with amp and one session of tennis lessons with MTA along with a tennis racquet. Raffle tickets are $5 each or five for $20 and can be purchased through any MHS or middle school band student.

Soccer to host Palady memorial soccer tournament

The fourth annual Brandon Palady Memorial 4v4 Soccer Tournament will be held June 11-13, at Hawkins Spring Park in Midlothian. The idea for this tournament developed as a way to raise money to fund the scholar-ship program in Brandon’s name.

The Brandon Palady Memori-

al Scholarship is a joint effort of the Midlothian Panthers Soccer Booster Club, Midlothian Soc-cer Association and the Palady family to honor Brandon’s memory by providing financial re-sources to young men and ladies from the MHS soccer program to help them further their edu-cation. Brandon was a charismatic leader of the Panther soccer team who was truly passionate about the sport of soccer. Brandon’s life was tragically cut short at 19 years, due to an unfor-tunate accident in Waco.

The first year the event drew in more than 80 teams while the second and third year it saw around 140 teams participating. The ages range from under 6-year-old boys and girls to adult co-eds over 30. With at least five players per team the event will draw in approximately 500 players and an additional 200 spectators.

To register a team go to www.mhspan-thersoccer.org or www.midlothiansoccer.org. Deadline to register is Monday, May 31. Any questions call the MSA office at 975-775-2625.

Challenger league fundraiserMidlothian Amateur Baseball Association is

working to raise money to start the Challenger Division. The Challenger Division of youth baseball offers boys and girls with physical and mental challenges, ages 5-18, the opportunity to participate in an organized game of baseball.

Raffle tickets are still available during all game days at Jaycee Park. The purchase of a $5 raffle ticket buys an opportunity to win a Chevy Malibu or Equinox to be awarded in July, as well as help MABA get the Challenger Division started. The goal is to raise $10,000 to help build a wheel-chair friendly synthetic field, along with handicap-accessible dugouts.

For more information about the fundraising efforts, contact Monica Wolf at [email protected].

Have sports happenings in the Midlothian area? E-mail them to sports writer Alex Riley at [email protected].

Sports4C Midlothian Mirror, Wednesday, June 2, 2010



The Midlothian baseball team capped its year by honoring the best of the 2010 season. Varsity superlative awards were given out to five players. From left, Jake Baer earned the most dedicated award, Devin rogers was given the Golden Arm award, Cameron Sissom was selected as Team MVp, Blake Lunday was given the Golden Bat honor and Zach Walker earned the Golden Glove award.

A last night with the boys of summer


The eight senior players on the Midlothian varsity squad were honored at the end of the night as the program presented each one with a framed photo to com-memorate their time in high school. The senior class consisted of, from left, Dustin Minter, Cameron Sissom, Sam Baril, Sterling Gravens, Colton Seeton, Jake Baer, Zach Walker and Devin rogers.


The ninth-grade Midlothian baseball team had a strong year, posting a 14-4 overall record en route to sharing the district championship. The freshman panthers overcame numer-ous weather related problems to play a small schedule but found great success despite the limited outings.


The junior varsity baseball team posted a stellar 14-3 season to earn the district champi-onship. Many of the young players will be asked to step up and fill in the holes left on the varsity roster with the departure of eight seniors.


The 2010 varsity baseball team finished with a 23-14 record and a second place finish in District 16-4A. The panthers won their bi-district round against ellis County rival red oak in a three-game series and advanced to the area finals before losing a tough series with defending state champion Texas High.

Words of appreciation and thanks overflowed from the mouths of Midlothian’s baseball coaching staff on Thursday night as the group tried to put into perspective just how thank-ful they were for the effort put forth by their teams this season. It may have sounded like a lot but even the coaches recognize it didn’t come close to how truly blessed they felt.

Coach Ray Hydes, his staff and all three levels of Panther baseball gath-ered for one last time in the 2010 sea-son to pay homage to a standout season across the board. It was a celebration of what has been accomplished and what still lies ahead.

“It’s always awesome at the end of the year. These kids put forth a lot of effort and they did a tremendous job and we’re proud of them. From our freshman to our JV to our varsity team,” Hydes said.

With all three levels of the program finding monumental success through-out the season, coaches and players had an abundance of things to be proud of.

That started at the freshman level where coach Justin Blackwell’s team compiled a 14-4 record on the year and finished tied for the district lead at the end of the season. Inclement weather limited the team’s actual playing time during the season and took away prac-tice time as well. In the end, it didn’t matter as the squad rolled to a great season.

The success continued as coach Sam Riley’s junior varsity team was recog-nized for its 14-3 record and top finish among the district teams. Just like the freshmen, the JV squad faced tough obstacles with the weather but man-aged to come out on top. Both teams received certificates in appreciation for their work this season.

The night then turned to the varsity team which continued its run of great seasons with a 23-14 record, a second place finish in District 16-4A and a bi-district series win. Midlothian over-came county-rival Red Oak in a three-game series to claim the title before advancing to the area finals against the defending state champion Texas High.

Adding to the trophy case not only enhanced the program but it enhanced the celebration.

“It makes it a lot of fun and you have

a good time. Anytime you go to the playoffs and go a couple rounds, we didn’t get where we wanted to go, but we were successful and it makes it that much extra sweet. We’re just proud of the kids and thankful for what we got to do,” Hydes said.

The night capped off with the an-nouncement of the all-district, aca-demic all-district and team superla-tives. All-district selections can’t be printed at this time due to district teams still being in the playoffs. Kyler Brown was tabbed as the team’s lone academic all-district selection.

Hydes and his staff then handed out the superlative awards to a group of special players who posted great sea-sons in their respective categories. Ju-nior first baseman Blake Lunday was picked as the team’s Golden Bat award winner after hitting .357 with a .500 on-base percentage. Senior pitcher Devin Rogers earned the Golden Arm award with his 6-3 record and 2.43 ERA for the year. Senior outfielder Zach Walker was tabbed as the Golden Glove winner for his 32 putouts and six assists against just three errors in 188 innings played.

The final two awards started with senior pitcher Jake Baer receiving the most dedicated award. With a 5-1 re-cord, Baer pitched well for the squad all season and will look to continue that at the University of Indianapolis. The last honor went to senior Cameron Sissom who injured his leg during the final game of the year. Playing either at second base or as a designated hit-ter, Sissom was a top five statistical player in every offensive category the Panthers use.

Along with honoring the award win-ners, the banquet paid tribute to the eight seniors who would be moving on from high school by giving them framed action photos as a remem-brance. There is no doubt the Panthers will lose some highly touted players to graduation but their legacy is far from over.

“You hate to see your seniors go but they’re growing up and they’re ready for what’s ahead of them. We want to reward them and I hope we did. I’m just really proud of our program and proud of our players,” Hydes said.



Sports

WAXAHACHIE – Alyssa Freeman has the size to play the post. At about 6-feet tall, Freeman has a lengthy wingspan that allows her to grab and shoot a basketball at a higher point.

Her size puts her in the mix. But it’s her willingness to learn that has made her a fast riser.

Freeman, a junior varsity standout for Midlothian last season, is spending the first few weeks of summer playing with the Lady Panther summer league team in Waxahachie. Her goal is simple – improve.

“I’m going to play hard this summer, get better doing summer league, I’m doing se-lect basketball and I’m going to practices working with everybody,” Freeman said. “I just want to get ready to be on varsity. That’s what I’m trying to get to is varsity.”

Freeman’s quick development as a tough player in the post has been showcased over the last few games. She has demonstrated a knack for grabbing rebounds and has shown little fear when battling for position, even against taller players.

In the Lady Panthers’ first win of the summer league season, Freeman’s work on both ends of the court helped turn the game and momentum in the team’s favor. Trail-ing 19-18, Freeman grabbed a rebound for a put back basket that gave Midlothian a one-point lead. On the defensive end, she then snared a Corsicana miss to set up her own score on the other end.

She also forced a jump ball that eventu-ally led to a Hannah Miller 3-pointer for a 25-19 lead. All this was part of a 13-0 run

that put the Lady Panthers in control and helped win the game.

The rising junior didn’t think anything about it at the time. She just wanted to do her job.

“I just thought that if we had to win you’ve got to play your hardest and get down to the ground, get aggressive and grab the ball and put it back up,” Freeman said.

With four players graduating from the varsity team, Freeman’s chance of making the varsity squad next season might ride on strong summer league and select basketball performances.

The Lady Panthers have strong guard play with athletes like Miller, Brandi Spiller, Kaitlyn Reddick and Heather Sides all returning. The post continues to be the question as college signee Natalie Ruud departs leaving Nicole Hulshouser as the only post player with experience set to re-turn.

The good news for Freeman is she has a chance to learn from the best as Ruud has taken over coaching duties for the sum-mer league team. While her coaches have worked hard to teach her everything she’ll need to know to play at a high level, Free-man hopes Ruud can show her some of the insider tips that will help her become the best player she can be.

So far, so good. “Natalie was helping me when I was on

the court, she could pull me aside. When I was off the court she’s giving me pointers. She’s a good coach,” Freeman said.


Box scores

Game 3 (May 24)vs. CorsicanaW, 32-30Top scorersSam Drusch 6, Alyssa Freeman 6,Hannah Miller 5

Game 4 (May 26)vs. Kennedale L, 60-27Top scorersHannah Miller 14, Sam Drusch 8

Upcoming schedule

June 23, 6:30 p.m.vs. palmer

June 28, 6:30 p.m.vs. Hewitt Midway

June 30, 6:30 p.m.vs. Ferris

All games at Waxahachie High School’s old gym.



Midlothian sophomore Alyssa Freeman battles through the defense of a Kennedale player.

Freeman working hard, learning in the post

Going internationalKarate champion ready for trip to Ireland, worldwide compeition

For the last few years, Christo-pher Tramell has taken his talents to the road. Now the 8-year-old will take them across the pond.

Tramell, an Ellis County native and karate national champion, will compete in an international tourna-ment in August as he embarks to a trip to Ireland. What excites him about the trip? Just about every-thing.

“(It’s cool) that it’s far away,” Tramell said with a smile. “It’s go-ing to be really hard.”

Since he started in karate, the Avalon Elementary student has been a natural. Already he has earned a third degree brown belt and competes around the country in numerous tournaments every year. His travels have taken him and his family all across the U.S. to places like Louisiana, Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma, just to name a few.

But all of that could pale in comparison to the tournament that awaits him in Ireland where some of the world’s best talent is ex-pected to take part in the three-day event. While the skill level may be up, it’s nothing Tramell’s instruc-tors believe he can’t handle.

“I think international competi-tion is going to translate pretty good for Christopher. A lot of the Texas fighters that come from this area, we tend to fight a little harder, run a little bit more aggressively,” Lone Star Martial Arts instructor Jeff Dunn said. “I think as far as Chris, especially for his age group, he’s going to be able to handle his own.”

Throughout his relatively short time in the sport, Tramell has been highly successful. He has claimed top honors in weapons, sparring and kata at numerous different tourna-

ments. His trophy collection is now more than 100 individual pieces, some of which actually stand taller than him. He has been at or near the top of numerous league point standings across the country.

All this started from simple train-ing in Waxahachie and the chance to compete in a tournament. Dunn says he saw the drive in Tramell early on. The rest has been all per-severance and determination.

“That’s one of the good things about Chris is the first time he bowed on the mat, he was ready to go. He understood how serious the whole thing was and then just stacking things one on top of the other one for him, he was always able to handle the load no matter what we were giving him,” Dunn said. “Chris has just always been a natural at picking it up.”

After claiming top honors at a domestic tournament earlier in the year, Tramell and his family were given a paper with his awards in-viting him to take part in the inter-national tournament. After a lot of discussions among the family and some careful thought it was de-cided that the opportunity was too good to pass up.

The decision seemed like the hard part. In actuality, it was the

easy piece of the puzzle. After mak-ing the commitment to attend, Tra-mell and his family went to work trying to raise funds to get him overseas.

Some of the fundraising efforts included the sale of Texas Ranger tickets, hot sauce and garage sales. Dollar by dollar, the family gets closer to the amount needed to send Tramell on to the big event. Future events include a car wash at Chick-en Express in Waxahachie from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on June 5 along with an open house at Lone Star Martial Arts in Waxahachie where raffles for gift certificates to area restau-rants and business will be up for grabs. The open house is still in the planning process.

All of the money raised will go to getting Tramell on his way to the competition. His family is skimp-ing and saving to pay their own way as dad, Ken, mom, Tina and sister, Sarah, all plan to take the trip.

“It’s a bigger chance, a good ex-perience and a beautiful trip,” Tina Tramell said of the tournament.

Every time the Tramell family makes a trek to a competition, it turns into a cultural experience as the group explores historical land-marks, distinct foods and signifi-cant features about the area they’re in. But Ireland figures to be in a whole new class. It’s the chance for a learning experience, both on the mat and in the country.

“Every time we go anywhere we try to make it where the kids learn something new, see something dif-ferent,” Tina said. “We always want to incorporate the different culture of whatever state we’re in. So it’s a learning experience for them to see that. So this will be that much bigger.”




Flanked by Lone Star Martial Arts instructors Jeff Dunn and Bill perry, karate champion Christopher Tramell showcases just a small portion of his championship honors. Tramell will take part in a competition in ireland later this year.

was a shock. I then knew I was fast enough to compete at the college level,” Russell said.

The senior got a chance to show just how good he was dur-ing the latter part of the season when he ran against Waxahachie star Sam Gagliano. The Air Force signee has been one of the top hurdlers in the area for the past few seasons and while Russell had been close he wasn’t able to catch up.

But with a trip to regionals on the line, Russell caught Gagliano in the 300 meter hurdle event at district to win the title. And yes, even shock himself a little bit.

“It was pretty special. That was probably as happy as I’ve ever been in my life,” Russell said. “It was a big deal because he hasn’t been beat for a while

and he’s been beating me for years and everyone else. And then I catch him at the end and it was just awesome.”

A strong outing in regionals was overshadowed by the highly touted duo from Lancaster who are rated as the top two hurdlers in the country. But his perfor-mance left enough of a mark to warrant the look from colleges.

With his signing, Russell be-comes the second Midlothian track and field standout to earn a college scholarship this season as female pole vaulter Austyn Rapp heads off to William & Mary to continue her career. The season was a special one for coach Zach Oldam to watch as the coach was nothing but proud of what Rus-sell had accomplished.

“It’s always nice to see a kid get to run at the next level but all the credit goes to him and coach (Tanya) Hydes,” Oldam said. “He really rededicated himself to track before his senior year and

worked hard all summer long, all fall and he earned it all. Coach Hydes was great. She gets a ton of credit for the work she does with hurdlers.”

While he will be hard at work on the track in the 400 meter (outdoor season) and 60 meter hurdles (indoor season) along with an engineering major, Rus-sell admits he was enticed to Kingsville for those things and a little more.

But his success doesn’t fig-ure to stop, despite his new sur-roundings.

“They flew me down, drove me around all day and showed me everything (during my visit). I really like that it was close to the beach, that was one of my fa-vorite things,” Russell said with a laugh.


russellContinued from Page 2C

Charity Carwash

The Tramell family and Chicken express in Waxahachie will be holding a fundraiser carwash on June 5 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to help get karate champion Christopher overseas for a tournament in ireland.


With his coaches and family looking on, senior hurdler Brandon russell signed a letter of intent to continue his track career at Texas A&M-Kingsville. russell won the 300 meter hurdle event at the District 16-4A meet this season.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010 Midlothian Mirror 5C


Sports6C Midlothian Mirror, Wednesday, June 2, 2010


lead the Panthers to a second place finish in the District 16-4A race. He also claimed the high individual medalist honors in a handful of early season runs this year.

Still, the decision to stay on the track was one that lin-gered off and on for the senior runner. He made his decision to attend Hardin Simmons for a communication degree months ago and with the school being Division III he could opt to run at any time as no scholarships are given out.

There is no doubt his strong competitive drive brought him back to the course but coach Cindy Wil-liams believes it is only part of the great package the team will be getting when Lowman arrives on campus.

“It means the world to me. Cameron is such a great kid

and his character, his moral values, they’re so high and I’m just so proud of him,” Williams said.

With a good portion of his school paid for by academic awards, Lowman will un-doubtably be an asset in the classroom, on the course and in being a model student for the program.

While the decision to keep running was all his, Lowman simply realized he couldn’t stay away from something he had done so long as it had become almost like second nature. Hopefully, the success and winning ways won’t be far behind.

“I’ve met with the coach-es, I really like them, hit it off well with them. I’ve met some of the team, I like them and I’m just looking forward to being able to compete and be successful,” Lowman said.


LowmanContinued from Page 2C

Photo by Kathryn Buckley/Midlothian ISD

Flanked by his parents, coaches and school officials, Cameron Lowman signed on to run cross country for Hardin Simmons University in Abilene next season. The senior was a standout on the course, claiming an individual third place finish in district. He was also a standout on the basketball course, earning second team all-district honors this season.

pair connected for passes of 45 and 43 yards with the latter going for a touch-down on the team’s first possession of the second to cut the gap to 24-17.

After spending the majority of last year on the junior varsity team, Thigpen was glad to have the opportunity to earn his way up to the varsity level. While the final depth chart has yet to be made out, he is confident his efforts and the efforts of his teammates won’t go unnoticed.

“I think I did pretty good. I think as of right now I’ll be starting next year,” Thigpen said. “I hope I can keep doing what I’m doing, I hope the whole team can keep doing what they’re doing. We’re looking a lot better than we were last year.”

Thigpen was joined by rising senior Derrick Agbaroji as the two leading pass

catchers for the White squad. Agbaroji, who finished as the third leading receiv-er last fall with 348 yards, caught three passes for 66 yards on the night. Com-bined, the two teams had 406 yards pass-ing with four touchdowns.

The strong performance might have surprise some fans in attendance, espe-cially with the loss of some strong play-ers. It was nothing new to coach Lee Wiginton.

“It was nice to see them do it in a sta-dium but the things that we saw tonight are nothing different than what we’ve been seeing on a daily basis in practice,” Wiginton said. “There’s been some guys that have been working very hard. They really want to get out there and prove themselves.”

Over the early portion of the summer, Wiginton and his staff will analyze tape and work on shaping the depth chart with the best players at the top. No position is guaranteed because of previous ex-perience and everyone is subject to be a

starter one day and a back-up the next ac-cording to Wiginton.

The hope for many players is that Fri-day night was one last chance to wow the coaches and earn a spot near the top of that depth chart. If not, it could be just a hard day’s practice away.

“All the wide receivers are doing good. Diedrich stepped up tonight. I never thought that he’d be doing stuff like that,” Thigpen said. “We’re all doing pretty good. We’ve just got to keep it up, take it into the season.”


all you can ask this time of year.”The Panther defense knows it has a long

way to go to be a great unit against good 5A competition this year. But the performance in the spring game gives the squad members hope they are well on their way.

Most importantly, the team kept an upbeat attitude throughout the whole game, some-thing that lacked as the season wore on last year. Talent may be a huge factor in success but confidence could be just as a big a deal.

“I think we did good. I was proud of our enthusiasm stayed up the whole time,” Stokes said. “Last year, that’s a big change, we’d get all fired up and then we’d go down quick. This year, we’re staying right there all amped up and everything, ready to go.”

Kicking it in gearIf there

was one po-sition on the M i d l o t h i a n roster that seemed secure, it belonged to rising senior kicker Dillon Wilson. But after Friday’s game, Wilson is feeling a little pressure.

A b o u t halfway into spring prac-tice, the Pan-ther coaching staff went out looking for a kicker to take care of kick-offs. They found rising senior soccer player Zach Carlberg who was willing to give the job a shot. He has done that and so much more.

Carlberg hit a pair of field goals for the Blue team from 36 and 35 yards respectively in the game. He also hit all four of his point after attempts in the game. The switch from soccer to football has been a quick two-week transition. But it’s one he’s beginning to like.

“I didn’t even think about kicking until the beginning of this year when they came and found me,” Carlberg said. “It feels good. I have a natural talent for it so why not try it?”

With Wilson on the roster, the Panthers have one of the best kickers in the Metroplex. Numerous Division I schools are giving the young player a look for next season’s signing class. In the spring game, Wilson connected on all three of his point after attempts while also hitting a 46-yard field goal just before the half.

While the new addition has created compe-

tition, the logistic plan is to take some weight off Wilson’s shoulders in the kicking game and to have a back-up just for the sake of safe-ty. Instead of being rattled by the challenge, Wilson has embraced it.

“It’s good. It gives me a challenge for sure because I’ve got to make every kick or I’m out of there. I think it’ll push me further and further and I’m just excited about the next season,” Wilson said.

Run game finds solid footingThe passing game might have been flashy,

but it was the ground game which got things started early. Quarterback Bryce Murphy opened the game with a 34-yard run for a touch-down, the only rushing score for the White squad.

The Blue team had a huge outing from Jus-tin Seeton as the freshman scored twice on 14 carries for 65 yards. His 17-yard scoring run late in the fourth quar-ter sealed the game for the Panthers. In all, there were three rushing touchdowns in the spring game. By comparison, there were only 10 rush-ing scores all of last season for Midlothian.

Other notablesThree Panther secondary players recorded

pass breakups in the game. White team defen-sive back Eric Agbaroji broke up a pass in-tended for Kyler Brown in the end zone on the Blue team’s first drive of the game. The blue squad got a breakup from Tre Peace late in the first half while J.W. Grigsby knocked away a deep pass in the fourth to seal the vic-tory. … Despite installing new schemes on both sides of the ball, the game was played relatively penalty-free as just four infractions were handed out, two to each team. All were five-yard penalties. … Quarterbacks Dillon Fairbanks and Murphy had the longest run of the night galloping for 39 and 34 yards re-spectively. Last year’s starting running back Michael Glenn, who is now a defensive start-er, had the third longest run with a 27-yard sprint. … The passing game had five plays of 30 or more yards.


pass to Jordan Diedrich early in the second period for a 44-yard scoring strike that put the Blue team on top for good at 14-7.

“After they scored, we know we’ve got to stay focused. Most other teams, when you get in that situation, they might not feel as good as we did,” Fairbanks said. “The whole day, we’ve been focused in and out of the locker room, talking to each other and saying, ‘Hey, this whole day think about your positions and what you’re supposed to do and you’ll be fine.’ We came out and played perfect.”

Fairbanks added another score just before halftime hooking up with Kyler Brown for a 33-yard scoring strike that eventually led to a 21-10 advantage at the break. The Blue squad relied on short passes and a stout ground game to grind out the win.

A large portion of that running game came from the legs of Fairbanks. Last season, he led the team with 428 yards rushing. He contin-ued that trend by leading all runners for the game with 100 yards on the night.

For the game, Fairbanks edged Murphy in each passing category, completing 20-of-28 passes for 207 yards and two scores while rushing for the 100 yards on 11 carries. Mur-phy was right behind him going 11-of-21 with 199 yards and two scores. He also rushed for 23 yards on nine carries with one touchdown.

Earlier in the spring, new coach Lee Wigin-ton made it clear that the quarterback who best guided the team to points would be the man under center when the season started. Using a spread formation, the Panthers never lined up under center all night utilizing four and five wide receiver sets the entire game. For the White team, Murphy had four of his 10 drives end in points. Fairbanks had six of 10 drives add to the scoreboard. Most impor-tantly, neither team hurt itself by turning the ball over.

“The thing I guess I’m pleased what we try to pride ourselves in offensively is we’re not going to turn the ball over. We were sloppy last week. Real, real, real sloppy last week and we can’t be that way,” Wiginton said. “What we do offensively, we can’t do that. And we were smarter with the ball and I thought played bet-ter with the ball tonight so that was exciting.”

It remains to be seen which quarterback

will get the starting nod but both players left the stadium feeling they had made good im-pressions on the coaching staff.

Though only one will earn the top role, the need for a solid back-up is not being taken lightly as the both players will be ready to go no matter how things shake out.

“I feel good. Good enough that there’s go-ing to be a lot of talking to see who is start-ing. I feel good about it. I think my team feels good about it,” Murphy said.


players on execution, not talent. The new coach isn’t as concerned with having the best athlete on the field as much as he is having a player who understands what the coaches want.

After Friday’s spring game, it was apparent there are a lot of players who are competing for a slew of dif-ferent slots. The majority of positions are wide open.

The decision process figures to carry over into late June for Wiginton and his staff and who can blame them. With all the solid work they’ve had this spring, choosing the right players for each spot should be a task taken seriously and it appears it will be.

The good news is there appears to be plenty of tal-ent to choose from. Putting those right puzzle pieces to-gether will be the difference between Midlothian being an average to above average

team next season. If anything, some play-

ers who were off the radar might have thrust them-selves back into position for a higher role with their work throughout the spring. While it will take a long time to figure out who goes where, this all appears to be a good problem to have.

Alex is a sports writer cov-ering Midlothian athletics. Contact him at [email protected] or at 469-517-1456.

receivingContinued from Page 1C


Midlothian wide receiver Colton Thigpen, 4, celebrates his 43-yard touchdown reception in the sec-ond half of the spring game with teammate Nathan Fisher. Thigpen finished with 88 yards receiving.

NotebookContinued from Page 1C


Soccer player turned kicker Zach Carlberg connected on a pair of field goals and all three point after attempts in the spring game.

rileyContinued from Page 1B

passingContinued from Page 1B


Blue team quarterback Dillon Fairbanks set game-highs in pass-ing yards (207) and rushing yards (100) during Friday’s spring game. Fairbanks was responsible for two touchdowns in a 36-24 win.


Blue team running back Justin Seeton had 65 yards rushing with a pair of touchdowns to lead the ground attack on Friday.

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