Central hires Shirrell to lead Tigers

The Central graduate will take over a struggling girls basketball program.

The past two seasons Central's girls basketball team has struggled to be competitive while fielding a largely young and inexperienced group.

The Tigers' struggles were punctuated by a 59-19 loss to Poplar Bluff to end their season, a game in which Central trailed 33-1 at halftime. Central finished the season 5-22 and is 11-41 over the past two seasons.

With that in mind, the Tigers have hired Central graduate Sherri Shirrell to take over the program. Shirrell, who graduated from Central in 1982, played collegiate basketball at the University of Arkansas and finished up her career at Southeast Missouri State University.

This will be Shirrell's first high school coaching job after spending the past eight seasons coaching junior high at Trinity Lutheran in Cape Girardeau, where she coached several players from Central's current roster.

"It's going to be a challenge, and I'm looking forward to it," Shirrell said.

The Tigers will be young again this season despite losing just three seniors.

"Our group of freshmen we have coming in, quite a few there are very talented," Shirrell said. "I think the future is looking bright for us."

Jackson sweeps regional awards

A fourth straight district title helped Jackson's girls soccer team sweep the Southeast Missouri All-Regional awards.

Molly Hartmann was named offensive player of the year; Lucy Hartmann was defensive player of the year; Kylie Werner was goalkeeper of the year; and Zack Walton was coach of the year.

The Indians also landed the most all-regional players with eight. Besides the Hartmanns and Werner, other all-region members included: Randi Kraust, Hannah Kohm, Amber Tenholder, Leslie Gordon and Shay Priester.

Kate Miller, Meghan Orr, Heather Deisher and Chelsea Burns made the team from Central.

Two area rodeo athletes competing at state finals

Cassie Atchison of Jackson and Jerry Seabaugh of Delta are currently competing in Dodge City Missouri High School Rodeo State Finals in Columbia.

Atchison is competing in breakaway roping, goat tying, barrel racing and team roping.

Seabaugh is competing in the bull riding.

The finals began on Thursday and will conclude today.

Menz signs with Tennessee-Martin

Delta senior Brent Menz signed with the University of Tennessee-Martin to compete on the rodeo team.

Menz will join Jackson native Ty Atchison, a freshman, on the Martin squad.

College notes

* University of Tennessee-Martin senior Curtis Griffin, an Advance native, and Atchison, are currently competing in the College National Finals Rodeo in Casper, Wyo.

Griffin is competing in the bull riding and was tied for 18th after his third run. Atchison and his partner Evin Burke from Murray State were in 12th after their third run.

Contestants competed in three rounds -- the third round was completed late Friday night -- and the top 12 advanced to Saturday's championship finals.

* Notre Dame graduate Josh Eftink finished his senior season at Central Missouri State University with a .319 batting average. Eftink, who started all 66 games for the Mules, was second on the team in home runs (14) and RBIs (70). Eftink also scored 59 runs and hit 15 doubles. Central Missouri State fell one game short of advancing to the NCAA Division II national championship game. Justin Welker, a Central graduate, hit .283 with 17 runs scored and 16 RBIs in his junior season. Welker appeared in 35 games, starting 17.