Spring is Here: Bridgeport's Title Run, South Harrison Baseball and more

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Sports fans, it's time for the Friday Free for All.
Over the next two hours, we'll bring you all the
latest from across the region in high school and college sports.
Now Here are your hosts, Chris Johnson and Alex Wiederspiel.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good morning and welcome in everybody.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
This is the Friday Free for All, brought to you
by Dan Cavatota, Buig GMC. Thank you so much for
being here today, folks. We have got a great show
lined up for you today. All right, so here's what's
going on. We got lots of good guests for you.
We're talking sports for the next three hours in total.
Because we also have the Morning Spiel coming up, and
it is a Friday, after all, We're gonna spend some

(00:38):
time talking about the Ross Hodge Hire, so stick around
for that. That's coming up a little bit later during
the nine o'clock hour, Mike Austi of West Virginia Sports
Now will join us to talk all about the Ross
Hodge Hire. We will also be chatting today during the
Friday Free for All portion of the show of this
big three hour chunk of change we got here. We're
gonna be talking with frank head coaches South Harrison Baseball.

(01:01):
They're off to a phenomenal start this season. They beat
Williams Town earlier this week. Layton Wagaman had a terrific
performance in that one. Struck out a couple of batters,
holding allowed one run and then also drove four runs
in as well. Great great two way just show hey
Otani stuff there for a Layton Wagoman. Great performance for him.
We'll talk about that among other things with Frank. Coming

(01:22):
up later around the bottom of the eight o'clock hour,
We're gonna talk with Travis Jones. You may have caught
him earlier this week on the Morning Spiel. He's coming
back to put the final word on the Bridgeport boys
basketball season. That's coming up at eight o'clock. We're gonna
talk with Chris Johnson, my partner in crime, could not
be here today for the full show. He's going to

(01:43):
join us around seven forty five, so stay tuned for that.
That'll give or take depending on how long our first
interview is, which is a conversation with the man, the myth,
the legend, the ultimate utility player, Chris George, who is
going to kick off the show. Today's we're going to
talk Bridgeport baseball. They go off to their first game
of the season yesterday. Bats were a little rusty, everything

(02:05):
else was pretty good. They dropped one a tough one
against Spring Valley two to one in their opener on
the road, playing at Marshall's new stadium. But we'll talk
about that with Chris. We'll talk some Mountain Near baseball.
We're gonna talk some Bridgeport basketball with him, of course,
because he saw as much of that team as he did.
Get to some All State stuff as well. With both Chris's,

(02:26):
in fact, George and Johnson coming up here during this
seven o'clock hour, So lots of great stuff coming up
here on the Friday Free for All. You're gonna want
to stick around for all of it. In the meantime,
we're gonna go ahead and hit our first break and
when we come back on zoom, it'll be Chris George
that's on the other side. Friday Free for All brought
to you by Dan Cavatota Buick GMC. I'm Alex Sweeterspiel.

(02:49):
We're back after.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
This time for more high school sports talk on the
Dan Cavatoyo WI GMC Friday Free for All.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
We're now joined by Chris George. As we've entered into
a new phase of the Friday Free for all folks.
This year, we're keeping it two hours, by the way,
just I know for regular listeners. Last year we only
did an hour during baseball season. We're gonna do two
hours during baseball and the offseason. But it's gonna be
a little different, gonna be longer segments, and we're gonna
focus on more than just baseball. But we are gonna

(03:20):
do a Bridgeport baseball segment basically every single week. Chris
is gonna help us break it all down. And the
Indians dropped one, a tight one against Spring Valley down
in Huntington, two to one yesterday.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Chris, what's up?

Speaker 4 (03:35):
Man? Just trying to transition over to baseball and falling
a lot of the area teams here. Of course, being
the state chairman of collegi in baseball, that's one that's
one thing I normally do is to try to keep
up with everybody. So some good teams in the area.
Bridgeport just getting started. Philo Barbara off to a great
start there four no and and the beat goes on.

(03:56):
I know down South, a lot of teams started two
weeks ago and teams up here either started late last
week or early this week. In Bridgeport got a underway
ten o'clock this morning down at Jack cook Field at
the Campus and Marshallton New Stadium and came up empty.
Actually led the entire game and then walked off in
the bottom of steven.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
I know there are pretty high expectations for this team.
Of course, they're really strong behind the plate. Can you
get can you introduce us a little bit to this
to this Bridgeport team this year? Obviously, I think if
I remember correctly when we talked last year, you thought
that they actually were even.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
A little bit ahead of schedule that they had.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
They were good, but you weren't sure how good they were,
and you thought this coming year was going to be
the real year that you know, you could circle and
say they could make a deep run. And they still
played pretty darn well down the stretch last year, and
I think got a little taste, a little preview of
what was to come this year.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
So so introduce us to this team.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
Well, I think I think much of the same to
me said this year, and I think when I made
a statement I made last year, I knew that they
had a lot of pitching back for this year, and
that that's where you want to start in any baseball program,
any level. You want to start on the on the mound,
and that's for bridge Sports deep. They got a ton
of pitching. They got a good catcher Michael Romano, who

(05:17):
right now is not catching.

Speaker 5 (05:18):
He is.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
Dhing. He will start catching here soon. But uh, it's
a Bridgeport team that I think, well, just like any
team in the early season, will start to find themselves.
That's re play some games. They need reps. I think
the biggest question this year if his Indians team is offense.
They don't have a lot of power, they didn't have

(05:43):
a lot of power the last couple of years. But
they're really going to have to do a good job
of manufacturing runs, hitting to all fields. And that's kind
of what Robert Shields likes. That's his that's his coaching mentality.
He wants his kids to go the other way on
an outside pitcher. He wants to hit behind runners, he
wants them to steal bases, he wants them to lay

(06:03):
down buds and sacrifice runners over and I think this
team's built for that. We'll see, but it's gonna have
to be a team that does hit the ball better
this year than he did a year ago. I know
they're no longer in the biggest class. They're now in
Triple A. Frankfurt in their region is really good and
there'll be some other good teams throughout the state and
Triple A, but not at the level they saw last year.

(06:25):
And they saw a little bit of that today with
Cable Midland or with Spring Valley, and Spring Valley had
a good that was a good pitching staff and they're
very similar to Bridgeport there. They too are a little
bit young at the play, looking to get their offense
going and end up winning that game in the Botum
seventh two to one on a basis loaded walk. I'll
tell you who was good today for Bridgeport. Jacob stavrakas

(06:48):
the number one pitcher this year, a senior, very solid today.
Five innings, one hit and struck out six, did not
walk anyone, sixty five pitches, which is good for his
first start of the year. Again, we're kind of three weeks.
We're two weeks behind some of these teams. So the
opposing picture for Spring Valley Wagner. He threw a complete game,
but it was his third appearance of the year too,

(07:09):
so he's a little bit more stretched out and conditioned
right now at this stage of the year. But Bridgeport
got on the board on a on a basis that
it hit by Jack Gould in the second inning and
then it was scoreless till then and then uh Spring
Valley of Temperwls got two in Obama seventh the Windows
two to one and Bridgeport back in action tomorrow afternoon
four point thirty against Cabal Midland and that'll be a

(07:30):
tough one at Cable Midland High School. And then Saturday
game will have one one of three point three to
BKMC the Indians Radio Network. It'll be Saint Albins and
Bridgeport at one pm. Saint Aubins today winners over Women
Park six to nothing and they're five and one. They too,
have three weeks into their season. So coach Heals is

(07:52):
tested his team right out of the belt, right out
of the start here and uh three the three of
the better teams in Class four A, and that's all
that's good. That's good for this Bridge fourteen. They need
it and they're going to get their reps.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
He early, no kidding, They are set to play quite
a bit. I was actually looking at their schedule while
we were talking, they only have I mean, they don't
even have a lot of like a ton of single
day breaks. They have a few of those, but they
have a multi day break, a four day break coming
between North Marion and Lewis County that's going to be

(08:24):
in the first week of April. And then if you
go down the schedule, I don't think they've got two
days together again until the final week of the season,
where they'll have a couple of days off between Frankfurt
and RCBS. So they're playing close to every day again,
weather permitting, of course, But the way the schedule is

(08:45):
working out right now March April, and you know, obviously
in that first first week or so, first ten days
or so of May for the regular season, they're scheduled
to play basically every day.

Speaker 4 (08:56):
Yeah, and that's what he wants. He wants to play
a bunch of games. It's like a major league schedule. Actually,
at the end of the year, he wants this team
rolling towards the postseason. That's why he's won so many
state championships. I like how he schedules it. I know
a lot of people don't like to schedule that many
games like at in a row towards the back half
of the schedule. He does it for a reason and
it gets his team in sake and rolling at the
best time possible, peaking in the postseason. That's what you want,

(09:19):
I think you want to get that. You want to
get those at Patch. You want to play five games
a week, sometimes six, you want to get you want
to get that consistent thing going heading into the playoffs,
which you know, they're in a region this year it's
pretty good with Kaiser who's not bad, and Frankfurt's really
good and some of their teams in Era Receive Birds
improved this year. Lewis County's not quite where they were
last year, but it's a tough region and you know,

(09:42):
to see how it goes. The Big Ten will be
challenged this year. They Philip Barbera off to a great start.
We can talk about them and in future episodes as well,
and uh, overall it's going to be a good Big
Ten and we'll see how it goes.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
For the For the Indians, yeah, that's uh.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
I mean it makes sense why they'd want to get
as many games in over as short a span of time,
certainly as possible, and we'll kind of keep an eye
on the weather. It looks like just at the the
MOS upcoming forecast for this weekend, it's looking like there's
gonna be some light rain at times and then heavier wins.
But I don't think anything enough that's going to necessarily
be a problem. Potentially Sunday, maybe there could be some

(10:21):
some heavier stuff on the thirtieth, Then of course they
do not play on that day, so I don't know
if that will potentially impact Monday's game. But otherwise, the
weather's looking promising so far to start. And of course
that's kind of the big thing that we just learned
from basketball season, right you want to try to avoid long.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Stretches without being able to play.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
You know, it'll impact your team if you can't get
games in, So hopefully that will hold up. That's you know,
and I should always check with you on this. What's
the procedure at the end of the season they throw
games on at the back end, And is there a
cutoff date for getting games in, because I know you
can get some games in in between postseason play starting,

(11:03):
but what sort of the where's the cutoff between when
you have to stop getting regular season games in if
you need them.

Speaker 4 (11:09):
Thirty two is the cutoff. You're allowed to schedule thirty
two games, and if you don't have thirty two by
the end of the regular season, you can play if
you win well. This year, it's gonna be a little
bit different with no sections, but we'll have to see
because it's gonna be a little different format this year
because there's no more sectional. So if they got a
chance to squeeze the game in sometime when postseason starts,

(11:31):
they will as long as they're playing someone it's still
alive and their respective region and didn't play thirty two
games during the regular season. But we'll keep it eye
on that because we got to see how this new
region is going to be scheduled. It's going to be like,
for instance, Bridge Sports Region has eight schools and it'll
be separated in two pods of four and then what

(11:52):
you know, I got to check the pod system. If
you win your pod, then you advance to the best
two out of three on the other side of the region,
and there may be a week in between, and that's
when you might be able to get a game or
two in like they have in the past when you
used to have the sectionals. It's weird. It's kind of
similar to the way it was last year, but it's not
so I would just have to play it by ear

(12:13):
literally and see how it goes. But this Bridge Work
team's got chance. They're gonna be one of the i'd
say four or five favorites and trip a to win it.
But they're gonna have to have some They're gonna have
to start hitting the ball a little bit. It's early
in the year and they got a better offense output
than they had a year ago. Need that because the
pitching should be there. It's so early. The we'll see
what happens. The main thing is staying healthy and that's

(12:36):
the key.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
It's it's funny, you know, talking about pitching, and obviously
it's such a huge it's just like an enormous advantage, uh,
you know when you have it, especially in postseason play.
Because even I was just thinking about you know, I
don't remember. It was a buddy of mine who pointed
it out to me, but you know, you go back
to that Mountaineer game a couple what was it a
weekend ago where they went fifteen or sixteen innings with
Arizona and he goes, oh boy, uh, someone, someone's going

(13:00):
to pay for that in a day or two. And
of course the bullpen got shelled on that Sunday, so
you know the the shallower bullpen.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Is going to struggle in those instances.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
So yeah, pitching, I mean, it's got almost always comes
down to who's got more of it.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah, the college game's going to have to do with
the pros to And I never was a big fan
of putting a ghost runner on second base the tenth inning,
but it's more important in college to do that than
it is the pros because you want to kind of
shorten these games a little bit. You don' want you
don't want to play sixteen innings. You don't want to.
That's a lot of pitching because when you get in

(13:36):
conference play, like for example, West Virginia in the Big Twelve,
you can only have thirty players on your roster that
are active for that weekend. So teams usually carry about
forty two forty three players. But when you're carrying thirty
players and fifteen of those are pitchers, and you're playing
sixteen innings, twelve innings, fourteen on one night, and you
got games on Saturday and Sunday following or whatever that

(13:58):
happens to be. During a three day weekend, you're going
to run out of pitching quick. So that's something they
need to think about in the future in the college
game is to try to think about extra innings, maybe
doing what the pros do, and then for crime out
loud to colludes. Games got to find a way to
speed things up between innings. They do have a pitch clock,
that is key, but we need to get rid of
the timeouts for the managers. Each managers allowed the offensive

(14:21):
time out, all the stuff with drags on in between
that stuff's got to be cleaned up. I mean, there's
been a lot of college games this year. It's four
hours long and those aren't extra inning games.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Yeah, I was gonna we're gonna transition back over to
Bridgeport in a second.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, I do want to talk to.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
You about the obviously the basketball championship now that we
got there, but I did want to ask you. I mean,
I what a start for Mountain your baseball. We haven't
really talked about it on this show. So they win
twenty of their first twenty three. They've only lost one series,
and of course it was against Arizona. That included that
sixteen inning you know nail bier that went down in

(14:59):
Game one of that series. Uh, you couldn't ask for
much more from Steve Sabans in his first go round.
I know the schedule wasn't you know, you're not gonna
call it a murderer's row, but twenty of twenty three
we're talking about historic starts here.

Speaker 4 (15:11):
Yeah, it wasn't a good Their strength of schedule entering
Big Twelve play was two twenty five, which is really low.
But in baseball, you still got to win those games.
You look across the country, your your powers like Florida,
you know, Georgia, you know Florida State. Teams like that,
they'll find ways to lose games like that in the midweek.

(15:31):
The smaller conference teams West Virginia, they may not have
played a tough non conference schedule, but they won these games.
They lost one that was to Kennessas State and that's it.
So you only lost one game in non conference play.
That's pretty impressive. Now they still have non conference games
throughout the midweek coming up throughout the season. They got
Ohio State on Tuesday and pitt on Wednesday of next week.

(15:52):
After the BYU series this weekend, so they got a shot.
I think health to be concerned right now. Sam White
went out of a shoulder injury. He leaped in the
air and it made the high five of his teammate
after hitting a home run and injured his shoulder. Logan Save,
the catcher has has a shoulder injury as well. As
he set it in the home plate. We could go
his is not as serious. He should be back this weekend.

(16:14):
I would say Sam White to be determined. They just
got the Barnett kid back here this past a week Uh,
so that's good. And they're pitching. They got to get
better starting pitching on the weekends. Their number one, two,
and three starters Griffin Kern, Gavin Van Kippen and are

(16:34):
really kind of up and down right now. They need
to get them going. And uh, I think if they
get those starting, if they get a starting pitching going
during the conference weekends, this is gonna be a pretty
good team because West Virginia is going to score some runs.
They're going to hit the ball. I don't think they
have the power they had a year ago, but they
still can hit the ball through the lineup and they
have depth within their lineup. I think it's a good
West Virginia team. The goal right now is to make

(16:55):
the NCAA tournament, and they're on pace to do so
because they have a good RPI. And if that continues
and they win their share of games and even finish
at least five hundred and Big twelve, we're a little
bit better than that they're in. I think the goal
would be hosted regional. But right now, you know, just
keep playing like you are, and they got a great shot.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
I think that'd be what first time since twenty nineteen,
I want to say, yeah.

Speaker 4 (17:17):
They've only they've only hosted whatever and that was eighteen.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
Right, and they actually they had a pretty good opportunity
to advance there, and I believe let one get away.

Speaker 4 (17:27):
Yeah, walk off brand slam by Texas A and m Yeah, yeah,
all right?

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Do you want to do anything else on Bridgeport Baseball
before we jump over.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
To yeah again? Saturday, our first broadcast one pm Saint
Aubans and Bridgeports. That's at Jack Cook Field in Marshall,
and again Marshall today is playing at Cable Middland High School.
That's at Table Middland. The four thirty for any one
that's going down or wants to go down. And then
next week the Idiot's back in action Monday, approximately five
o'clock against Preston, home Tuesday at Lincoln, and then Thursday

(17:58):
they're back at home against North mary and have the
North Marion and Preston games on the Indians Radio Network.
And then they have a weekend trip coming up here
soon here in a couple of weeks up to Kendrick
Family Ballpark against the Jefferson Cougars out of Clash to Quada. Jefferson.
Good program. They played Jefferson last year and that beat them,

(18:19):
and they're going to play them again. Should be fun.
We'll have over twenty close to twenty five of these
games on the radio, and it's all said and done.
Ip coutying the postseason. We'll do all the postseason games
that we can. There are some games we're not going
to be able to broadcast, do the facilities and just
not having the proper layout. It's a little bit different baseball, folks.

(18:40):
This isn't like football. They don't have all press boxes.
There's some places don't even have power. So we'll get
to do as many games as we can. And of course,
you know and we'll go from there and Bridgeports. You
have a fun year. Tune in, bring Kimball, myself, Chris George.
We'll have the broadcasts on the Bridge Sports Sports Radio
app all year long, and we'll have some as well
on one of three three W TAMZI.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
Very good folks, and we'll of course try to keep
you updated on those as often as we can.

Speaker 6 (19:07):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
That said, Uh, let's let's wrap up here, especially because
we're gonna be talking about this with Travis in a
little bit. Uh, let's wrap up with with boys basketball obviously.

Speaker 7 (19:17):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
And also on this note, I should ask this question now.
I'm gonna pose this question to you. I'll probably post
it to Travis as well. I don't know the answer
to this. Have they ever won state titles for all
three of the major boys sports like per season football, Boys, Basketball,
Baseball in the same academic school year? Has that ever
happened before?

Speaker 4 (19:37):
Football and basketball? Yes?

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Right, pretty out?

Speaker 4 (19:41):
But yeah, I be baseball's one to nine, and I
don't have the sheet in front of me for which years. Okay,
it's close, all right, It's possible Travis might have might
have that. I just don't have the years in front
of me for baseball, but they've won nine in baseball.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
We're gonna we're gonna dig that up, all right, So
let's let's wrap the with boys basketball.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Obviously state champs.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
I got a chance to talk with Travis a little
bit about it earlier this week, and I think he
was really really impressed with their defensive acumen, defensive performance,
and that, you know, for the things that they weren't
doing well early on in that tournament, man, they really
did make up for it with not just their effort,
but their defensive positioning, their soundness, their ability to force

(20:23):
timely turnovers. Just one of the more impressive defensive outings
I think you're really going to see over a course
of I think it was what five games they didn't
allow more than forty points across regionals, and the state
tournament they allowed exactly forty one time. So I mean,
just a tremendous performance for the Bridgeport Indians and winning

(20:45):
it in You know, I'm going to use this term
kind of half jokingly, but the easiest way to win
a championship is to be good defensively. It ain't easy
to do, but it is the easiest way to win it.
And boy did they do it.

Speaker 4 (20:58):
Yeah, you know the old saying to hitch shots every night,
but you can go out and play defense every night
because that's effort. And Bridgeport gave effort. And if you
don't give effort, you're not playing for Dave Marshall. And
that's what it's not just this year goes back to
when he started here as the boys coach here Bridgeport
this and they've saved the best for last. It's weird.

(21:19):
They're the two best games they played this year was
the last game of the regular season against Pharamont Cey
You're in March fourth, and then the state championship game
against Nitro back on Saturday afternoon. So they saved their
best two games for when it for the end of
the regular season, end of the postseason. So and I
was concerned. I was because Bridgeport didn't play well against
Pelicans but found away to win because of their defense. Likewise,

(21:43):
against Faramont Senior, they didn't play near as well offensively
and efficiently against efficiently against Faramont Senior like they did
on March the fourth, but their defense played better than
it did. Probably the last time they played forty six
thirty was to win in the semi finals, and then
I'm sitting there thinking, man, Nitrose the one team other
than University that could match us with size on our schedule,

(22:07):
and that bothered us back on December nineteenth at West
Virginia State, and I was concerned that it would bother
us again because I was a little concerned with our
efficiency on offense since the end of the regular season,
haven't really played. Even in the regionals, we didn't really
play well on offense. But I should know better because
these kids are winners and we saw that in football,

(22:28):
and people don't understand. I tell kids all the time,
if you're able to play multiple sports, multiple sports, do
it because the winning in one sport carries over to another.
These football players that played basketball this year won a
state championship. They won every game they played in football.
They're used to winning. Their high character kids, and they're

(22:50):
used to winning. And that shows in basketball when the
clutch time arrives and whenever the white knuckles become white
and it gets tight. These Bridges kids are winners. They
know how to win, and it starts on defense, and
they finished on offense with their most complete game of
the season. Carter Zuliani won an addition to this team.

(23:10):
And for those that don't know this, I'm gonna be
honest because I know the kid and know the family.
You know, everyone's wondering, well that he just transferred to Bridgeport.
Now he transferred to Bridgeport for academics. And he just
happened to be a kid that played every sport, even swims.
But he was an addition for all three levels, football, swimming,
in basketball. But he's a great kid, and he's a

(23:31):
great teammate. He didn't have to go out there and
score fifteen a game. He averaged eight points a game.
Saved his best for the final two games against Fremont
Senior regular season and against Nitro in the state championship
and dominated Bridgeport, dominated the Biggs for Nitro the entire day.
And congratulations to Bridgeport, Dave Marshall, And how about Dave Marshall.

(23:52):
Two state championships at Bridgeport High School, one for the boys,
one for the girls. That doesn't happen. That doesn't happen much.
It's only happened three times of state history.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
That's pretty impressive.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
Hey, last thing before I let you go, The all
state lists are slowly, slowly, slowly coming out and they've
been coming out all week. On the girls side, a
couple of players that we've been talking about all year
got on a couple of these lists, including Raven Matthews
from Tucker County. Obviously, season didn't end the way they
were hoping it for. It can only end the way

(24:23):
you're really hoping for if you're one team.

Speaker 7 (24:24):
Mt.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
Kenna Evans from Tucker County made the second team. But
a nice showing overall for Tucker County. And again, I
know there were some concerns about the way that they
were headed into the tournament play they did, correct me wrong.
They won a first round game and lost a second
round game. Am I right about that?

Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah? Okay, So overall.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Nice season for Tucker County, even if it didn't always
look perfect at times. Philip Barber with a couple of
players who made that list as well. And they're a young,
up and coming team. And just to give a couple
of quick thoughts if you have any on the all
state lists, ye.

Speaker 4 (25:01):
Tucker and Philip Barber, especially at Raven Matthews, what a
career she had. If anyone would have saw her play
as a freshman, he would have thought there's no way
and heck, she would turn out to be what she did.
She was barely knew how to play basketball when she
was a freshman. I mean she was big, she didn't know.
She didn't dribble well, she didn't shoot well, she didn't
move well. That young lady was a softball player coming up.

(25:24):
Still is a great softball player. And she just kept
getting better and better and better. And now she could
go to college somewhere and play I'm not sure what
her future holds softball. She's really good at that too.
That's actually sports. She loves a softball. But what a
performance she put on down on Charleston the state tournament.
She had a forty one point game against Petersburg during
the regular season. Congratulations to Raven Matthews. What a four
year high school career she had, from a raw to excellence.

(25:48):
She did that and for Philip Barber and head coach
Rick Mauser, a very good friend of mine. Rick also
the assistant coach on the baseball team in Philip Barber
another state tournament appearance. Is he not She's back next year.
Great volleyball player, great basketball player. She's a homeschool student
that goes to Philip Barber outstanding athlete, outstanding family, outstanding

(26:10):
young lady, plays hard. She was impressive this year. Not
very many people know about is he nots. But if
you don't know about her now, you get ready next
year because you're gonna find out more about our next year.
She is a talent for Philip Barber, both volleyball and
girls basketball. Congratulations to those athletes.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Very good folks.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
By the way, check those lists out over at the
high school sports section of we metronews dot com. They
are dropping basically a new list per day, and of
course they're about to be Actually they did just wrap
up the girls, so the boys will wrap up or
the boys will start next week coming out and you'll
start to see those Chris.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
Much appreciate it, man, Thanks for doing this.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
Looking forward to chatting some baseball with you over the
course of the next couple of months.

Speaker 4 (26:51):
Sounds good, all.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
Right, So good conversation with Chris there. We thank him
for joining us via zoom. Bridgeport Baseball back in action today,
and as I said, we'll try to keep you guys update. Listen,
there are a million different ways you can keep updated.
With the broadcast schedule, We're certainly going to try to
do that here on the actual you know, flagship station,
but you can also keep up in other ways as
well with the app and everything else. All that being said,

(27:14):
we still got plenty of show ahead of us. Chris
was just our leadoff hitter, and now we've got another
Chris coming up, Chris Johnson. We're going to talk with him,
get kind of the final word on his thoughts on
the state tournament, boys state tournament and all state lists
coming out slowly. You know, he's got a big hand
in all of that. We'll talk about some of the

(27:34):
girls all state lists that have already come out. I
believe they are now all out out as of this morning.
I believe class quadruple A has either if it hasn't
come out yet, it is coming out shortly. But the
boys lists, of course, we'll start to see next week.
So we'll chat about that with Chris Johnson, among many
other things. That's all ahead here on the Friday Free

(27:54):
for All, brought to you by Dan Cavitot to be
you a GMC back right after.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
Dan cavatoyot w at GMC Friday Free for All.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Apologies having a brief technical moment there, got to hit
all the buttons to make sure you're on the air.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Welcome in, everybody.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
This is the Friday free for All, brought to you
by Dan Caviteo to Buick gmc Alex Wheeterspiel here with you.
We just heard from Chris George and we're talking kind
of jumping all around a little bit, but Bridgeport baseball,
WVU baseball, and.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
Of course Bridgeport basketball. Kind of getting the final word
on that.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
We're going to switch gears more towards basketball at the moment,
with Chris Johnson and Travis Jones coming up in just
a little bit. We've got Chris on the phone right now.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Good morning, Chris, Good morning are you.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
I'm good man, looking forward to seeing you three dimensionally,
but I'm glad we got to get you on the
phone today and you got to see Bridgeport. I think
correct if I'm wrong. Is this the first boys state
title you've seen covering Bridgeport?

Speaker 6 (28:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (28:57):
Yeah, yeah, because they're the most recent one before this
one was two thousand and one.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (29:07):
So I was in the business, just not here, had
been what four years out of college when I was
working in Parkersburg, just.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
A baby, just a baby. That's a baby. Chris Johnson, Yeah, Storry.

Speaker 6 (29:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (29:25):
But man, what what a fun ride. You know, what
a great season for for that team. I thought they
put on an absolute defensive masterpiece there the three game stretch,
you know, much like they have all season. If you
really look at their numbers, he had accomplished. They held

(29:49):
opponents fifty points or less and all but three games,
you know when they were heard twenty six and one,
held an opponent to forty or less nine times and
thirty or last time.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, that was what what what.

Speaker 5 (30:07):
They say about defense?

Speaker 6 (30:09):
Championship?

Speaker 5 (30:11):
You know?

Speaker 3 (30:11):
I had a line in the previous uh, I think
it was the previous segment. I said something like, see,
you can't trying to quote myself and I'm already bad
at it. It was something like, you know, the easiest way,
it's not easy to do it, but the easiest way
to win a championship is to do it through defense
and bridgeport because it wasn't even just these postseason games

(30:33):
when they weren't. When they weren't, you know, it was
the whole postseason.

Speaker 6 (30:35):
It was.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
It was the regional tournament as well, because even when
they weren't shooting. Well, they were playing defense well.

Speaker 5 (30:43):
Right, and you know, if it's anything, it just validates. Uh,
you know what Dave Marshall ASTs of its basketball teams.
You go back to a state championship he won as
girls coach. Yeah, I mean Mickey Glenn had like a
phenomenal tournament, you know, from an offensive standpoint. But you

(31:06):
look at it, you know that win against west Side
that year. I mean they allowed twenty seven points, you know,
so it just validates by what type of basketball you know,
Coach Marshall wants to see his teams play and uh.
And it's not like it's not like they weren't good
on offense. Uh, but you're going to have off night

(31:29):
shooting and when you play defense like that. Yeah, I
think coach Retin uh, you know, as far as you know,
the coach you know said the best uh after Bridgeport
bet for the third time in the semi finals. It's
like they limit your opportunities. Uh. And that's both uh

(31:51):
in half core games in transition, you know, because they
can adapt you and they played very well defensively in
all aspects of it. And uh, they just they limit
your your opportunities.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
So I think.

Speaker 3 (32:05):
It's also Bridgeport's depth. Chris also really impressive. It felt like,
you know, we did this all year and and no
matter what box score you're looking at or talking to
you guys who cover them, you know, every day, it
felt like I was constantly hearing about eight nine guys

(32:26):
who weren't just like, oh, this is our you know,
this is our eighth guy off the bench. He won't
lose us the game. It was, no, this is our
eighth guy off the bench. He's going to come in
and he's going to contribute.

Speaker 5 (32:36):
Yeah, you know, the ballot is the five. I think
this is kind of crazy. They they eight point and
twelve points, you know, per game, you know, and then

(32:57):
your your first got off the bench. You know, Gavin
william average about six points a game. You know, you
got some points from from Jack mcgougal and Donovan Williams
as well. But I mean that's pretty balanced scoring between
your your top six scorers, and you know, like you said,
and if you really like analyze it, you know, it's

(33:21):
tough to rank, you know, players on this first SPAT
team because they are so so balanced. But I think
most people would probably put Phoenix Sickles and Leyden Sanders
at the top. I don't care how much depth.

Speaker 6 (33:39):
You have most teams.

Speaker 5 (33:43):
When you take those two top players, if they're not
getting you twenty points, you know, especially in the postseason,
if one of them's not on, you're probably going to
struggle to win, right. But you know, I think it
was the uh you know, there was one game where

(34:05):
I really noticed this where like, you know, Phoenix had
four points laying and had five, but they do so
many other things so well as far as playing defense
and distributing the ball. It's like, I mean, they're still
on the court, you know, contributing, you know, and then
one of those other guys steps up, you know. Uh,
you know, leave a semi final game against Fairmount Senior

(34:28):
Anderson mcgoogle school scores the first seven points of the
game I finished playing finished with sixteen state championship game.
My Yankee had like three or four, you know. So yeah,
it was really neat to see a team that unselfish
and that balance. Uh and circle back around the defense

(34:48):
is they all played defense out there? You know, just
just man, what a ride and great group of kids,
great coaching staff. The finally see them get one to
take it, you know. Uh, so many attention away from
the football baseball dominance, you know, over the.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
Past couple of years, anything that you feel like you
learned while you were down there. As far as oh,
you know, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be paying attention
to see this team again, you know, next year, or
I'm looking forward to maybe seeing this team again next year,
just seeing even what they do moving forward. Any big
takeaways as you walked out of the final day of

(35:28):
the two week extravaganza.

Speaker 5 (35:32):
Well Bridge Sports Spectrum, and they lose six really good seniors,
but Gavin Williams and Anderson McDougal, that's a pretty good
done backboard you have to building to found base around
uh moving forward. And I think I talked to those

(35:52):
young men after uh Stay title game. I got a
story on them, you know, motion as leaders, you know,
coming up in a few days on connecting Fritsport. As
far as the statewide uh Eli sank him from Wheeling
Central is pretty good at basketball. Uh Man, that kid

(36:14):
was so fun to watch. Here's a start for you.
I don't ever remember this happening, but he read the
double a state tournament field in points, prebounds, assist, feels
and blocks and he's basically a tall point guard. I

(36:34):
don't think I've ever seen a player with stat I mean,
he's just so smooth and you know, so fun to
watch it. You know that. That's a great thing about
the state tournament. It'll be a player or you, uh,
you hear the pout, but you haven't seen a person
and you see him, you know, three times over, you know,
you know, Discrutch him, you know, five or six days
and you're like, oh, okay, I get it now. Yeah,

(36:58):
I definitely get it now.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
About I'll be worth keeping an eye on h on
him for the for the future. And of course those
Wheeling Central teams continue to be continue to be really
really good and extremely difficult to unseat year after year.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Uh let's uh, let's do this.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
Let's let's let's wrap on the all state teams. The
girls all state teams have been coming out. I talked
a little bit about this with Chris George. Big Tucker
County representation, some Philip Barber representation in Class double A
overall pretty good. Grafton got a lot of heavy representation
in Class Triple A, and folks, of course, you can
see those lists.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
They are coming out at wv metro News dot com.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
Now you do a lot of work on helping get
these lists put together and and distributed and published. Any
big surprises for you as the season comes to an
end on on either who did make the list or
who didn't might be the more apt thing that we
always get surprised by who didn't make the list.

Speaker 5 (38:04):
I mean, you're one I'm really thinking of that. I'm like,
oh my god, this person didn't make birks for a
second team. I thought the girls and you know the
boys next week are are pretty some list. Now, is
there a player here or there that I think maybe

(38:25):
should have been first team ins to the second team? Absolutely?
But you know the process that we go through, I mean,
you're those tiers are voting and every step along the way,
I mean it's just you the majority rules, and like
I do I personally think, is he notson Philip Barber

(38:47):
is the first team basketball player? Absolutely?

Speaker 7 (38:51):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (38:51):
But who do you take off and from is? You know,
you always got to ask that question, who bumps down
and you'd get her from second team to first You
know there's that would be a cutoff, you know somewhere,
and you know there's always going to be real good

(39:12):
players on second team that our first team worthy. Uh,
there's always gonna be a handful of honorable mentions that
are first them Morrison Worthy. I think over all teams
look pretty good. The one thing really stands out, and
it's girls and boys, is how many talented freshmen and

(39:33):
sophomores there are in the state the next couple of
years in high school basketball both sides, there's gonna be
a lot of fun to watch. There's a lot of
really talented, you know, young players throughout the state.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
I noticed that, you know that A good example of that,
of course, I think is very close to home right here,
Philip Barber. More than a couple of underclassmen players who
are really good, including of course is he nots uh,
who We're going to be paying very close attention to,
I imagine for the next next couple of seasons. And
of course she's a multi sport athlete worth noting as well.

(40:07):
But on the basketball floor at least, I think we'll
be paying close attention to that Philip Barber team. Who Again,
I'm you know, I've heard I've had this said to
me so many times.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
I think I'm right about this. Four sophomores in that
starting lineup this year.

Speaker 5 (40:20):
Yeah, and then the other one is a freshman. Yeah. Yeah,
now that I mean, and I feel like, yeah, they
had such a nice run, you know with those teams
led by you know, the Sparks sisters. I think you
can add girls to basketball to the growing risk at

(40:41):
phil the Barber of sports, where they just expect to
be a good and find a way to being this piece,
and at the state tournament format because you know, you
go back to the start of the season, you know,
there are some struggles, you know, that young group of
trauma figure some things out. And I think the culture

(41:05):
is changed. H in many sports you know have Philip Barber.
But yeah, I mean I just think the girls basketball,
you know, coach Mauser, he's got everyone buying in, and
you know, when the season starts, you know this program,
Uh it's it's no longer a novelty for them to

(41:26):
make it to the state tournament. It's a disappointment if
they don't.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Right right, Yeah, absolutely, uh And and now after what
they did as underclassmen, the expectations are going to be
uh right, I think I think rightfully so, folks probably
thought to themselves, I don't know what to expect this year.
Uh now, though there are going to be actual expectations
next season, so I am. I am looking forward to

(41:51):
to seeing how they progress and how that goes. That's
always it's always tough to project that kind of stuff.
But in theory, you think to yourself, well, if you
play this well as a sophomore, if you stick stick
with it, you're gonna be really good as a as
a junior or a senior. Chris, much appreciated, man. I know,
it was a long, long couple of weeks. Definitely a
long week on the back end for the boys. And

(42:11):
looking forward to getting you back here in the studio soon.

Speaker 5 (42:16):
Yeah, I'm not not shot that sweet, but I think, well,
just at least I'm back the same.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah. Well, you listen, you got to be back.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
You got to be back by you got to be
back by the end of April, so we can talk
about and or for at least, you know, twenty minutes
an episode as the new series is is dropping, the
new season, i should say, is dropping April twenty seconds.
So we'll we'll set aside some this is the time
of year. We can talk as much TV as we want.

Speaker 5 (42:49):
Yeah, I'll be about.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
Very good, Chris, much appreciated man. We'll talk with you
next week.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
All right, man, all right.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
See that's Chris Johnson of Connect Bridgeport and my usual
co host calling in today and we're going to take
a break. Get to Travis Jones on the other side.
Back after this on the Friday free for All brought
to you by Dan Cavatio to Buick GMC.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Now back to the Dan Cavatoyota Wwick GMC Friday Free
for All on one O three three w KMZ.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
A reminder, we are going to talk with Frank Tait
of South Harrison, the baseball coach, also the athletic director there,
but the baseball coach. They're off to a fantastic start.
I got to win over Williamstown earlier this week. To
stick around for that for sure. First though, we are
going to get the final word on Bridgeport basketball with
Travis Jones, plus the final word on the boys tournament
in general. He is on the phone with us right now,

(43:44):
play by play voice for both the Bridgeport Indians and
statewide of course for Metro News.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Does does the the just sort of.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
All games, any game that they can get him on.
Travis good morning.

Speaker 7 (43:56):
Sir, good morning.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
I'm good. I don't know what you what.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
You title someone when there's the you're the voice of
a team, but in this case, you're the voice of
a tournament as well, or a a voice of the tournament.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
But you got to see a lot of basketball.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
You and I had a chance to catch up on
this on Monday, that you would as much basketball as
you had seen that you were you were maybe maybe
maybe good to get a little break in. But now
you've had a couple of days, really six days to
collect your thoughts since the state title. Let's start with
Bridgeport and just get your your kind of final takeaway
on what the Indians were able to accomplish in winning

(44:30):
their first boys basketball title in twenty four years.

Speaker 7 (44:34):
Yeah, just a perfect season. Honestly, when you go twenty
six and one, there's not a whole lot but a
whole lot of downside to that, and you have been
your only loss of the season. It doesn't really get
much better, much better than that in terms of seasons
and how they go. And since you and I have talked,
I've I do a weekly podcast at Bridgeport Indians dot

(44:57):
com called Tribe Talk, where we you know, not only
cover a basketball football, but all sports at Bridgeport High School.
So I had a chance to talk with Phoenix Sickles
and Dave Marshall this week, Bridgeport's senior leader and had
basketball coach, and we're able to put it into into perspective,
you know, what the season meant. And and I thought that,

(45:18):
you know, Dave had some very good insight with how
this season went. And you know, he really thought that
the winner, the tough winner that we had with all
the start and stops, really helped his team stay fresh
because they they you know, they defensively and from an
energy standpoint, they spend so much of their energy on

(45:42):
the defensive end that you know sometimes that it does
take its hole on you night and night out. So
you know, he thought that the opportunity he had for
a couple of you know, elongated breaks during the season,
and at the time it was you know, frustrating, but

(46:02):
I think looking back in retrossect it probably really helped
this team be the best they could be once they
hit March.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
You know that is it's very insightful of coach. Because
I will say as well, we had that debate all
winter long about would this help would this hurt and
then even more so than just on from a general level,
by like from a team to team perspective, there were
some times Lincoln didn't win a game after they started
out three and two, and they went three weeks without playing,

(46:33):
or I think it might have even been like twenty
two or twenty three days without playing, did not win
another game after that that big winter stretch. So you know,
some teams it really did help, and some it did not.

Speaker 7 (46:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no doubt then, you know, with a
new regional set up the way it is, I know
that it sparked a lot of conversation because if you know,
if you don't have a bad winner, you know, you
really get to the end of the thing and you're
not playing a lot of games. You know, you're essentially
playing in some cases three games in three weeks. So

(47:10):
I think that going forth, scheduling is going to be interesting.
You know, teams try to load up at the back
half of the schedule to make sure that there's not
you know, as much downtime there. But you know, that's
a conversation for a different day. I just thought that overall,
it was a terrific season, and I thought the Bridgeport played.

(47:30):
If not, there are three best games of the season
in Charleston, definitely their two. Defensively, you know, there's no
question you hold Fairmount Senior to thirty points and then
hold Nitro to forty. You know, there's there's not much
more to be said about this Bridgeport team defensively. It
was one of the best in school history.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
And the forty they allowed to Nitro was the only
time they actually that anyone hit the forty point mark
in any of the five postseason games that they won.

Speaker 7 (47:59):
So, yeah, gave up fifty. I think they gave up
I think Bridgeport gave up fifty points or more only
twice all season. Once was to Nitro, once was to
Preston in Kingwood, and that was obviously a win. I
think they gave up fifty one to fifty two points
in that game.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
And it just a tremendous season.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
And I talked about this with with Chris George a
little bit, and it's kind of the line I've been
going with that it seems like the easiest way to
win a championship is to do it through good, strong
defensive play, but it is very difficult to actually do
It's the it's the easiest formula to come up with
and the hardest one to execute.

Speaker 7 (48:37):
It is it is because you know, eventually common sense
will tell you you're going to run into a very good
offensive team and you know somebody's going to get you
on a night for seventy and you're gonna have to
outscore them. But that, you know, that simply didn't happen
this year against Bridgeport. You know, you know, had they
played a Morgantown maybe or a certainly a Spring Mills,

(49:00):
you know that that might have been the case. But
in that that would have been the case had Bridgeport
been you know, in four A. But with the recent reclassification,
of course, Bridgeport dropped to to Triple A and basketball,
so you know, it moved into you know, like like
enrollment type schools.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
Yeah, and obviously it just goes to show how important reclassification.
If anyone was doubting how important reclassification is and was
and continues to be. That's a great, great example. Let's
let's zoom out a little bit bird's eye view in
the tournament as a whole. Anything you feel like either
that you may have may have learned that you didn't

(49:38):
already know or feel like you learned about for next
year who you might be thinking that you saw and say, no,
what circle them, we might be seeing them again a
year from now.

Speaker 7 (49:50):
Yeah, I think if you go through the classes. Obviously,
this was Spring Mills season to win the four A championship,
and they were I thought they the best team allseason.
I know Morgantown got them earlier in the year, but
you know, from from one through five, I thought that
they were the best team in four A and just

(50:10):
had to overcome kind of some of their own drama,
you know, with the Greenbrier situation or coach you know,
on it seems like now permanent leave and Shannon Layton
taking over and kind of holding that thing together and
leading them to a state championship. So not surprised there.
You know, Morgantown's Morgantown's not a team, They're a program.

Speaker 5 (50:31):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (50:32):
You know, they had some seniors, but they've got some underclassmen,
so I you know, they'll be back. George Washington is
definitely going to be back. You know, Noah Lewis is
a junior. Their best player, you know, the uh the Sprouse,
the freshman was very impressive during the tournament. So you know,
George Washington definitely a team at four A you're gonna

(50:53):
have to keep an eye on into the future. You know.
Class Triple A I think is interesting because obviously Bridgeport
loses is a lot off that team, so does Nitro. Uh,
so your two state finalists will suffer heavy graduation losses.
Shady Spring had some a good core of seniors as
well that will then will exit. Fairmont Senior is gonna

(51:15):
lose Trey Cumberlage. But again, you know, like I said
about Morgantown, you know, Fairmont Senior is not a team.
They're a programmed So I know that Dave red and
we'll rebuild that roster. But you know, if you look
at Triple A, probably that top four are you know,
there's some question about can they sustain the success going

(51:36):
in the next season. Certainly Double A.

Speaker 5 (51:39):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (51:39):
You know Wheeling Central, Uh, they're set up because Eli
Sandcom they're best player as a junior, so he's back
next year. And and I think the core of the
starting five for for Mel Stevens' team at Wheeling Central
all underclassman. So I would not be surprised if we
don't see you know, an opportunity for Wheeling Central to

(52:00):
go back to back in the in in their opportunity
to win a state championship, and then you get down
to single A. You know, Tug Valley is kind of
the same thing as they go back to back state champion,
So uh, they have to be the favorite going in
the next year, and you know Tucker County will be
right there with them. So yeah, I think it did.
You know, if you look at it, it's a typical,

(52:21):
you know, typical year. You've got some teams that are
going to suffer some graduational losses, and you've got some
teams that came to Charleston with primarily underclassmen and they're
starting five. So you know, we'll we'll, we'll see what
happens next year.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
What's funny because we mentioned, you know, on the girls side,
Philip Barber one of those teams where it was all
pretty much all underclassmen in their starting lineup. But the
other team that that funny enough, and you just pointed
to them as well. Chris Johnson mentioned that he would
be intrigued by next year was Wheeling Central Catholics. So
I'm gonna have to circle them keep an eye on

(52:55):
them for sure in class Uh double A.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Why don't we finish here with with Bridgeport?

Speaker 3 (53:00):
So looking forward, obviously they are going to have a
pretty big attrition some graduations here.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
What's next for the Indians.

Speaker 7 (53:08):
Yeah, they'll be fine. I mean JV wise, I only
lost a couple of games this season, so they've got
some bet. You know, there's guys who are in that
step up. I mean, there's guys who are gonna have
to have very good off seasons. You know, this team
will look different next year, won't be as big as
it was. You know, when you lose the seniors like

(53:28):
Bridgeport's going to lose, that's going to be a challenge.
But uh, you know, I feel I feel confident that
they'll be They'll be more than competitive next year for sure.
And uh you know that that off season work has
already started. I know Dave Marshall told me he's going
to have his exit meetings with the under classman starting,

(53:50):
I believe next week, and you know, give them the
off season schedule and what he expects from them. And
he's already working on the schedule. So you know, it's
a day or two celebration and then it's on to
the next year from that standpoint, and then you know
the other thing is I want to mention Bridgeport baseball
finally underway. They always get off to a later start,

(54:11):
and they kicked off the season yesterday down in Huntington
and Jack cook Field. I know you'll talk with Chris
George about that, the the the baseball voice of Bridgeport,
of the Bridgeport Indians. But they had a one nothing
lead going into the bottom of the seventh and surrendered
two runs, lost to Spring Valley two to one. They're
backed out of today down at Cavil Midland this afternoon,

(54:34):
and then they will play Saint Albans tomorrow back at
Jack cook Field at Marshall and that'll be our first
radio game tomorrow on one of three three kmz in
the Indians Radio network. So yeah, Bridgeport baseball season underway
softball team also off to a pretty good start, three
and one on the year. They beat Robert c Byrd

(54:55):
last night in a defensive struggle.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
I saw that final score. I had meant to mention
that I actually it's funny. So Andrew Wilson, works for
the Exponed Exponent Telegram, tweeted out that score and I said,
and I, I, you know this, this should show two things.
One how little I know about about softball. But two
I think even still taking aback by this, I said,

(55:21):
does anyone know what the what the record is for
most runs scored like combined runs? He goes, oh, listen,
I covered a thirty four to twenty game last season.

Speaker 7 (55:28):
I go with ye, I think bridgepod was involved in that,
so defense optional. So yeah, so the Indians last night
a bird four touchdowns.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
And a two point gave up a touchdown in four
field goals as well, and the yeah, that's that's fantastic
twenty nine to nineteen final score in softball. That does
that does Actually that makes me think of one more
thing I wanted to talk with you about. And we
went much deeper into this. Nine courage folks to listen
to the the conversation about it on the Morning Spiel
from earlier this week. But I we'll just take a

(55:58):
few minutes here. And you know you mentioned it obviously,
you know, between softball and baseball, and obviously softball has
not been as good, but baseball has been really good.
Girls basketball certainly has had their moments, has even produced
some decent D two college talent the boys team has
just won a state title.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
The football team just want a state title.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
Bridgeport, you know, has just been athletically has been really,
really good. And one of the things that kind of
occasionally gets forgotten about is that is not something that
just happens right like there. It's not like, you know,
you just get lucky and you know, the right kids
come together at the right time. Sure, that's part of it,
but there is also a real commitment to athletics in

(56:38):
the community. There's a real commitment to getting players involved
at an early age, and then they're not just playing
you know, free form style, they're learning how to play
Bridgeport style stylistically. This is particularly true in football. So
there's a real community buy in here and I continue
to be so impressed by that.

Speaker 7 (56:59):
Yeah, certainly, and as you mentioned it, it happens on
many fronts. You know. It's it's great coaches that are
committed that you know, are doing it for the right reasons. Uh,
tremendous administration that that understands the value of athletics and
supports that. Tom Sears, the athletic di record does a

(57:19):
wonderful job, and the APPRENTI at the principles at Bridgeport
High School and named Matthews and Kenny Edwards are are
you know, big supporters of athletics, and you know, and
then the community backs the programs and supports the programs
not only uh, you know, financially, but you know, attending
the games and uh, you know, just supplying a nice

(57:41):
support system, uh for the for the student athletes. And
you know, I know something we really didn't touch on
on on Tuesday's conversation, and that is, you know, there's
a level of expectations that are set for each and
every one of those programs, and I think the kids
believe and buy in that and expect to win. That's
the biggest thing. You know, something that struck me. Didn't

(58:03):
surprise me, but it struck me. At the end of
that championship game last Saturday. You know, Bridgeport was up
twenty two, so it's not like they hit a last
second shot at the horn, but there was no dog pile,
you know, there was no When the horn sounded, they
went and got in the line to shake hands. And
that just spoke to me, not that they weren't excited

(58:25):
to win a state championship. They just spoke to me
that they weren't surprised. You know, they expected to do that.
And as we know, as we've watched coaches try to
rebuild programs, you know, the first thing you have to
do is change the mentality and change the hope to win,
to expect to win. And I think from Bridgeport, each

(58:45):
and every team that started a season, that mentality is
already instilled, and then that they they go out and
they expect success, they're not surprised by it.

Speaker 3 (58:55):
Very good, Travis, much appreciated, man. I know it's been
a long, long seven month. It always is from from
the start of uh, you know, football camp to the
the end of the state tournament. UH, schedule lightens up
a little bit. What do you any any big plans
with with the extra free time?

Speaker 7 (59:13):
Yard work? Yeah, yard work, I uh, I enjoy mowing
and listening to the Indians baseball games. That's that's usually
my plan in the spring. But no, I'm ready to go.
I can't wait for football.

Speaker 2 (59:25):
I can, I can.

Speaker 3 (59:26):
I can tell you this, You're you'll be better off
listening to the Indians baseball games than you will, and
I mean the Bridgeport Indians. I don't know about the
the former Cleveland Indians now Guardians. But but you'll be
better off listening to Bridgeport than you will be to
the Pirates.

Speaker 7 (59:37):
So uh yeah, yeah, I don't. That's uh the Steelers
about all I can handle. Disappointment.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
Yeah, very good, Travis, Thanks man, Okay, thanks, see you, Travis.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
All right.

Speaker 3 (59:49):
That is Travis Jones, play by play voice for the
Bridgeport Indians and statewide tournament play by play voice as well.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
Uh yeah, man, the Pirates. What a mess? What a
that was? Again, I didn't watch the game.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
I was just kind of following what was happening on
social media because I was watching the NC Double A
men's ice So this is funny. By the way, I
love watching. I love knowing that I'm not watching the
thing everybody else is watching. Like I know, there were
some fantastic men's basketball games last night, but it was
the first round of the Nce Douba Men's Ice Hockey Tournament,
and I was absolutely not missing that awesome, awesome games yesterday,

(01:00:26):
two pretty big upsets, including the number two overall team
in the tournament getting knocked out and two games going
to overtime. One went into double overtime. That was a
great game, arguably the best goalie in the tournament got
knocked out. He put on a tremendous performance. I could
talk about this for a while. Point being though, being
one excellent, excellent sports day all around opening day for baseball,

(01:00:49):
NC DOUBLEA ice hockey tournament opens up Sweet sixteen of
men's basketball. Women's basketball tournament obviously is I don't think
there were any women's games yesterday, but they are right
in the thicket things now as well, getting into the
Sweet sixteen and Elite eight play here shortly. But what
a great day for sports unless you were a Pirates fan.

(01:01:09):
And what started as a as a great day and
did very, very poorly. And I have continued seeing the
social chatter about it. It is amazing how much we
put on one of one hundred and and sixty two
Yankees got the win, though so from my perspective, of course,
I didn't watch the game.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
I didn't, I didn't care.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
My significant other is a Yankees fan as well, and
which she said to me though, she asked me, hey,
did they win? I go, yeah, I'm pretty sure I saw,
you know, I saw the score. I think they won
four two, which they did. She goes, good, they were
playing the they're playing the Brewers and my boss is
a Brewers fan, so I can rub it into his face.
So that is the true beauty of sports, folks. It
is not the the nobility of game. It is not

(01:01:50):
learning how to work as a team. It is being
able to trash talk your supervisor who is a Brewers fan.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
That's the that's the whole goal is to be able
to trash talk your supervisor. So remember that today when
you're sitting at your desk, figure out who your who,
your who, your boss likes, and hopefully it's a different
team than yours.

Speaker 7 (01:02:11):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
The worst case scenario would be and and I've never
had a deal with this that I can remember, but goodness,
if I were, If I were, I just couldn't imagine
having a New England Patriots fan as a supervisor. That
would be that would I think that would actually be
the true disaster for me As a New York Jets fan.
I don't think I could handle that. I think I'd
actually have to put in my notice and go find

(01:02:32):
a different job. I don't think I could do that.
You want to be a Flyers fan or a Devil's fan, sure, whatever,
Maybe you want to be a Penguins fan.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
That's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
I've had I've had bosses who are Penguins fans before.
I don't think I could do I don't think I
could do a Patriots fan. I could do a Steelers fan,
that's fine. I'm pretty sure I have done that before.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
I can't do a Patriots fan, No way, no, no,
no chance that's gonna work out. They're not even good anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:02:59):
And I still I still have a It's like an aversion, right,
It's like an allergy. I just ugh all those years. Anyway,
we're way off track here. What do we got coming
up here? So it's that we're closing in on the
bottom of the hour, So let's reset. I want to
remind you a couple of things. So coming up during
the nine o'clock hour, we have the morning Spiel. We
are going to dive into the Ross Hodge conversation with

(01:03:22):
Mike Ousti of wv Sports. Now we'll talk on zoom today.
And you know, I've been talking back and forth and
I've been surprised by he was definitely more down on
the higher than I expected him when it was announced.
We'll see if he's if that's changed at all. But

(01:03:43):
he was more down on it than I expected. I
will say this, I think there are legitimate criticisms, but
I also think I think there's a there's a little
bit of Ren Baker swinging for the fences here, and
I don't mind that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
I don't mind.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Swinging for the fences, and I definitely don't mind if
maybe they got them a year early. I don't mind
that necessarily, But I'm sure we'll talk about that coming
up with Mike Bottom of the hour. That said, coming
up in the here and now, we are going to
talk with South Harrison baseball coach and athletic director Frank

(01:04:17):
Tate in mere moments. That's coming up next here on
the Friday Free for All brought to you by Dan
Caves aoa Buick GMC. And before we hit our break,
I want to remind you folks of a couple of things.
Grab my trusty computer here, my trusty laptop here, I
should say. First, shows available in podcast forms. So if

(01:04:39):
you ever miss an episode, you ever miss a segment, whatever,
go find the show and podcast form. Okay, you can
download the Spreaker app, which is the home base for
the show, or just your preferred podcasting platform. We also
have an email address you every want to share thoughts, opinions.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Anything at all.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
Really, if you want to share photos, box scores, particularly
good game that you saw, good performance that you saw,
lay it on me. Friday Free for all WV at
gmail dot com. Friday Free for all WV at gmail
dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
One more time.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
That is Friday Free for all WV at gmail dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
And know not the number.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
Four literally the word for it's all lowercase Friday Free
for all WV at gmail dot com. All right, on
that note, let's take a break. We'll talk with Frank
Tate coming up here in just a moment. This is
the Friday Free for All brought to you by Dan
Cavateo de Buick GMC. Back right after this, back to
the WKMC locker room for more high school sports on
the Dan cavatoyot w at GMC Friday Free for All.

(01:05:48):
We are indeed back here the locker room, whatever you
want to call it. Back in the studio, Alexweederspiel here
with you on the Friday Free for All, brought to
you by Dan Cavatio de Buick GMC. And this is
kind of our first really heavy baseball show today, we're
obviously in the process of also unpacking and unwinding the
end of the boys tournament in basketball. Congratulations to the

(01:06:09):
winners there, but we are starting to really get into
baseball and we're gonna have our first coach on of
the season and it's Frank Tait, head coach and also
the athletic director over at South Harrison and got off
to a great start this season. I believe you guys
are now four and one.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
I have you at old. I'm going to bring it
back up here. Yeah, four and one.

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
There got too many tabs open here at the same time.
Four and one after last night's two run loss to
Doddridge County. But a great start to the season, and
what really drew my attention to it is I wanted
to talk a little bit about a the team and
then b Layton Wagerman, who I know was a really
critical part of the team last year and seems like
he's kind of picked up right where he left off
with a great performance against Williamstown earlier this week where

(01:06:51):
not only did not he truly earned the w in
that one, not only did he pitch really well, he
also drove in four runs.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
That's a great performance for the young man.

Speaker 6 (01:07:01):
Yeah yeah, and and like I said, late and such
a humble young man. It's awesome to be around him
because you know, he just wants to go out there.
And and when you know he's two and zero on
the year, you know, you got to win against Tyler
consolidated to open up this this season, and then he
was just on his game and he's really worked hard, uh,

(01:07:21):
specifically in the cage. I think he really wanted to
up his game. You know, his his pitching stats have
been sterling the last three years, but uh, you know,
his his you know, at the plate, I think he
really wants to take more of a leadership rolling there.
And like I said, he just was barreling everything up
there on what was it Wednesday night and and really

(01:07:43):
helped his cause, you to Oven four verse six runs
or four or six runs.

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
He outscored Williamstown four to one himself, so didn't even
didn't even need the two runs of run support that
came came elsewhere on the note.

Speaker 6 (01:07:56):
But you know, old Brogan Madina, you know, muscled one
out there. You know, he's had his first home run.
He's our sophomore catcher, so you know, considering the conditions.
It was cold, it was windy. It was really excited.
You know, I think it was our fifth maybe say
I can't remember what run it was, but yeah, he

(01:08:16):
homered left field, solo home run. So really excited for
him because he you know, he caught pretty much every
game last year and he's he's one of the best
defensive catchers in the state of West Virginia. I mean,
he's such a such a grinder. I was so happy
to see all his hard work payoff.

Speaker 3 (01:08:34):
Yeah, and good point, by the way, about the conditions.
I had been thinking about how that would impact early
in the season, because we you know, it's funny, right
as the basketball tournament was was kind of going on,
right before it, we got this very unseasonably warm weather and.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Then and then it went away again.

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
And and it's been cold, mixed with windy, mixed with rainy,
but not quite enough rain to cancel games. So you
guys have definitely had some conditions that you've had to
deal with a couple of times already this season.

Speaker 6 (01:09:04):
Yeah, it's been chilli, there's no doubt. I mean, it
started off a navy degree game. It felt like we
were you know, midsummer and then boom, West Virginia weather
hits you back in the face and it was forty degrees, windy,
a little bit of rain here and there. But you know,
our fields in such good shape. We can we can,
we can take a pounding with the rain. We've got

(01:09:27):
a lot of a lot of help to get that
field in shape. We're actually going to get the host
LKC Championship game in the consolation game this year at
South Harrison, So we we take pride in our field.
So the conditions, I don't care what type of weather
it handles. The rain pretty well.

Speaker 3 (01:09:48):
I want to I want to switch gears in a moment.
But first, one last thing on on Leyton Wageman. You know,
he's pretty big kid plays you know, has played a
combination of offensive line and tight end. He's definitely not
a small dude, and I got to imagine that helps
him a little bit. What kind of picture is Leyton
Wagman for those who have not had a chance to

(01:10:09):
really see him. Is he a guy who's going to
overpower you? Is there is there a second pitch in
there that he's going to use to try and fool you?

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
What's his game?

Speaker 6 (01:10:16):
Like, well, you know, Lighton, He's got the full arsenal
of you know, any picture that you see out there
that's worth it, you know, worth their snuff. He's got
this fastball, curveball change up. And you know the good
thing about Layton is he's a striker. He fills up
the zone. He doesn't walk a lot of kids, you know, overpowering.

(01:10:38):
I mean, yeah, he throws it hard, don't get me wrong,
but you know there's other guys that prey just as hard.
I think what really sets him aside is that, you know,
the movement that he has on his fastball, the trust
he has in this change up, and you know, when
he needs to bring that hammer down on the curve,
he doesn't. And you know Pitt Radcliff, Jimmy Radcliffe, he

(01:10:59):
calls the pitch is for me. He's you know, my
step brother. We played together baseball for you know, through
high school. It was kind of neat little thing. Last
night when we played Doddridge County. We had a reunion
of sorts. Jeff Yoho's helping out Doddridge County as the
pitching guru that he is, and Jeff was our babe

(01:11:23):
Ruth Baseball coach for Clarksburg Moose years ago. So we
got to take a picture with each other. It's a
nice little reunion because truthfully, Jeff, Jeff played a pivotal
role and and really shaping me as a baseball player
very you know, very young, twelve thirteen year old. He
asked me to come play for him. I just moved

(01:11:43):
to the area from from Virginia, and uh, you know,
a lot of my principles and a lot of the
stuff that I infuse in my coaching I've taken from
from coach yo hoo. So it was an awesome you know,
just an awesome situation that we were in last night
to get the remnants. So but you know, going back
to Lighton, he's just he works hard at the craft

(01:12:05):
and you know, we make no bones about it. Like
I said, you know to Joe. On Wednesday against Williamstown,
we roll him out there. We have we have a
chance to beat anyone in the state, so that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:19):
I wanted to.

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
I don't know if folks will remember this as well
from last year. You guys were right on the cusp
a year ago and you got you got ranked in
the power rankings multiple times. There was at one point.
I may be wrong about this. I think you guys
started like you won twenty of your first twenty three.
Maybe I might I might have that right. But you
had a really strong run and then got to the

(01:12:42):
you know, into postseason play at the end there and
you were right there right on the cusp. What do
you feel like you need based on what you saw
last year to take that next step in getting to
the state tournament?

Speaker 6 (01:12:57):
Well, and I like I hear mark this year as
the year that I thought that we could, you know,
take the next step as a program at South Harrison
because I knew the makeup of my roster. I knew
that my senior class was going to be pretty deep
with you know, Leyton and Corey and Dane and Seth

(01:13:18):
and Charlie and then we've got Noah who came over
from RCB. Those core four have played now over ninety
They just started their ninetieth game each of them, you know,
from the time they were a freshman took to right now,
they've got ninety games of varsity experience. And then you

(01:13:39):
add the group of young kids that we have that
support them. I just thought that we had a roster makeup.
We have a deep pitching staff. We've got a little
bit of flexibility where we can play kids and multiple positions,
and you know, you have to do that at the
high school level when you've got pitchers that are coming

(01:14:01):
in from the outfield, from behind the plate, or from
the middle of the info, you've got to have people
that you can, you know, plug in and do an
admirable job. And I really thought that this would be
the year that we could take that next step. And
you know, we started off really well, but you know,
I always preface the regular season that it's thirty two

(01:14:22):
exhibition games. The real season starts come May, when playoff
time hits, and we just want to hit. We want
to get better each and every game and hit every
wrong and keep climbing that ladder, and we want to
be playing our best baseball come May. We don't want
to be playing our best baseball in March. You know,

(01:14:43):
it's great that we started first four games with three errors,
but you know, last night we had six, So we
took a step back last night. We'll go to practice tonight,
we'll iron it out and then the great thing about
this game, and anyone who's played with me will know
that this is one of my sayings, great, great thing
about this game is you get to play again tomorrow

(01:15:03):
and then we get to play Wahama with the doubleheader,
to go back out and try to improve our deficiencies
that we uh you know that we had experienced against
Dodge County. Yeah, we doubled our error output in one game.

Speaker 7 (01:15:19):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
It is Baseball is a lot like a lot like
a sport like golf in that sense that you you
really don't have time for to have a long memory.
Like you know, football, you're sitting with mistakes for a
week at a time.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
You can't do that in baseball.

Speaker 6 (01:15:32):
No, you're absolutely right, And uh, that's that's the great
thing about this team that you know, the roster that
we got, they they understand that. And I think, well,
I think we're gonna have a productive practice today and
then we're gonna go out and we're gonna play Wahoma tomorrow.
Really really tough. And I told him at the beginning
of the week, if we can finish four and one
this week, that's going to be an accomplishment with who

(01:15:53):
we had on the schedule, you know, starting off with
Berg and playing Williamstown and playing Doddridge and then two
with Wahoma. You know, I think I've only seen it
one time happen that a team has gone through the
baseball season undefeated. You don't see it, and you're going
to have your your missteps. This is a game of failure.

(01:16:13):
I mean, I was talking with the hot kid from Williamstown.
He plays third base with him. Great kid, he's going
to play in a prep school in Florida next year.
Just just got a great attitude. And he was struggling
a little bit at the plate, and he said, you know,
it takes one up bat to break you out of it.
But you know, this is a game where you're an

(01:16:34):
All star and in some cases a Hall of Famer.
When you fail seven out of ten times up at
the at the plate, I mean, if you back three hundred,
you're gonna you know, you're going to get a lot
of rewards in this game. So you got to you
gotta deal with failure in this game, and you've got
to be able to have a short memory, because if not,

(01:16:56):
this game will eat you up.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:58):
By the way, I double checked the number that I
was looking for wasn't wasn't twenty out of twenty three,
It was it was sixteen out of nineteen that you
guys won over a basically a three week stretch in
April and just showed how hot you guys could could
obviously gets as a team, and you know, worked your
way into the top ten and the power rankings and
all that. One other note on this as well that

(01:17:21):
you know, so we talk about like how full the
schedule is. I mean, you guys barely have a day
off in the month of April, and I imagine that
is most certainly by design.

Speaker 6 (01:17:31):
Oh absolutely. And you know, any coach that's coached in
West Virginia know that you're gonna get some games canceled.
So you try to put as tough as schedule together
as you can to get your boys prepped for postseason.
And that's one thing that if you look at our
schedule and our pod or our conference alignment has changed now.

(01:17:53):
And so instead of playing like Clay and Roan and
Braxton twice, we're in a pod now where we play
Williamstown twice, We played Tyler Consolidated twice and then Doddridge
and Ritchie and Saint Mary's. So instead of going down
seventy nine so much this year, we're going to go
up fifty, and truthfully, baseball wise, that's going to really

(01:18:14):
put us to the test because you know the programs
that Williamstown and Tyler Consolidated and and and Dodgers County
isn't any slouch either, you know. They they've got a
really nice ball club. So our our record, and I
told the boys, our record might not be sterling this year,
but we're going to be ready to come playoff time
because if you look who we've got on that schedule.

(01:18:36):
You know, we've got Bridgeport, We're playing Frankfurt, who won
the Double A state title last year. We're playing in
the McDonald's tournament. We're going we got East Hardy on
the on the the you know who ended our season
last year. In the regionals, We're playing University. We played
Williamstown twice, Tyler Consolidated twice, Bird twice. I mean, we're

(01:18:56):
playing some tough, tough teams. So you know, we may
we may not get to the win number we want,
but I'm going to guarantee you we're gonna be ready
come tournament.

Speaker 5 (01:19:04):
Tom.

Speaker 3 (01:19:05):
Yeah, no, it's it's uh, it's it's it's such a
grueling schedule. When I look at it and it makes
so much sense why you would why you would assemble it.
Let me ask you this on just a lighter note,
because I always find athletes sport to sport, and I
know you've got a lot of multi sport athletes as well.

Speaker 6 (01:19:22):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:19:23):
I'm a big fan of the of the little little superstitions,
and I find in sports like baseball, baseball, and hockey,
I feel like the superstitions are wilder than any of
the others. You have any have any good superstition stories,
either from current players or past players that you've coached
about either a things that you've that they've done where
you just go, well, I I can't even believe that

(01:19:44):
that's something you believe.

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
Or be something that they've done. You go, I think
that actually might have worked.

Speaker 6 (01:19:51):
And nothing's popping out right, I mean, you know, it's
not stepping on the lines and things like that. Those
are those old school things. But I've had kids that
haven't changed their socks on a winning streak. You know,
we had won fourteen games in a row a couple
of years ago when we won the LKC. And you know,
I get a multiple stocks because you know, they socks

(01:20:13):
he sweat in and they stink, but they were rolling
them on and game in and game out. I said, guys,
we've got three pairs of socks we're supposed to be wearing,
you know, the orange today, coach, can't can't change them,
can't change them. We got to go with it. So yeah,
there's a lot of superstitions. But at the same time,
you know, it's the it's your preparation and talent that's

(01:20:36):
going to win you games. But uh, you know, I
even abide by some superstitious stuff, so I it is
what it is.

Speaker 3 (01:20:44):
You're just grateful to dugout is outside at that point
when the socks being not for fourteen straight games, that's fantastic. Uh,
very good, coach, Frank Tate. Very much appreciated, Thanks man.
And I know you guys have games coming up, you said,
so you're practicing today and then you guys are back
at it for a header tomorrow.

Speaker 6 (01:21:01):
Right, yes against Wahama.

Speaker 2 (01:21:03):
Yeah, very good, good luck tomorrow and much appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (01:21:06):
Thanks for coming on all right, Thanks Alix, thanks for
having us appreciate it all you do.

Speaker 2 (01:21:10):
Absolutely. Thanks.

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):
That's Frank Tate, folks, head coach over at South Harrison
on for the baseball team there. They they went on
quite a run last year. They looked like they had
a real chance to make the state tournament. Obviously ran
into a really difficult East Hardy squad at the end
of the season, but they're they're trying to get back there.
And certainly you saw it. It's a Williamstown team that

(01:21:33):
even without Maxwell Melissa you know, who is now wearing
golden Blue. You got to imagine Williamstown reloads in just
about every sport. It's a pretty good win the other
day that South Harrison got over them. And as Frank
noted though, and this is always the critical part. You know,
there's a great win, great win in March, but wins

(01:21:53):
in March don't matter, right, Wins in March don't matter.
They What matters is being ready to win games in
May and June, and that's going to be the important thing.
We're going to talk about that, of course, all season
with Chris George and let this be for those of
you who are regular listeners. We're going to be doing
this basically every week. We're gonna try and bring on
a different coach, typically baseball, but not always baseball. We're

(01:22:16):
going to try and do some post mortem stuff with
basketball coaches as well. Now that the seasons are over,
bring some basketball coaches on, talk to them about how
the season went, what they thought, and moving forward.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
And then of course we'll talk with our.

Speaker 3 (01:22:29):
Baseball coaches as well as the year goes on. It's
I'm excited baseball is.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
Here's the thing.

Speaker 3 (01:22:37):
I'm not even like the biggest baseball guy in the world.
I just love what baseball represents, right, and I think
that's I think that's true of a lot of baseball represents.
As George Carlin once said, baseball represents, you know, spring
and renewal and new life. Now, admittedly he was doing
that as part of his Baseball Versus Football bit, right,
everything is dying in the fall, versus renewal and new life.

(01:23:00):
If you've never seen the Baseball Versus Football stand up,
go find it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:03):
It's on YouTube. It's fantastic. It's one of the many, many.

Speaker 3 (01:23:07):
Great pieces of George Carlin that should live on infinitely,
just absolutely brilliant. That said, we got to take one
final break, and we are going to do that now.
This is the Friday Free for All, brought to you
by Dan Cavateo to Buick GMC going to wrap the show.
On the other side, I'm Alex Wheeterspiel.

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
Back right after.

Speaker 1 (01:23:27):
Dan Cavatoyota Wick GMC Friday Free for All.

Speaker 3 (01:23:36):
All right, we are back and this is the Friday
Free for All brought to you by Dan Cavato to
Buick GMC, Alex Wheeterspiel here with you, and it is
officially spring sports season. Unlike last year though, for those
of you who remember, we went down to a one
hour show during the spring up until probably about July,
and then we jumped back into two hours.

Speaker 2 (01:23:57):
Not doing that. This year can be a full two
hours show all year. And the reason I'm doing that
is because I feel like it.

Speaker 7 (01:24:04):
No.

Speaker 3 (01:24:06):
I got to the point where I just thought to myself,
it's just easier for me to plan on a two
hour program than trying to constantly balance the switching up
of programming and everything like that. I'll just do the
two hours of programming and we'll definitely be able to
hit that.

Speaker 2 (01:24:23):
I'm not worried about that at all.

Speaker 3 (01:24:24):
There's more than enough sports stuff going on that we'll
always be able to hit our two hours of programming.
But so that's what we're doing. We're not dropping down
to an hour this year for the spring. We're gonna
be a full two hour show year round, which very
exciting and I'm sure Chris Johnson would have some thoughts
on that if he was here at the moment. I
know he's off covering something, he's on location at the moment,

(01:24:48):
but it's.

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
Exciting for me.

Speaker 3 (01:24:50):
I know it'll be exciting for him to be able
to be at this point now where we've actually got
this thing into a sort of the stability of it
being a two hour our program, the podcast is there.
Just love doing this show and glad that you guys
join us every single week, and please don't be afraid
to let me know if you're a listener. I love
hearing that folks listen and enjoy and appreciate high school

(01:25:14):
sports coverage because if you're like me and you love
high school sports, you just want to see these kids
and coaches get a little bit more recognition because they
deserve it. They play a tough game and they usually
get they usually get the least recognition out of everybody.
So it's a lot of fun. All right, got to go,
But coming up, we're gonna talk Ross Hodge with Mike

(01:25:35):
Austi on the Morning Spiel, So stick around for that,
and also, do not forget this is very important. Do
not forget every single thing that we do is in
podcast form these days. Okay, everything is in podcast form,
and that is critically important because if you ever miss
an episode, guess what you can listen on demand. We're

(01:25:57):
a twenty first century radio show. My friends radio show podcast.
The answer is we're We're not either, we're both. Which
one are we?

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
Yes? Is the only answer acceptable?

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
All right, folks, Happy baseball season, Happy NCAA Ice hockey season,
hih Hockey tournament, happy March madness.

Speaker 2 (01:26:15):
Whatever it is you celebrate, it's great.

Speaker 3 (01:26:18):
It's fantastic, lots of sports, fantastic sports weekend ahead, enjoy
the weather.

Speaker 2 (01:26:24):
Talk with you next week.

Speaker 1 (01:26:33):
You've been listening to the Dan cavatoyot of you at
GMC Friday Free for All. Be sure to tune in
every Friday as we review and preview local high school sports.
This has been a special presentation of WVRC Media and
one O three three w KMZ

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Spring is Here: Bridgeport's Title Run, South Harrison Baseball and more

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

Spring is Here: Bridgeport's Title Run, South Harrison Baseball and more

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce