Weather conditions were responsible for Monday replacing Saturday as the last scheduled business day for Arkansas high-school athletes in the 2018-19 school year.
If your school's heroes played before Labor Day to the weekend past Mother's Day, take a deep breath and relax. In my backyard, where 7-on-7 football does not exist but summer youth baseball (perhaps like basketball this year) is ripe for rediscovery, high-school sports resumes in August. It's almost Memorial Day, so you might say time is getting away from us.
Fear not, because people on both sides soon will promote the Lake Hamilton-Lakeside football game, a series resumed last year before an overflow crowd at Austin Field, where if I remember correctly the visiting Lake Hamilton Wolves prevailed. This year's renewal is at Lake Hamilton's Bank OZK Field, where Garland County high-school athletics for the current term reached their zenith early this month in two state track meets.
In yet another school year that no local basketball, football, baseball or softball team won a state title, Lake Hamilton track and field took up the slack. We did not know in November when Lake Hamilton won a sixth consecutive Class 6A boys championship in cross country that it would be the last for a Karl Koonce-coached team. Koonce's impending retirement was well-documented before two of the school's most decorated athletes achieved surpassing triumphs in May.
There was no Arkansas girls' pole vault when Koonce came over to Lake Hamilton from the former Southwest Junior High in Hot Springs. With the untiring service of Morry Sanders, the school's first great vaulter, Lake Hamilton came to dominate the sport in both genders. Over the last three decades, the names have changed frequently in the record books as their marks have gone higher.
For Koonce and Sanders, each of whom deserves a spot on the Mount Rushmore of Lake Hamilton athletics (and, yes, I know it could get crowded), May 2019 has been a month for pouring syrup on sundaes and tying knots neatly. Two senior vaulters, both headed for Southeastern Conference schools, kept Lake Hamilton in the news in what has become the school's signature event within its marquee sport.
What more can we say of Edie Murray? As a senior, she captured another 6A girls' title, and though denied a third consecutive Meet of Champions victory, she left a tremendous legacy for future Lady Wolf vaulters. We hope to see her again soon in a University of Arkansas singlet, representing one athletic program on the Fayetteville campus that fans expect greatness and are rewarded in kind.
Which brings us to Haze Farmer, another who left an indelible mark on his school's athletic fortunes.
After setting Arkansas overall (17 feet, 3 1/4 inches) and Meet of Champions (17-1 1/4) records eight days apart, Farmer could have packed it in and foregone a repeat appearance in the state high-school decathlon. Not to worry, pride alone dictating that the event's defending champion spend two days in Fayetteville amid preparations for his Lake Hamilton graduation. He aced that final test, winning the pole vault, in one last afternoon of splendor on the campus of a school (UA) that's letting a great one get away.
Off to Georgia, Farmer ranks with Tiffany and Matt Wait, Suzanne Fincham, Jessica Weatherford, Billy Rhoden, Scotty Steed and the incomparable Sanders in the pantheon of great Lake Hamilton athletes (forgive us for not naming more). He leaves Lake Hamilton like Ted Williams after going deep on his final plate appearance at Fenway Park -- complete until the end.
The possibility that another Haze Farmer might appear keeps us going back to games. As I have for the eight years since she graduated at Jessieville, some day there'll be another Grier Bennett.
Sports on 05/22/2019