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BENNETT: Things I’d like to see from the WVSSAC

Although summer is officially underway, David Price doesn’t start his new job at the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission until the first of next month. With current executive director Bernie Dolan heading into retirement for some well deserved rest and relaxation, it will be interesting to see how the transition goes. Perhaps some folks are unaware, but the number of sports writers in the Mountain State continues to dwindle by the day it seems. Suffice it to say, getting new blood into the business is anything but easy. One thing which always seems to be easy, ...

BENNETT: Bye-bye to the 1-and-1

The final three days of last week were pretty crazy on several levels. Thursday was an extremely long one due to the all-state baseball meeting and covering Tyler Consolidated’s first game at the state tournament. On Friday, I had the honor of taking in another Battle Against Cystic Fibrosis Football Classic game at St. Marys. At one point prior to kickoff, I was having a conversation with someone and they told me how they always enjoyed my columns when I would write about summer vacation. I don’t have any exploits for vacation yet, but I was able to take this past Saturday off ...

HERTZEL: New Big 12 lacks football power to build upon

MORGANTOWN — As the aura of further expansion gathers around the Big 12 as it tries to keep pace with the changing power structure in college athletics, one wonders if it can do so with the football situation as it is shaking out. We head into the summer with it looking more and more likely that the conference which West Virginia calls its home is ready for another round of expansion as it loses its two richest and most historically powerful football schools in Oklahoma and Texas to the already rich, deep and vibrant SEC, while adding a hodgepodge of Power 5 wannabes in Cincinnati, ...

BENNETT: Brett Carson feels at home at Marietta

Marietta College senior Brett Carson considers himself just one of the guys and wants to do whatever he can on the baseball diamond to help the Pioneers win. Following Saturday’s doubleheader sweep of Heidelberg University, I had a chance to talk with the two-way player in the pressbox ...

HERTZEL: Spring is here for Mountaineer fans

MORGANTOWN — I’ll be honest. I’m tired of it, this getting up every morning and turning on the news and hearing about mass shootings, Russian attacks on Ukraine, failing banks, friends like Mike Shannon, the former Cardinals third baseman and broadcaster, dying. See, I go to bed smitten with spring fever. It is, after all, mid-spring and, darn it, things just can’t be as bad as they seem in this world. It’s kind of like the old Rodgers and Hammerstein song from the movie “State Fair” entitled “It Might as Well Be Spring”. The movie was released on Aug. 30, 1945, ...

HOLLAND: Fort Frye’s Dawson Layton enjoys success

BEVERLY — The Fort Frye baseball team is off to an 11-1 start this spring, and nobody is enjoying the Cadets’ success more than senior Dawson Layton. Layton, who earned the pitching win in Fort Frye’s 6-3 win over Williamstown Friday, is in his third year on the Cadets’ varsity squad. However, this spring has been by far the most successful Fort Frye has had in Layton’s career. “Finally, the hard work is paying off,” Layton said. “The countless hours and days you’re down here doing what you love, it’s finally paying off and really showing with our record. “We ...