San Diego Sport Fishing

As Webster County�s Bev Hart enters his third year as head coach of the Trojans, he�s looking for two things from his troops ... aggressive play and a nasty attitude in rebounding.

The Trojans begin the 2007-08 campaign without the services of last year�s talented seniors, Jordan Coomes, Logan Dennison and James Tapp. The trio took with them a ton of points, rebounds and more importantly that hard-nosed play that the WCHS coaching staff is looking for.

�Early this summer we were pretty rough around the edges. But our play got better the last two weeks of the summer and won 10-of-12 games,� Hart explained. �We really got into a rhythm and played very well.

�But right now, I don�t think we�ve gotten back to that level. We�re still a little slow in decision-making and our biggest concern is defense and rebounding.

Court in session

It might be hard to tell, considering Saturday's pair of Class 4A semifinal football games in the Four Corners, but the basketball season has begun.

Ready or not.

Aztec and Kirtland Central's boys basketball teams are still waiting to complete their squads. With the Broncos and Tigers still in the thick of the state football playoffs, the gridiron games take full precedent over shooting hoops.

Piedra Vista and Bloomfield practiced with full squads for the first time this week, mere days before tip-off. The Bobcats and Panthers' football teams were eliminated from the playoffs last weekend, much to the chagrin of students, coaches and fans.

But at least their basketball teams are at full strength, right?

Quite the contrary, actually. A majority of the area's seven basketball squads agreed that success is infectious.

Laylin lifts Thunder to shootout win

KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- After watching the PrairieThunder squander 3-0 and 4-2 leads in regulation, Cory Laylin found himself with a chance to finally put away the pesky Kalamazoo Wings and end Bloomington's five-game road skid Sunday.The veteran defenseman made the most of the opportunity, beating Kalamazoo netminder Jeremy Symington in sudden death to give Bloomington (6-9-0-0) its second road win of the season, 5-4, over the host Wings and move the Thunder out of the IHL basement.Don Parsons figured in all of Bloomington's goals in regulation, including his power play goal at the 3:13 mark of the first period that gave the Thunder a 1-0 lead. Laylin and Sam Ftorek assisted on Parson's fifth goal of the season.Parsons, the all-time leading American goal-scorer in the history of professional hockey, also added another goal and three assists to up his season point total to 17, fourth best in the IHL.Thunder captain Jason Ralph tipped in a rebound for his fifth goal of the year to put Bloomington up, 2-0, just 38 seconds into the second stanza.

2007 InfoWorld 100 Awards

Abbott Laboratories www.abbott.com Sales and Financial Data Warehouse Initiative Project Lead: Peggy Mathias, Senior Manager HQ IT Applications, International Division Project Description: Abbott launched an international sales data consolidation effort, developing a flexible information management infrastructure capable of accommodating future organizational changes and rapidly evolving business needs. The project integrated Kalido as a data warehouse, Oracle and PL/SQL for data staging, and Cognos for its reporting front end, providing 250 finance and marketing executives in 65 countries access to consistent, high-quality data. Industry: Pharmaceuticals .

Owls football has local flavor

Three Berkshire County athletes were members of the Westfield State football team this fall. They are junior Shane Parrott of Pittsfield (Taconic), junior Joe Salvatore of Dalton (Wahconah) and freshman Nick Panetti of Pittsfield (Pittsfield).

Parrott is a 6-foot-3, 305 pound lineman.

"Shane was our starting offensive tackle who showed great improvement over the last two years," coach Steve Marino said. "He will be a three-year starter next year and anchor a very experienced offensive line."

Salvatore, a 6-foot, 270-pounder, is also a member of that offensive line.

"Joe won the starting guard job this year because of his toughness and enthusiasm," Marino said. "He also played in the backfield in our goal line package."

Panetti, a 6-foot, 256-pound lineman, saw action as a backup.

Evans achieves Olympic qualification

Badminton Ireland has announced that Scott Evans, has reached the qualification standard for next year's Olympic Games in Beijing.