Spring Sports Preview

Dailer Enters 27th Season

By KYLE LUTZ WHEELING — Entering her 27th year as the tennis coach at Wheeling Central, Peggy Dailer is excited as she returns several key players from last year’s squad. With three players returning looking to get back to Charleston for the state tournament, Gus Schmidt was the lone player lost from 2016 because of graduation and is currently attending the University of Chicago. Schmidt, who played No. 1 singles and No. 1 doubles was one of four Maroon Knights to make it to the state capital last year, along with seniors Giorgio Alexander and Jacob Coughlan and sophomore David ...

Linsly Looks for Another Baseball Title

By BUBBA KAPRAL WHEELING — Linsly has a rich baseball tradition. That tradition took on a little more luster thanks to a successful 2016 season. Coach Jay Cartwright’s squad rang up an impressive 20-4 record en route to capturing the OVAC 3A title via an 8-2 win over Fort Frye in the finals. The Cadets dispatched Steubenville Central in the semifinals. Despite the loss of some outstanding talent, the Cadets are poised to continue their winning ways at a high level. Linsly lost four players through graduation. Logan Goodnight, one of the premier players in the OVAC the last ...

Cadets Have Veteran Cast

By BUBBA KAPRAL WHEELING — Amanda Crews embarks on her fifth season as Linsly softball coach with a veteran cast in the fold. Crews welcomes back eight letter-winners. Heading the list is hurler Taylor Wisvari-Weir. The talented senior fanned 162 batters last spring. America Nuckles-Polen was the only graduation loss. “We are excited to have an upperclass team. This is the first year of many that we’ve not been a primarily young team,” Crews said. “We have great leadership on the team with our seniors and juniors, and our freshmen and sophomores are eager to play and ...

Linsly Netters Rebuilding

By BUBBA KAPRAL WHEELING — Dave Riethmiller has built a girls’ tennis juggernaut at Linsly School. Riethmiller guided the Cadet ladies to their sixth straight OVAC championship last spring. The Cadet girls won 12 of 13 matches a year ago. All told, Linsly has captured 11 OVAC titles since Riethmiller took over the helm in 1987-88. The Martins Ferry native has compiled a brilliant 272-70 mark as the Cadets’ coach. He also has eight OVAC runner-up team efforts on his resume. “Some of the highlights from last season were reaching the championship final at every position ...

New Era for Track at JM

By TRACY WATSON MOUNDSVILLE — It is a new era for girls track and field at John Marshall High School as one Derrow has moved on and another taken over the Monarchs’ program. With Brett Wysocki turning over the reins to the program first-year coach Lisa Derrow, however, her tenure begins without four-year standout, and current Marshall University athlete, Torie Derrow. Torie Derrow was a two-time Captain of the All-Valley track team, leading the Valley with a 5 feet, 8 inches leap in the high just last year while also helping the John Marshall shuttle-hurdle-relay team to the ...

Monarchs Hoping to Regain Throne

By CODY TOMER GLEN DALE — Spring has not gone according to plan for long-time baseball coach Bob Montgomery and his Monarchs. On March 1, the beautiful baseball field at John Marshall was flooded and the work to fix it up for the season is still ongoing, but Montgomery knows that the Monarchs will get their field back and it will be better than ever. “Our kids are hanging in there,” Montgomery said. “They are resilient. We will probably have to play a lot of our early games in the season on the road until the field is playable but the kids are anxious to play. “We have ...