Horse Racing in Central Kentucky

Addyson Adkins| April 2024

This year’s Kentucky Derby is right around the corner, coming up on the first Saturday of May. Leading up to the derby each year is the Keeneland Spring meet. This past weekend was the opening weekend of the Keeneland Spring meet. Opening weekend at Keeneland had a total of 10 stakes races with purses that were worth all the way to 4.7 million dollars. A purse in horse racing is the amount of money that a race is worth which is split between the horses, their trainer, and their jockey based on where the horse finished the race. Not only can horses win the race, but they can also win for best turnouts. Best turnouts include the horses who look and present the cleanest, who have their manes well combed, the jockey clean and presentable, and so forth. So maybe your favorite horse didn’t win the race for speed but they could’ve won for the best turnout. As for some Derby background, we start the Triple Crown here in Kentucky at Churchill Downs. The second leg is in Baltimore for the Preakness race and ends in New York for the final race, The Belmont. It is rare that a horse will win all three, however, that doesn’t go to say it’s never happened because it has! Most recently, American Pharoah won all three triple crown races, along with the Breeders Cup, which has never happened before. Here in Central Kentucky at Keeneland, we have a perfect race track for all ages! We have a kids club for families who would like to enjoy the race but maybe the littles aren’t patient enough, we got you covered. That on top of how beautiful Keeneland is. We have flowers blooming at all times of the year, a beautiful staircase and a stone wall entrance, perfect for family photos. Not only is this the perfect place for the whole family but it is so much fun to watch the horses run, regardless of their age. The teenagers can walk around and enjoy the views, while the older adults can place bets and compete for their favorite horses. No matter the occasion, Keeneland is perfect for horse racing and we are so happy that we have all of this in the heart of Kentucky, the Thoroughbred capital of the world. 

Hidden Pearl

Amaya Duncan| March 2024

Caitlin Clark and Pearl Moore are currently the talk of the NCAA news due to a small miscalculation. Clark has been crowned as the highest-scoring female in the league, which isn’t factual. Pearl Moore is a 60-year-old retired point guard who played for a small school called Francis Marion University in her hometown of Florence, South Carolina. Pearl played in a league called the Association For Intercollegiate Athletics For Women or the AIAW for short. Ms. Moore was a staggering 5 ‘7 and led her team to many championships in her four years of playing. Moore grew up in a time when there wasn’t as broad of a support base for women in the sports industry as there was for men. Although history tried to overlook her, Moore holds third place for the most scored points in history. Among the list with Moore, in second place, is Phillip Hutches who played for the University of Tennessee between the years of 1986-1990, scoring 4,106 points. In first place is John Peirce who also played for Tennessee University earning 4,230 points from 1990-1994, according to the https://fmupatriots.com/ sports website. Pearl was a woman in the 70’s who earned respect for her astounding time on the court. She was extremely passionate about the game. Pearl’s hometown of South Carolina opened up a gym named after her, in order to commemorate Pearl’s perseverance that should be remembered for many more decades to come. Pearl says in an interview with ABC 15 News, that records are meant to be broken, she reasons that her record was set 40 years ago and she can’t hold it forever. She thanks Caitlain for helping her get the proper recognition for her school, team, and most specifically, the record itself. The recognition that they wouldn’t have gotten had it not been for her. Although Pearl deserves the crown for currently having the most scored NCAA points, someday she’ll have to pass it on even if it isn’t Caitlain. Pearl just shows her amazing character and sportsmanship about the situation, seeming proud of Caitlin, a young woman in the same field as she was all those years ago. Clark and Moore may not share the same score but they both share a love and passion for the game. This situation just goes to show how many times history has been swept under the rug, sometimes just because people don’t wanna see or acknowledge it. Pearl and her team of 75-79 are just one example of how things, people, and accomplishments are forgotten. Pearl is an astounding woman who deserves the recognition and title that is being handed to Caitlin. You could read this article and countless others and think what you want but just keep in mind that Pearl believes that your score being passed is inevitable and it doesn’t mean you should be forgotten, it just shows how sports and their players have evolved over the years. It’s been 45 years since Pearl has played and it’s incredible to see how long it’s taken for someone to come close. So, as Pearl said in https://wpde.com/news/local/florence-basketball-legend-broken-long-standing-record-hall-of-famer-pearl-moore-womens-sports-total-points-caitlin-clark-competition-francis-marion-south-carolina-february-2024 “ …So records are meant to be broken and if she does it, good for her.”

2024 Spring Sports

Addyson Adkins & Kennedi Black| February 2024

In the upcoming months, our winter sports will come to an end and our spring sports will start back up! Everyone loves our spring sports and at Scott County we take athletics very seriously. The spring sports lineup this year is our lacrosse season, boys and girls, track and field, boys and girls, baseball, as well as our softball team, and tennis. For some context, we’ll run through all of our spring sports and what they’re about! For starters, Lacrosse for boys and girls are two completely different things! So lets talk about it. Lacrosse for boys is played by a team of ten people: three attackmen, three midfielders, three defensemen, and one goalie. One game is usually 60 minutes and is divided up into four periods in fifteen minutes of duration. Each team must have four players in the defense zone, and three in the offense zone, both of which are divided by a white line. Girls lacrosse is similar to boys lacrosse with the only differences being in the uniforms and style. Girls’ uniforms are skirts, instead of the shorts the boys wear, and the girls’ game is less physical which means they are not allowed brutal checks, which in boys lacrosse is when you take your stick and try to get the ball by smacking the opponents stick. They are allowed to smack to stick but not the person’s body. The only other difference that is mentioned is the start of the game, face-off where the boys fight for the ball on the ground and the girls fight for the ball standing. Track and field is another one of our spring sports that is popular! Track is composed of a series of events that you are grades on duration, and length. There is the 100-meter, which is an all-out sprint that is the shortest event that can take place. They start in a position where their body is lowered down in starter blocks, so they don’t slip when the gun goes off. After the gun goes off, they sprint until they reach the finish line. The 200-meter is more of speed and endurance where you’re still in a sprint but it places more emphasis on endurance than the 100. The 400-meter is an endurance sprint where athletes start on a starting block and they start on the curve, staggered, and end on the straightway. The 800-meter is the shortest middle-distance race and it is two laps around the track that requires excellent endurance and a strong finish for speed. The Mile is like the 800 meter but requires more endurance. The two mile is the longest track event that we have in high school. It is two full laps around the track. 100-meter hurdles for girls is a full sprint while jumping ten barriers placed on the straightway. For boys, they have an extra 10 meters, making it a 110-meter hurdle, with the same ten barriers. 300-meter hurdles require someone with the speed from a sprinter, the strength from an 800-meter athlete, and the skill of a 110-110 meter hurdler. It starts on a stager, they hurdle eight barriers, over 300 meters and finish on the straightway. 4×200 is a relay race where you have four runners, each running a leg of the race, connected by a baton. For choosing the legs, you combine who the fastest runners were from the previous race times. The 4×100 relay is where each of the four people run 100 meters and it adds to 400 meters combined by the baton handoff. The handoff is super important in this relay because they are traveling extremely fast and only have a small space to do the handoff. Also, if they drop it or it is sloppy, they can lose the race. The 4×400 relay is usually the most anticipated because you get to see each team’s best sprint endurance athletes work to finish four laps in time for the last race. The baton handoff isn’t as cruical, but still important because there is a small space in each of the meters that it must be handed off. Our field events are just as important and cover so many other things. Shot put is where the athlete pushes a metal ball as far as possible. Boys use a twelve-pound shot and the girls use an 8.8 pound-shot. They start in a circle, then hold the shot near their shoulder and they put it as far as they can from the edge of the circle into a designated area. A discus is when the athlete throws a weighted disc as far as possible from a circle into a sector that is beyond the circle. Pole vault is when an athlete uses a long flexi pole to leap over a bar. They run down a straight runway, then uses that momentum to spring from the bar over the pole onto a mat. High jump is when athletes jump over a horizontal bar that is between two standards. The athlete is trying to jump higher than their other competitors. They have three different attempts to clear a specified height without moving the bar from the stands. Then they are given three other chances to jump the next height until they fail. Their highest jump will be the last to count. The long jump is where you would use an athlete who can conjure up the strength, speed, and agility to jump as far as possible. They run down a straight runway and leap from behind a line as far as possible into a sandpit. Then you finally have the triple jump which is where an athlete combines their speed, strength, and the agility to jump, just like in the long jump, but at the end of the runway, before the jump, they commit a hop, bound then the jump into the sandpit. The hop must be on the same foot then the bound must be on the other foot. Keep a close eye on these athletes during the track and field season. Coach Monty let the cat out of the bag for who t,o look out for this track and field season. Bryce Alan Thornsbury, Ayden martin for hurdles, Ellis Huguely, Buddy Collins for sprinting, Jala Trent for jumping, Claire Inabinet for sprinting, Elijah Lilly, Andrew Hickey for jumping, Jaiden Lazarin for distance, and Timmy Emongo for upcoming. Baseball season is coming up! To summarize our baseball season, our baseball team usually plays against another team, each usually composed with 9 players of which take turns playing offense, batting and baserunning, and defense, pitching and fielding, a pair of turns, one at one bat and one at the field. The game is divided into nine innings, each of which are divided by two halves. In the top half of the inning, one team comes up to bat to try to score runs, while the other stays in the field in attempts to get the ball and get it to base to strike out a player from getting their run to count. There are four bases, first, second, third, and home base, where you go up to bat. If the batter swings and makes it to all the bases and then gets back to home base without being touched by the pitcher with the ball. For our ladies we have our spring softball! As to our baseball team, softball is very very similar. Softball is played by 2 teams, 9 players on each team whose object of the game is to score more runs than their opponent team by rounding their bases and crossing home base as many times as possible. The batting team stays up to bat until the fielding team puts out 3 batters. 

Girls Basketball Upcoming Season

Camaryn Douglas| October 2023

Coach Helton feels very confident about this basketball season. He said “I absolutely love this team. They have just started the season and they are already doing amazing.” He talks about how he loves the energy they bring and he’s looking forward to this season. He is fully stressing to the team to be a star in their role. “We’re bringing positive energy to the locker room which will hopefully transfer to the court.” He has been the head coach for the girls basketball team for 25 years and he was the boys assistant coach for 3 years so in total 28 years of coaching. He used to play for the all-time winningest basketball coach Billy Hicks, he then went to Alice Lloyd and Sue Bennett College with a scholarship. 2 years later he ended his career at Union due to a knee injury. The biggest upcoming event is the Billy Hicks Classic, which used to be called the Toyota Classic. There will be 8 girl teams and 8 boy teams. It’s during the 2nd week of December. They play 30 games (varsity) and then there are district games which are hosted at Henry Clay this year. Their toughest district games will be Douglass, Bryan Station, Henry Clay, and Sayre. He said, “It’s going to be a very difficult road ahead.” Coach Helton is also an assistant principal here at Scott County High School and he’s our athletic director. He’s married to Mrs. Helton, who is our P.E. teacher. She’s also the girls assistant coach. They have a son Colton Helton. He is a freshman here at Scott County and he plays for the boys basketball team!

A Fourth-and-One Kind of Confidence

Carly Allen, Nathan Hinojosa & Brooke Hamilton| September 2023

We sat down with Coach McKee to talk about our football team and how they have persevered and pushed to do well this season! As I’m sure many of you know, one of the star players this year, Senior JaSante Harmon, was injured in the first game. McKee says he was one of the best players on the team, and his injury is upsetting, but the team will learn to adjust over the season. To prepare our players for the game days, the team has a systematic 12-month process. When the season finishes, they have a plan that begins long before they return to school as they put in work conditioning through the summer. Even before our players get to high school, Coach McKee attends local middle school games and supports his potential future players. He also shows his gratitude for the coaches of the younger teams in this way. “They do an excellent job of coaching the boys,” Coach mentions.

Of course, we had to ask if our Cards or our coach had any superstitions for games. Coach always wears his letterman jacket in the first round of the playoffs, even though he doesn’t wear it besides that. On any team, the coach sets the tone. If your coach doesn’t have ambition and passion, it’s hard to want to play. He says, “You’ve got to find your passion, and my biggest thing is using my experience to help the players find their passion.” This year is Coach McKee’s 32nd year of coaching and 27th year at Scott County High School! That’s commitment! He says football has always been his passion since he played in high school and college. Coach McKee loves Scott County High and is sure he always will. There is speculation that he doesn’t own any casual clothing that doesn’t sport the SCHS brand. He believes in the team deeply, thinks they have a great chance of making it to state this year, and predicts an overall successful season.