By PATRICK CASEY
Tallahassee Chiles reached the Class 5A baseball championship game but fell short of the title as they were defeated 13-3 by South Fork High School. Port St. Joe lost the Class 2A state semi-final to Jacksonville Providence 5-3.
Marianna lost to Dothan Northview 15-8 in their spring football game. Tre Jackson scored the lone touchdown for the Bulldogs on a 40-yard run in the first quarter, but Marianna was kept off the scoreboard for the final three periods.
Heather Bell has been named the new girls basketball coach at Pensacola Catholic High School. Bell succeeds Ron Robison, who died May 6 after a lengthy bout with cancer. She was Robison’s top assistant the past three seasons and she played for Jim Sessions during her career. Bell was one of Catholic’s senior stars in 1999 when the team reached the state championship game. Bell’s younger sister, M.C. Bell, 17, will be one of the players she will coach next season as the squad tries to bounce back from being beaten by Walton in the district championship game last season.
Chipola College will soon begin a search for a new men’s basketball coach following the departure of coach Greg Heiar, who accepted an assistant coaching job with Southern Mississippi last week. Heiar had a tremendously successful run during his five years as head coach, winning 164 games, five Panhandle Conference championships and four state titles.
Troy coach Larry Blakeney was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday. He has been with the Trojans for 19 seasons.
The Southeastern Conference will distribute approximately $132.5 million to the 12 league institutions in the revenue sharing plan for the 2008-2009 fiscal year, which ends Aug. 31, 2009, according to league commissioner Mike Slive. The $132.5 million is the highest total ever distributed in SEC history and represents a four percent increase from the $127.6 million distributed to the schools in 2007-2008. The revenue sharing plans include money generated by football television, bowls, the SEC Football Championship, basketball television, the SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament and NCAA Championships. Broken down by categories and rounded off, the $132.5 million was derived from $52 million from football television, $25.4 million from bowls, $14.3 million from the SEC Football Championship, $13.6 million from basketball television, $4.1 million from the SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament and $23.1 million from NCAA Championships. The average amount distributed to each school was $11.1 million. Not included in the $132.5 million was $11.6 million retained by the institutions participating in bowls and $744,000 divided among all 12 institutions by the NCAA for academic enhancement.
Troy University has signed a deal to play a two-year series with Navy in college football in 2011 and 2012. The Trojans will travel to Annapolis to play on November 12, 2011, with the Midshipmen to return to visit and play at Movie Gallery Veterans Stadium on November 10, 2012. Both games will be played in conjunction with the Veterans Day holiday and the 2012 game will be played on the 237th anniversary of the creation of the United States Marine Corps by the Continental Congress.
The Georgia-Oklahoma State football game in Stillwater on Saturday, September 5, will be televised by ABC with the broadcast set to begin at 2:30 p.m., Central time.
Contact Patrick Casey at The DeFuniak Herald with your local sports notes at: heraldsports@aol.com.