Here's what's on my mind.
• Just like Mother Nature wreaked havoc in the winter with snow and ice, she's up to her old tricks in the spring as well. As of press time, Tuesday's baseball doubleheader with Springdale Har-Ber and Siloam Springs was pushed back to today at 4:30 p.m. at James Butts Baseball Complex. Today's softball game with Springdale Har-Ber was originally supposed to be played last Thursday and got rained out, then postponed to Monday and got rained out again.
If you are a sports fan living in Northwest Arkansas, the best thing you can have in the spring is patience and flexibility. Rarely has a spring gone by without an over-abundance of rainouts, snowouts, and yet many beautiful days go by with nothing scheduled. It's almost cruel irony.
• Somehow there was a pair of soccer games played Monday at Glenn W. Black Stadium as Siloam Springs hosted Van Buren in a pair of nonconference matches. They'll play again May 8 in their conference games at Van Buren.
Here's a few thoughts on how those games turned out.
First, the Siloam Springs girls are going to be a better team than their end-of-the-season record will indicate.
In fact this team is probably good enough to win a state championship if it can ever find a way to score goals consistently. The Lady Panthers play a brutal conference schedule. Some of the best girls soccer in the state is played in the 7A/6A-West Conference.
Last year Siloam Springs went 2-5 in the league. This year it could be the same or worse, yet the Lady Panthers are better in a lot of areas and have some work to do in others. Sitting at 7-5 overall after Monday's win, I'm not sure the Lady Panthers can keep their record above .500 with the upcoming conference slate, including Bentonville on Friday.
The boys league is just as brutal as evidenced by last night's game in which Van Buren, which is regarded as the worst team in the league, nearly pulled off an upset.
The Panthers (7-3-1) rallied from a 4-2 deficit to salvage a 4-4 draw.
The Panthers' defensive backline struggled mightily in the game, and I don't know if field conditions played a part in that or not. The game was played in the rain in the first half, which made for a sloppy field in the second half after the rain stopped.
This year's boys team is going to have to work twice as hard as previous years to accomplish what it wants, and Monday's game should have been a wake-up call. The Panthers are a good team, but they are not as deep and not as strong all the way around as state championship squads in 2011, 2012 and state runner-up in 2013.
That's not a knock on the team by any means. Just simply calling it like I see it.
-- Graham Thomas is the managing editor for the Herald-Leader. He can be reached at [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
Sports on 04/09/2014