Sports and Outdoors

 Lake Info

Normal Lake Level is 322.00 feet above Mean Sea Level.
Current level for Cedar Creek Lake is: 322.00
Water Temperature:
62 degrees - top
62 degrees - bottom

Football, volleyball practices begin
By Kerry Yancey
Monitor Staff Writer
CEDAR CREEK LAKE–Never mind that it’s 104 degrees in the shade. It’s time for football.
Area football and volleyball players kick off two-a-day practices for the fall season Monday morning.
Football players will be starting early – some very early, at least for those of us who haven’t been teenagers for quite some time – in a bid to avoid some of the August heat.
Volleyball players, who compete inside, won’t be starting quite so early, but they’ll have scrimmages starting right away.
The Eustace Lady Bulldogs will host a number of teams, including Mabank and Athens, in a round-robin volleyball scrimmage opening at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 8, while the Kemp Lady Yellowjackets will be hosting Mildred for a scrimmage Friday, opening at 10 a.m. with a freshman match.
All three local teams will continue scrimmages Saturday, Aug. 9, as Mabank heads to Wills Point, Kemp hosts Kerens and Eustace hosts both Athens and Malakoff. All three scrimmages open at 10 a.m. with freshman contests.
Kemp’s Lady ’Jackets open practice at 8 a.m. Monday at Yellowjacket Stadium, where they’ll be doing some running before hitting the weight room.
After closing for a break at 12:30 p.m., the Lady Jackets will resume practices from 2-4:30 p.m. under coach Peggy Swierc.
At Eustace, veteran coach Chuck Powers will be holding practices from 8-11 a.m. and return for a second round from noon to 2 p.m.
In Mabank, coach Stacy Shelton – who is looking to rebuild after losing 12 of 14 players on last year’s back-to-back district champion squad to graduation – will hold morning practices from 9 a.m. to noon, and return from 2-4 p.m.
Official matches begin Tuesday, Aug. 12, for all three teams, as Mabank hosts Wills Point and Ennis in a dual match, Kemp will host Brownsboro and Eustace will travel to Grand Saline for a dual match against the hosting Lady Indians and the Malakoff Lady Tigers.
Mabank’s football Panthers will be looking to remain competitive in a brand-new district after being bumped up to Class 4A in February’s UIL realignment.
Back in November, 2005, the last time the Panthers were in 4A, they had a shot at making the third-place playoff spot in one of the strongest 4A districts in the state.
In the final game, they dropped a 42-41 decision to hosting Lancaster in double overtime, which is about as close to making the playoffs as one could get.
To beat the heat, the Panthers will open practice at 6:30 a.m., and continue (with a break) until noon.
Kemp’s Yellowjackets, who will be looking to better last year’s 1-9 mark with most of that very young team returning, will start nearly as early, 7 a.m., and will continue until 12:30 a.m., with a break around 9 a.m. or so.
Kemp freshmen will open practice at 9:30 a.m. Monday.
At Eustace, the Bulldogs will be hoping to build on last year’s successes when they open practice at 7 a.m.
The Bulldogs will take a break at 8:45 a.m. and resume practice at 10 before wrapping up the morning’s workouts at 11:45.
Football players will be practicing in shorts and T-shirts until Friday, when they can don pads for the first time.


Monitor Photo/Kerry Yancey
Incoming Mabank Junior High seventh-grader
Tarynn Pool bumps the ball Monday during a
drill at the Mabank High School volleyball camp.
Approximately 80 seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade
girls turned out for the camp, which wound up Friday.