Russell’s spiral is a beauty

ANOTHER THREE-WEEK summer
workout period has come and
gone, leaving us to wonder what’s
in store come August?
    A couple of observations:
    Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, throws the deep ball like Morgantown High quarterback Charlie Russell. It is poetry in motion as it dances in the air with the tightest of spiral before coming back down to earth.
    I would go as far to say that Russell throws the deep ball better at this stage of his prep career than former Nitro star J.R. House.
    Now, I’m not saying Russell is the second coming of Dan Marino, but I think there’s a good shot for him to perform well at the next level.
    Going into next basketball season, I really thought the University High boys’ team was ready to jump up and win the regional, but I have to say this new bunch of varsity kids over at MHS have been very impressive.
    Elliot Law, J.T. Lewis and Derek Long are three guys you’re going to hear about a lot over the next two seasons. By the way, Lewis and Long appear to be heading for a nice football season, as well.
    It will be interesting to see the two teams meet up and don’t forget the other side of the regional has Wheeling Park and a muchimproved Brooke team. Region I could be the toughest regional in the state next season.
    As for the Hawks, word from their camp is people better get ready for Grant Meadows, who has shown vast improvement from last season.
    I admit, I was one person who believed incoming freshman benefit more from playing on freshman teams rather than being bumped up to varsity.
    That was until a conversation with University High girls’ basketball coach Kamela Meikle, who has a nice group of incoming freshman this season.
    “You play freshman ball and you get four quarters a night,” Meikle said. “You move them up to varsity and they play on the JV team, they practice with the varsity and they could get five quarters a night.”
    When you think about it, just working against tougher competition day in and day out in practice probably is more beneficial even if they don’t play in a varsity game.
    Can’t take credit for this story, as it comes from Dan Shrensky, a former sportswriter her at The Dominion Post.
    Turns out Dan has a nephew in the Coast Guard stationed in Miami, who on the side plays in an adult recreation basketball league.
    He shows up for a game, probably thinking about how many points he’s going to score ... that was until he saw who was on the other team.
    Tim Hardaway and Glen Rice.
    I’ve heard of ringers before, but you’ve got to be kidding me.
    “Right after the tip, they probably were just playing to pad stats,” Shrensky joked.
    Not that there was much padding to be done, they lost 145-37.
    OK, what do we have as far as state championship material this upcoming high school year?
    It’s important to note here the first state title will either come from the MHS or Preston High girls’ cross country team. No other schools in the state will even come close and there’s a chance that both teams will be ranked nationally sometime during the season.
    The MHS football team has a shot to repeat, but also expect Class AAA to be a little down overall around the state from year’s past.
    The MHS girls’ basketball team could repeat, if it can get by the Hawks ... both teams will probably be preseason ranked in the top 3.
JUSTIN JACKSON covers high school sports for The Dominion Post. Reach him at jjackson@dominionpost.com