Sports Archive

Renee Hester didn’t flinch under pressure.

She stood at the plate in the seventh inning and swung the bat, sending the ball into the outfield for a game-winning, walk-off double that lifted Navarre’s softball team to a thrilling 5-4 win over Pensacola Catholic Thursday night.

Four records were broken, including two by Kamal Rustom, as Navarre rolled to a win in its own weightlifting invitational Wednesday night.

Rustom, who competes in the 154-pound weight class, was the pound for pound champion and set invitational records for clean and jerk and overall total. He was one of five lifters to win his respective weight class.

Abby Fogg was watching youth girls basketball one day over at NYSA and took notice of one of the players. That moment painted a picture of what Raider girls basketball has come to mean in Navarre.

“I complimented this little girl and her mother reached out and said ‘you just made her whole night,’” said Fogg, the head coach of the girls basketball team. “I was laughing because four years ago someone would have been like ‘oh that’s the girls basketball coach.’”

First-year Navarre head girls lacrosse coach Mackenzie Nicodemus saw positives in the way her team performed in its season opener against Niceville last Monday night.

Perhaps what stood out the most to Nicodemus was the fight her team showed even with it faced a deficit against Niceville at Bennett C. Russell Stadium.

Cailyn Cooke and Katie McLeod are only a few weeks removed from helping Navarre win a state championship in girls weightlifting.

Now the two junior standouts are seeing their involvement in that sport paying off in softball.

Caden Howard, Devin Wright and Eddie Love Jr. paved the way for Navarre at Saturday’s Wildcat Invitational in Pensacola.

Howard won the high jump, Wright claimed the discus crown and Love sprinted to a win in the 100-meter dash.

Trent Hall wondered what his future held back in the spring when he injured his knee in Navarre’s spring football game.

That unknown factor as well as the doubts have since transformed into certainty and confidence for Hall, who is back at it as an athlete, competing for the Raiders in weightlifting and track.

It wasn’t the easiest season for Navarre in boys soccer this year. The Raiders managed to win only three games during a season that had its share of challenges.

But last Tuesday night, three of the Navarre seniors, along with head coach James Baccarini, were together one more time for the Pensacola Sports Association All-Star Soccer Game at the Ashton Brosnaham Complex in Pensacola.

Midway through the first half of last Tuesday night’s Pensacola Sports All-Star Soccer Game last Tuesday night, Hunter Wallace did what she’s been doing throughout her career – finding the back of the net for a goal.

Wallace scored once and also dished out an assist as she helped lead the East team to a 5-1 win over the West on a cool March evening at the Ashton Brosnaham Complex in Pensacola.

Scan the roster of Navarre’s flag football team and a lot of the familiar names that were part of last season’s historic run to state are no longer on it.

A number of those players were seniors. Top scoring threat Rachel Leggett, meanwhile, isn’t returning for her senior season as she is focused in on track and her effort to win a state title in the high jump.