For the second time in as many years, Christian County will begin the search for a new boys basketball coach. Tyler Smithhart will be officially introduced at a news conference this morning as the new coach at his alma mater, Henderson County High School.

Smithhart was an assistant under former Colonel head coach Kerry Stovall before leading the Colonels to a 9-22 record this season and a berth into the semifinals of the 2^nd region tournament. Smithhart replaces Mark Starns, whose contract was not renewed by the school after five seasons.

Another high school coach who got his start in Western Kentucky is leaving one of the top programs in Louisville. Jason Couch, who began his career at Greenwood High in Bowling Green, is leaving Louisville Eastern to become the new coach at Shelby County.

According to the Courier Journal, Couch was 206-83 in his tenure at Eastern, winning three Louisville Invitational Tournament titles and made two state tournament appearances in 2009 and 2011, where the heavily favored Eagles lost to eventual state champion Christian County in the semi finals.

WHOP Sports has learned Hopkinsville High girls basketball player Christy Soldo is slated to announce Monday her plans to play collegiately for Murray State. The Kentucky All Star will make her announcement at 1 pm at Hopkinsville High.

High School Baseball: University Heights goes to Lyon County, Christian County is at Henderson County, Hopkinsville hosts senior night against Crittenden County, Todd Central hosts Edmonson County, Trigg County welcomes Russellville, Logan County at Allen County Scottsville, Caldwell County at Marshall County, Madisonville at Whitesville Trinity, Webster County hosts Union County.

High School Softball:   Christian County at Henderson County, Hopkinsville at Livingston Central, University Heights travels to Mayfield, Fort Campbell hosts Madisonville in a doubleheader, Trigg County at Logan County, Dawson Springs hosts Todd Central, Lyon County entertains Webster County.

High School Tennis: Both boys and girls play continued Wednesday at the 2^nd region tournament being held at Ruff Park. Hopkinsville’s Grey Campbell advanced to the boys singles semifinals today with a win Wednesday. In boys doubles, the University Heights team of Gordon Kaye and Blake Edmonson moved to the semi finals today.

Girls singles saw Hopkinsville’s Mallory Perkins win two matches to move to the semi finals today. Semi final and finals matches begin at 4:45 today.

Pairings for the 8^th district baseball and softball tournaments to be played at Christian County High School May 21-23 were announced Wednesday.

Baseball:   Monday May 21^st at 5:30 Hopkinsville plays Fort Campbell, with Christian County to meet University Heights at 8 pm.

The championship game will be played Wednesday May 23^rd at 7:30 pm.

Softball: Tuesday May 22^nd at 5:30 Christian County plays Fort Campbell, with University Heights playing Hopkinsville at 7:30 pm.

The championship game will be played Wednesday May 23^rd at 5:30.

Admission for the games is $5 for everyone and fans are asked use the Glass Avenue entrance at Christian County High School for parking.

All games in the 8^th district tournaments will be broadcast on Newstalk 95.3 FM/1230 AM WHOP and whopam.com.

District 5’s softball and baseball tournament pairings have been announced. Softball begins Monday May 21^st with Trigg County meeting Livingston Central at 5, followed by host Lyon County taking on Crittenden County at 7. The championship game will be May 22^nd at 6 pm.

The baseball tournament also begins May 21^st with Crittenden County meeting Lyon County at 5, followed by Trigg County and Livingston Central at 7:30. The championship game will be May 22^nd at 6 pm.

Western Kentucky University has removed the interim tag from Todd Stewart and has named him the school’s athletics director. Stewart replaces Ross Bjork, who recently resigned to become the athletics director at Ole Miss.

Stewart came to Western in 2008 after serving as associate commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference. He had served as senior associate athletics director and two years as associate athletics director of communications and media relations. Stewart will be officially introduced at a news conference this morning.

College Softball:   Former Christian County standout Griffin Joiner has received All Freshman honors from the Southeastern Conference. Kentucky begins play in the SEC tournament today against Georgia at 4 this afternoon in Tuscaloosa, AL. The game will be televised on ESPN U.

Christian County will be searching for a new boys’ basketball coach for the second straight year. WHOP Sports has learned Tyler Smithart will be leaving after one season to become the new head coach at Henderson County.

Smithart, who played his high school basketball at Henderson County, replaces Mark Starns, whose contract was not renewed after five seasons. Smithart was 9-22 in his lone season as Christian County coach, after serving four seasons as an assistant to former Colonel coach Kerry Stovall. Before coming to Christian County, Smithart served as an assistant one season at Lexington Henry Clay.

Pairings for the 8^th district baseball and softball tournaments to be played at Christian County High School May 21-23 were announced today.

Baseball:   Monday May 21^st at 5:30 Hopkinsville plays Fort Campbell, with Christian County to meet University Heights at 8 pm.

The championship game will be played Wednesday May 23^rd at 7:30 pm.

Softball: Tuesday May 22^nd at 5:30 Christian County plays Fort Campbell, with University Heights playing Hopkinsville at 7:30 pm.

The championship game will be played Wednesday May 23^rd at 5:30.

Admission for the games is $5 for everyone and fans are asked use the Glass Avenue entrance at Christian County High School for parking.

All games in the 8^th district tournaments will be broadcast on Newstalk 95.3 FM/1230 AM WHOP and whopam.com.

WHOP Sports has learned Hopkinsville High girls basketball player Christy Soldo is slated to announce Monday her plans to play collegiately for Murray State. The Kentucky All Star will make her announcement at 1 pm at Hopkinsville High.

College Basketball: WPSD reports Murray State has offered a basketball scholarship to 6-1 point guard Isaiah Williams of Buford, Georgia. Williams, who will graduate high school in 2013, is reportedly very interested in the Racers. Williams’ high school coach says he also has offers from Ole Miss, Chattanooga, Northeastern, Jacksonville, Coastal Carolina, Fairfield and Boston University.

Kentucky Sports Radio.com reports Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari offered Wright State University transfer Julius Mays a scholarship Tuesday. It was reported Kentucky’s interest in Mays is “high”. Mays said he was honored by the offer, but is also still looking at Purdue, Michigan State, Illinois and Pittsburgh as well.

Major League Baseball this afternoon has Chicago meeting Atlanta, with Cincinnati at Milwaukee. St. Louis plays at Arizona this evening.

Two games in the NBA playoffs tonight have New York at Miami where the Heat lead 3-1 and Memphis hosts the LA Clippers with the Clippers leading three games to one.

One game in the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs has the New York Rangers at Washington where the Rangers lead 3-2.

The Courier Journal reports four time Country Music Association female vocalist of the year Martina McBride will sing the national anthem at this year’s Indianapolis 500. McBride says singing the anthem at Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a huge honor. The race is scheduled for May 27.

Television viewership for the Kentucky Derby was up this year. NBC announced Tuesday Saturday’s race earned a 9.0 rating and a 20 share, which is up 6 percent from a year ago. 15-1 long shot I’ll Have Another got by favorite Bodemeister to win the first leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown. The Preakness Stakes will be held in Baltimore May 19^th.

High School Baseball:   Christian County wrapped up the number two seed for the upcoming 8^th district tournament with its second consecutive 2-0 win over University Heights. Three errors for the Blazers lead to the two Christian County runs, with another stellar pitching performance by John Michael Kelly, who held the Blazers to four hits. Christian County is now 16-17 and wraps up district play 4-2, while UHA is 7-17/2-4 in closing out district play.

Elsewhere: Trigg County over Caldwell County 12-7, Logan County defeated Todd Central 12-2, Dawson Springs won a slugfest over Lyon County 14-10, Crittenden County won over Fort Campbell 12-10, Webster County edged Madisonville 3-2.

High School Softball:   Christian County defeated Livingston Central 11-4, Hopkinsville over Caldwell County 5-3, University Heights edged Murray 5-4, Todd Central over Logan County 9-0, Hopkins Central over Apollo 9-3, Madisonville over Union County 5-0.

High School Tennis:   2^nd region boys play began at Ruff Park Tuesday, with Hopkinsville’s Grey Campbell advancing to the quarterfinals in singles play Thursday, while the Hopkinsville doubles team of Casey and McClain advanced to the quarters as did the UHA doubles team of Gordon Kaye and Blake Edmondson. Action continues with girls play this afternoon.

The 8^th district softball and baseball tournament pairings are being announced this morning in a meeting at Christian County High School. We’ll have full details on this story later this morning.

University Heights Academy basketball player Quadre White signed with Mid Continent University Tuesday. He is the second local basketball player to sign with MCU, joining Darius White of Hopkinsville and his cousin Vontrae Lewis—who played soccer for Christian County who will also head to MCU this fall.

Hopkinsville High junior basketball player Jordan Majors is one of 18 selected to the Kentucky Junior All Star team by the Kentucky Lions Eye Foundation. Majors averaged 16 points in leading the Tigers to the 2^nd region championship last season.   Majors will play for the Kentucky Blue team June 4^th in Lexington against the Kentucky Seniors squad. The Junior team will play a second game against the Kentucky Seniors in Louisville June 6^th, with 12 of the 18 juniors to play Indiana’s Juniors in a two game series June 15-16.

College Basketball:   The New York Times reports the NCAA is investigating Kentucky basketball signee Nerlens Noel.   The newspaper reports two members of the NCAA enforcement staff went to Everett High School in Massachusetts, where Noel went his first two years before transferring to the Tilton School in New Hampshire.

Everett High principal Louis Baldi says he met with investigators for about 75 minutes, but did not get into specifics of what was discussed.

The Courier Journal reports Louisville and Indiana may play each other in the 2013-14 season. The teams have not played since 2003, with Indiana holding a 10-6 advantage in the all time series.

The Tennessean reports Vanderbilt has received a transfer from Tulsa. Eric McClellan will sit out this season and have three years of eligibility remaining. McClellan chose Vandy over several schools including Baylor, Texas A & M and Gonzaga. McClellan averaged 8.5 points per game this past season for the Golden Hurricanes.

University of Kentucky women’s coach Matthew Mitchell announced Tuesday the hiring of former Illinois State assistant Danielle Santos. Santos replaces Kyra Elzy, who left the school last month to return to her alma mater Tennessee as an assistant.

College Football: The Bowling Green Daily News reports two of Western Kentucky University's Sun Belt Conference football games this fall will be televised by ESPN U. The first will be October 11th when the Hilltoppers play at Troy University, with air time at 6:30 pm. The second will be on November 1st when Middle Tennessee comes to Bowling Green for a game which airs at 8:15 pm.

The Bowling Green Daily News reports two of Western Kentucky University's Sun Belt Conference football games this fall will be televised by ESPN U. The first will be October 11th when the Hilltoppers play at Troy University, with air time at 6:30 pm. The second will be on November 1st when Middle Tennessee comes to Bowling Green for a game which airs at 8:15 pm.

Game time for tonight’s Christian County-University Heights baseball game at Colonel Field has been changed. The game will start at 5:30 this evening, with the Heritage Bank pre game show at 5:15 on Newstalk 95.3 FM/1230 AM WHOP and whopam.com.

Sources tell WHOP Sports former Warren Central basketball coach Tim Riley is to interview today for the head coaching vacancy at Henderson County. Riley was an assistant coach for Western Kentucky’s women’s basketball program last season after a successful high school coaching career.

Riley won 307 games over 21 seasons. During his 14 seasons at Warren Central, Riley took the Dragons to eight state tournaments, winning the 2004 championship and finishing as runner up in 2005.

Kentucky Sports Radio.com reports when NASCAR comes to Sparta, Kentucky June 29-30, Michael Waltrip plans to drive a car dedicated to Kentucky basketball’s 8^th national championship. The two time Daytona 500 winner will either drive the car in the Nationwide event or the Sprint Cup Quaker State 400.

University of Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart told Kentucky Sports Radio.com for an interview to air later this week on KSTV he is confident there will be a marquee non conference game in Rupp Arena in the 2012-13 basketball season. Last week, Indiana announced it was ending its series with UK, as did North Carolina at least for one season.

Jockey Robby Albarado pleaded not guilty to a domestic violence charge in Jefferson District Court this morning. Albarado was arrested on a warrant Friday morning and was not allowed to ride his mount for the Kentucky Oaks last Friday or any races on Derby Day.

Churchill Downs stewards suspended Albarado indefinitely and he cannot race again until he goes before the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission’s license review committee. A jury trial is scheduled for July 18^th, with Albarado’s attorney telling the Courier Journal he is confident Albarado will be exonerated.

A full slate of games in Major League Baseball this evening includes Atlanta at the Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati at Milwaukee and St. Louis at Arizona.

Four games in the NBA playoffs tonight in which the teams leading the series can wrap them up. Orlando is at Indiana leading 3-1, Boston at Atlanta where the Celtics lead 3-1, Philadelphia takes a 3-1 to Chicago and the LA Lakers host Denver leading 3-1.

One game in the Stanley Cup playoffs tonight has New Jersey at Philadelphia with the Devils leading the series 3-1.