AVON PARK — Dedication and commitment go hand-in-hand in the sporting world, and in diving, Avon Park's Heather Barnes displayed an abundance of both during her senior season. Barnes limped into diving her sophomore year — something to keep her in shape for softball — but walks out of the sport her senior year as the 2007 Highlands Today All-Heartland Girls Diver of the Year. "This [honor] validates all the hard work and training I put in this year," Barnes said. "People can see me now as something other than for playing softball." ...more

January 3, 2008

AVON PARK — Jeremy Machia's labor of love is a few tons of manicured dirt. And he likes nothing more than watching folks make a mess of it. The track director at Highlands BMX got hooked on bicycle racing at a young age, and more than 25 years later, Machia enjoys playing in the dirt more than ever. "Normally, we're out two or three times a week, hand-shaping jumps," he said. "We're not using heavy equipment, so it's a lot of fine-tuning." Much of that meticulous work is done to ready the track for weekly races that draw riders from Highlands County and beyond. And while most tracks are closed around the Christmas holiday, Machia's welcoming racers from across the state this weekend to grab some last minute points in order to qualify for the upcoming Sunshine State BMX's Florida state championships. He never knows how many riders will show up until race day, but Machia said up to 100 racers of all skill levels cold descend on the Avon Park track, which is known around the state as the fastest in Florida. ...more

December 21, 2007

TAMPA - A Palm Harbor man died Sunday in a traffic crash near Raymond James Stadium after being thrown off his motorcycle, police said. ...more

December 17, 2007

One team from Tampa routinely dominates. It approaches nearly every shift as if it were the final seconds of a tied playoff game. It hits, it scores timely goals, it gets All-Star caliber goaltending. ...more

December 9, 2007

The nurse named Ann asked Shane Kingery a question he had already asked himself during the time he'd spent in Kenya doing mission work last summer. ...more

November 28, 2007

This may be Thanksgiving week, but the Thrashers were gift-wrapped an early Christmas victory Monday. ...more

November 20, 2007

The last time these teams met, Largo dominated and didn't allow East Lake to score. In Friday night's playoff game, East Lake scored, but Largo still dominated, winning 19-7 to advance in the Class 5A playoffs. ...more

November 17, 2007

Check back for regular scoring updates. ...more

November 17, 2007

It took the Lightning 366 minutes, 39 seconds to gain their first lead on the road this season. They held it for all of 179 seconds Monday and never got it back, dropping their seventh consecutive game on the road and losing their fifth consecutive overall with a 4-3 setback to Florida. ...more

November 6, 2007

Lightning D Shane O'Brien scored his third and fourth career NHL goals Saturday in a 6-4 loss to Atlanta, six days short of the one-year anniversary of his most recent goal. ...more

November 4, 2007