COACH OF THE YEAR

REED MENDOZA

SCHOOL Lincoln

THE SCOOP Led the Wolves to a state tournament berth in his first season as the head baseball coach. … Lincoln’s 12 wins in 2019 were more than the past three seasons combined. … Mendoza graduated from Mena High School and played baseball at Vernon (Texas) College before an automobile accident during the spring of his freshman season ended his playing career. … Mendoza graduated from Arkansas Tech. He was a volunteer coach while in college at Mena and Russellville, and his first coaching job was at Dardanelle before coming to Lincoln two years ago.

DID YOU KNOW Mendoza will be the new football coach at Dover after he was hired recently to take over that program. It will be his first head football coaching job.

QUOTABLE “This season was definitely gratifying, but more than anything it was seeing the kids reap the benefits of their hard work. I felt like they did a good job of responding to the changes we made in the program and showing up and putting in the time and dedication that it requires to get a program going the right way. They showed up for 6:3o a.m. bullpens in the winter. Since January, we were outside basically every day. We had some tough days and there were a few days where we didn’t go outside in the winter. But there were two different times that I remember vividly where we’re outside putting in work and it’s spitting snow. I don’t know that we were getting a whole lot better those days, but we were changing a mindset and an attitude.”

DAVID HARRISON

SCHOOL Elkins

THE SCOOP Harrison took over the Elkins softball team after the third game of the season and led the program to a 16-5 record and state tournament appearance. … The Elks advanced to the finals of the 3A-1 Regional and lost a 1-0 game to eventual state champion Rose Bud. … Prior to coming to Elkins, Harrison previously coached at Mountainburg and in the Van Buren schools for a number of years, primarily coaching basketball. … He coached softball just briefly prior to this one, starting the fast-pitch program at Mountainburg in 2000. … Elkins won the 3A-1 West Conference tournament and its 1-0 loss to Rose Bud was the closest game the eventual state champs had in their title run. … This was Elkins’ best season since 2016 when the Elks went 15-8.

DID YOU KNOW This was Harrison’s first and only season as the softball coach at Elkins. He announced his retirement at the end of the season after 28 years as a teacher and coach.

QUOTABLE “We didn’t start off all that well, but as the season went on, the girls started to come together. We were able to put together an 11-game winning streak and you could see their confidence really start to climb.

“I waited until my last season as a coach to have my greatest success, but the kids and the community are the real success story here. Any award I get, it’s because of the girls buying in and deciding they wanted to be successful.”