Sports Beat
By: DUANE ESTEP

Down goes Duke, down goes Duke!  What a weekend for the West Virginia Mountaineers and Coach Bob Huggins.  The Mounties knocked off the #2 seed in the West Region the Duke Blue Devils by a score of 73-67.  Coach K and the Blue Devils owned the first half of the contest, however the Mountaineers dominated one of basketball’s elite programs in the second half to move on to Arizona and the Sweet Sixteen. 
The ‘EER’s will face Xavier Thursday in the Sweet Sixteen.  Xavier knocked off a scorching hot Pitt team in the first round before dispatching Purdue on their way to Arizona.  The winner of the WVU vs. Xavier contest will more than likely meet UCLA in the regional final.  UCLA survived a scare from Texas A & M Saturday to advance to the regional semi-finals.
I am a Marshall University Thundering Herd fan all the way, but I love to see any team from the Mountain State do well in the tournaments.  I will put my bias aside this month and cheer on the old gold and blue of Morgantown.  Let’s go Mountaineers!
How is your NCAA bracket holding up so far?  Mine looks horrible thanks to a ton of upsets already.  I could hear millions of brackets crumbling Saturday when the Mounties knocked off college basketball’s perennial power Duke.  I know several people locally that had Duke in the national title game on their brackets facing the North Carolina Tar Heels.  Well, not so fast!
The Mountaineer men aren’t the only team from Morgantown in the NCAA tournament, the Lady Mountaineers defeated New Mexico in the women’s NCAA tournament over the weekend.  The WVU women won the New Mexico contest 61-60.  What a year for the Mountaineer fans thus far!
The West Virginia spring gobbler season is fast approaching, in fact, only thirty-three more spring days until the first day of season.  The 2008 season runs from April 28 to May 24, 2008.  It will be interesting to see how the later dates work out for local Lincoln County turkey hunters.  I personally believe that the season is too late in the spring for good turkey hunting.  The last two seasons have really came to late in the year.  Most gobblers are done gobbling by the time the season starts in West Virginia.
The special one day youth turkey hunt will take place on April 26th.  Youth hunters must be at least 8 years old and no more than 14 years old.  The youth hunter must be accompanied by a licensed adult.  The adult may not carry a weapon and must remain close to the youth hunter.  Shooting hours for both the youth hunt and the adult season are ? hour before sunrise to 1pm.
I always look forward to the spring gobbler season as it is a time to renew old friendships and spend time with my father, Floyd Elvis Estep and the rest of my family.  Turkey hunting for me has taken the place of deer hunting as my favorite hunt of the year.
The West Virginia DNR released the 2007 deer harvest numbers for 2007.  Local Lincoln County hunters will be interested to know that our county did not crack the Top Ten released by the DNR.  145,577 deer were harvested across the state.  Mason and Wyoming Counties were the closest counties to Lincoln that made the Top Ten list released by the DNR.
Over the course of the last year or so, I have written about a lot of sick deer in Lincoln County.  Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) seems to be the problem according to the West Virginia DNR.  CWD is a neurological disease caused by an abnormal form of protein and there is no known treatment or vaccine.
Many local hunters may be contributing to the spread of the disease and not even know it.  Deer feeders, that are common in Lincoln County, aid in the spread of the disease.  Feeders concentrate deer, increasing the likelihood of the spread of any disease present in the deer herd.  Feeders may also introduce foreign contaminates via the feed.
What can out local Lincoln County hunters do to help combat the spread of disease among our local deer herds?  If you kill a sick deer contact the WV DNR;  don’t bait or feed deer;  harvest adequate number of antlerless deer;  use caution in spreading urine based lures;  and if you notice live deer being transported contact the WV DNR.

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