Two higher and two lower seeds won the opening-round games at the 2025 Wyoming High School Softball State Championships in Cheyenne. Natrona County, Cheyenne Central, Cheyenne East, and Campbell County advanced in the winners’ bracket. Eight games are on the schedule for Friday, which includes four elimination games. Only three teams will remain after Day 2 in the Capital City.

Campbell County shut out Rock Springs 10-0, as junior Sadie Cole tossed a no-hitter with 13 strikeouts and only two walks. The Camels scored six runs in the third inning. That included a two-run triple by Bayley Gray and a two-run home run from Madison Cone. The Camels closed it out early with four runs in the fifth inning. They improved to 28-4 on the season with their 13 consecutive victory. WyoPreps visited with Ms. Cole after the game.

Cheyenne East rallied from an early 2-0 deficit and beat Cody, 13-3. The T-Birds took the lead with five runs in the third and capped it with six more in the fifth. McKenzie Millar smacked a two-run home run in the third as part of three hits and three RBIs. Madelyn Artery had three hits and drove in four runs.

Natrona County pulled the biggest surprise of Day 1, as they knocked off South top seed Laramie, 10-9. The Fillies built a 10-2 lead and held off the Plainsmen’s comeback. Quincie Sale had four hits, two were triples, and two RBIs. Cheyenne Central pulled off a big comeback. The Indians scored nine runs in the top of the seventh and beat Sheridan, 20-17. The two teams combined for 35 hits. Each team smashed three home runs.

WyoPreps has some photos from a couple of the games. Since I was on the radio while the first two games were played, these are from the last two games. Enjoy!

Abi Francisco‘s passion for athletics has never faded away — and only continues to strengthen.

Francisco has been the senior athletic trainer at El Camino College for almost ten years and the interim athletic director as of Monday, March 10.

Francisco grew up in Torrance, California and played soccer her whole life.

She competed in soccer heavily beginning at 8 years old and all throughout her time at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School.

“I lived, breathed and slept soccer until I went to undergrad,” Francisco said.

She attended San Diego State University knowing she wanted to get in its athletic training program.

“I like that my path took me back here. The South Bay is awesome,” Francisco said.

She holds a sense of honor in being a part of the athletics program at ECC.

Francisco said El Camino has always been one of the most competitive colleges in the state, not only in Southern California but in the state of California.

In terms of competition and success rate in the past 20 years, the Warriors athletics program has always been up there.

“To be a part of this program as an athletic trainer is awesome and now to be part of the administration part of it, I get to hold a deeper sense of pride with us, with the community, LA and the college itself and its athletic program,” Francisco said.

Francisco anticipated being in an administrative role later in life but took the opportunity once it was presented before her.

Warriors baseball coach Grant Palmer said his experience working with Abi has been exceptional.

“Her transitioning into this athletic director role, it’s been really a seamless transition,” Palmer said. “The biggest thing that she’s done for us, for our team and for our program is she really cares and it’s authentic.”

Palmer recognizes Francisco’s authenticity and shares that the baseball team members gravitate towards her, because of her passion and her wanting the best for them.

Francisco’s educational background consists of a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology with an emphasis in athletic training from San Diego State University, and a master’s degree in kinesiology from California Baptist University.

“At heart I’m a student. I love learning new things. Most of what I was learning was based on sports medicine and science and doing research on biomechanics and injury prevention,” Francisco said.

Throughout graduate school, she saw herself becoming an administrator in the near future.

“When I was in school finishing up my master’s degree, I knew that eventually I would want to be the athletic director of an institution,” Francisco said.

In her career, she has worked with various administrators, athletic trainers, institutions and mentors in California.

She’s been part of California Community College Committees and worked for Compton College aside from ECC.

She began her professional athletic training career at The Walt Disney Company.

She worked as an athletic trainer for four years primarily working on the medical side of prevention and injury with employees, performers, dancers, stage managers and acrobats.

Francisco enjoys learning and being able to see the other side of how an athletics program is run, being in her current position.

Francisco learns something new everyday and meets someone new everyday. Her administrative role forces her to speak to more people.

“As an administrator and I have to speak to way more people it’s all really fun and interesting to see this side of athletics, instead of exclusively the medical side which is still a very fun side,” Francisco said.

Her position as interim athletic director is a much bigger scale.

“I’ve worked with all of our 22 programs on a smaller scale and this is a bigger scale that I am now working with,” Francisco said.

Francisco has a good relationship with ECC’s coaches and student athletes. She describes her ability to build relationships as one of her greatest strengths.

“I think for me personally that’s probably one of my greatest strengths and what helped me get into this position is being able to cultivate really good relationships with anyone that I’m working with,” Francisco said.

CJ Arnold, athletics specialist said she has always brought the same work ethic to the program all throughout the job titles she’s held.

“Things that have remained the same are her hard work, her attention to detail, her passion and just her energy, you can pick up on that,” Arnold said.

Francisco hopes to continue to build upon the legacy ECC’s athletics program has.

“We have had a good amount of professional athletes that come from El Camino College I want to keep the reputation going, our legend going and whatever I can do to be a part of that, I’ll do it,” Francisco said.

(WHSV) – Week 10 for high school spring sports continued Thursday night in Virginia.

Check out highlights from the boys soccer game between Turner Ashby and Rocktown.

If you see a score missing and want to report it, send an email to sports@whsv.com.

Baseball

• Turner Ashby 13, Rocktown 0
• Riverheads 6, Staunton 4
• Fort Defiance 10, Waynesboro 4
• Page Co. 7, Stonewall Jackson 5
• Strasburg 2, Central 3

Softball

• Turner Ashby 15, Rocktown 0
• Broadway 7, Spotswood 2
• Fort Defiance 11, Waynesboro 0
• Alleghany 2, Wilson Memorial 12
• Strasburg 3, Central 2
• Page Co. 17, Stonewall Jackson 2
• Riverheads at Staunton (not reported)

Boys Soccer

• Turner Ashby 0, Rocktown 4
• Broadway 0, Spotswood 2
• Fort Defiance 0, Waynesboro 3
• Central 3, Strasburg 0
• Stonewall Jackson 0, Page Co. 3

Girls Soccer

• Strasburg 0, Central 4
• Page Co. 2, Stonewall Jackson 2
• Rocktown 0, Turner Ashby 5
• Fort Defiance 0, Waynesboro 8

Copyright 2025 WHSV. All rights reserved.

The third-ever Montana all-class high school baseball state tournament got underway in Hamilton on Thursday with opening round quarterfinals games.

Here’s a look at the highlights and results from those opening round games:

Game One: Billings Central defeats Columbia Falls 6-2

Not only was Rams sophomore Matteo Harris the winning pitcher on Thursday, scattering two runs (one earned) and three hits over 4.2 innings of work, but Harris was also Central’s driving force at the plate with three hits and three RBIs on the day.

Game Two: Billings West defeats Frenchtown 11-4

Five different Golden Bears had multi-hit efforts and seven different players drove in a run for West, making it a total team effort on offense. On the mound for West it was starting pitcher Carson Steinmetz who picked up the win, allowing just two runs (non earned) on one hit over five innings of work.

Game Three: Billings Skyview vs Hamilton (4:45 PM DELAYED)

Game Four: Missoula Big Sky vs Belgrade (TBD)

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine (WAGM) – The final regular season tennis matches are scheduled for this upcoming Tuesday.

Teams have just a few matches left before the playoffs begin.

Presque Isle hosted Fort Kent High School on the tennis courts at UMPI.

For the girls singles, Alice Korzekwa won her match, Sabine Wells-Puckett and Kapri Griffeth each earned a point for the Lady Wildcats.

Madeleine Martin and Emma Cyr picked up a point for Fort Kent.

Taylor Walton and Avery Dickson won a fourth point for Presque Isle, the girls win 4-1.

The Presque Isle boys also won all three of their singles matches, Isaac Staples winning first singles, Jacob Bennett wins second singles, and Garrett White on the court here, he would go on to win as well.

Similarly to the girl’s tennis match Fort Kent won one of two doubles matches.

Quinn Michaud and Finley Marquis pair up to pick up one point for the Warriors.

Duke Deschaine and Cam Locke were Presque Isle’s doubles winners.

Presque Isle has two matches to go, a home match against Mount Desert Island on Saturday and an away match against the Caribou Vikings next Tuesday.

The Central Aroostook Panthers made the quick trip North to face the Fort Fairfield Tigers.

Tigers up 3-0, they continue to put themselves in a position to score, Cayden Ala takes third base with an out in the bottom of the third inning.

Graedon King batting with two runners in scoring position, a hard hit ball and Ala will score, 4-0, King beats the throw to first and Levi Cole reaches third.

Bases juiced for Nick O’Neal at the plate, a ground ball and the Panthers defense tightens up for an out at second, one run scores and the Tigers are back to runners at the corners.

In the top of the 4th the Panthers scored their first run, the Tigers go on to win 11-3.

The Lady Tigers hosting one of the hottest teams in Class D softball.

Senior Cassie Codrey base hit to right field, Lily Clair comes home to score for Central Aroostook, Codrey approaching second and not slowing down, she reaches third for the Lady Panthers and drives in the go ahead run.

Fort Fairfield has struggled in many games this season, but they were keeping it close.

Olivia York holding the Tigers to no runs through the 4th inning.

The Lady Tigers scored their first run of the game in the 6th.

Then Addison Cole provides a much needed base hit to bring home two Lady Tigers, Cole is up on second base and it’s just a one run game in the 6th inning.

Last chance for the Panthers to add some comfort runs, Clair with a double in the top of the 7th inning.

It was the Lady Panthers seniors stepping up when the team needed them most, Callie Thomas will drive home two more runners.

Fort Fairfield has one of their best battles of the season, Central Aroostook wins their 8th game of the year, 9-3.

The Beavers vs the Owls on Washburn’s field.

The Beavers scored 3 in the first, Madawaska playing some tough defense, Ni-Ni Conde-Silva makes the snag on the hot corner.

Brielle Taveras had a base hit for them in the second, but Conde-Silva made another big snag to end the bottom of the second.

The Lady Owls struggling to create some offense, but Conde-Silva comes through for Madawaska, she is racing around the bases and will dirty her pants for the two out triple.

Payton Pelletier making things happen for Madawaska, this would be the only run the Owls had in the contest, Washburn wins 17-1.

It was the same matchup on the baseball fields in Washburn, the away team leading 1-0.

Bottom of the first, Blake King reached first after being hit by the pitch, he would then take second and third, the tying run just 90 feet from home plate, he would come home to score just a few pitches later.

Brayden Barnard also reached first after getting hit by a pitch, Damien Dumont has hit well for Washburn this season, the Owls defense will get Barnard at second and Dumont replaces him on first.

Easton’s King was also on the mound for Washburn.

This game was close, 9-9 heading into the 7th and final inning, but Madawaska scored 8 in that inning and won 17-10.

Katahdin played a double header against Wisdom on their home field.

In game one the Lady Cougars won 21-1.

Polly Cullen only gave up one hit on the mount, she also singled and doubled.

Her sisters were great on offense as well, Avery Cullen had two singles and a triple, Piper Cullen had a single and triple.

Mickenzie Landry had a single and a double, Dakota Stevens had two singles and a double, and Emily McNally hit two doubles.

In game two, Katahdin won 5-0.

Jayden Stevens pitcher a no hitter, hit two doubles, and hit a two run home run.

Polly Cullen hit two doubles, Dakota Stevens had a single and atriple, and Avery Cullen hit two singles.

Katahdin’s baseball team also won both games against Wisdom.

In the first game the Cougars won 12-2 behind a great pitching performance from Wesley Pipes.

Game two went into extra innings.

Before then, Josh Martin recorded his 300th career strikeout for the team.

Calvin Richardson earned the save and Connor Schmidt drove in the game winning run, the Cougars remain undefeated with a 2-1 extra innings win.

Copyright 2025 WAGM. All rights reserved.

If you were lucky enough to attend an OMEGA (Organization of Modern Extreme Grappling Arts — the 1990s were the peak of goofy wrestling acronyms) wrestling show in a North Carolina armory in the late ’90s, you would’ve seen a roster full of wrestlers who went on to big-league success.

The promotion was run by The Hardy Boyz, future WWE Hall of Famers Jeff and Matt, but also likely performing would be Kid Dynamo (Shannon Moore, who’d wrestle in WCW, WWE and TNA), Ice (Caprice Coleman, who’d have a long run in ROH and is currently their color commentator), Kid Vicious (Shane Helms, who’d wrestle in WCW and as The Hurricane in WWE), and Joey Matthews (who’d hold one half of the WWE tag-team title as a member of MNM). You could’ve also seen wrestlers who had shorter runs in major federations like Venom (Jason Arndt, who’d wrestle as Joey Abs in the WWE), or Mike Maverick and Otto Schwanz (who’d work as The Dupps in ECW and in WWE developmental).

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However, despite all that future star power, another lesser-known name would often steal the show.

“If you don’t know me, my name is Cham Pain — that is, first name Cham, last name Pain. I’m a former male exotic dancer from Las Vegas, Nevada, who’s traded his g-string for the wrestling ring. I’ve been around the world twice, I’ve seen everything but the wind, and I’ve been everywhere but the electric chair. I’ve been to two state fairs and I have driven through hell in a gasoline truck in reverse with my hair on fire, wearing thermal underwear and a fur coat, with a big, red sign hanging out the window that says, ‘Cham Pain is the freakin’ man.’”

“Cham Pain” Marty Garner was the one who was left behind.

Despite being arguably the most charismatic of the original OMEGA crew, and as talented in-ring as any of them, many only know of Garner from his retroactively viral Pedigree sell against Triple H in 1996 (which was just uploaded to the WWE Vault in perfect video quality). But in many ways, he is the Zelig of professional wrestling, touching its history in multiple, fascinating ways. Unlike many of his celebrated peers, Garner’s career was more about near-misses and brushes with fame, viral clips, movie stars and burned bridges. Now, at a time when the majority of his old running mates are either retired or winding down their careers, “Cham Pain” has returned to wrestling to take one last swing at the plate.

Matt Hardy first met Garner in a fitness center in Vass, North Carolina, in the early ’90s. Matt and his brother had built a makeshift wrestling ring in their backyard and had begun running shows. “They had black plastic, wrapped around trees and they made an arena out of the plastic,” Garner, 58, tells Uncrowned, “and in the middle they had a trampoline with garden hoses wrapped around it for the ropes. They would film the matches, and they would make a tape and sell it to the local video store — and they would rent the video out.” The crew eventually leveled up from the backyard to the local fair. “We did our first show at the fair on a regular ring with about five people,” Garner recalls, “and we would put on hoods for some matches and some matches we would be ourselves.”

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Eventually, this group of North Carolina teenagers began achieving bigger success in the wrestling business, being used as enhancement talent for the WWF. “May of 1994 we went to the WWF, The Italian Stallion [Gary Sabaugh] called me and said he needed four guys to come fill in,” Matt Hardy says. “The four of us — Jeff, myself, Jason Arndt and Marty — would drive wherever they were wrestling and we did jobs there.

“Stallion’s students got upset that the Omega crew were getting picked to work the matches even though they were paying Stallion and we weren’t. So we just talked to [WWE Hall of Famer] Chief Jay Strongbow and told him what they were doing. ‘If you want us, you can just call me and I can book us.’ And that is how we broke away and built a relationship with the people in the WWE.”

Garner achieved his first big viral moment in June 1996, when he wrestled Paul Levesque, aka Triple H. The future WWE chief executive hit his trademark Pedigree, but instead of bumping on his face, Garner kicked his legs straight in the air like he was taking a piledriver and ended up getting dropped vertically, straight onto his neck. It’s a clip that still pops up on Twitter nearly two decades later, and one that demonstrates the wild recklessness that became a calling card for Garner and the rest of the OMEGA crew.

In another retroactively viral clip, Garner attempted a running plancha on Jeff Jarrett and totally whiffed, crashing onto his head when Jarrett side-stepped him.

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With some visibility from television, the crew began getting booked by other independent promotions and running its own shows, creating OMEGA and putting on displays that became legendary on the nascent wrestling internet and tape-trading scene. One by one, the OMEGA guys got signed to bigger promotions. First The Hardy Boyz joined the WWF, then Moore and Helms became two-thirds of 3 Count in WCW. Arndt joined Heartland Championship Wrestling (then WWE’s development) as Venom and eventually the WWE as Joey Abs of the Mean Street Posse. Garner briefly joined the dying days of ECW as Puck Dupp, managing and teaming with fellow OMEGA alumni Mike Maverick and Otto Schwanz as Jack and Bo Dupp. The ECW stint was short-lived though, as Garner really wanted to be in the WWE. But while the WWE took Jack and Bo Dupp into developmental, Puck was left on the outside looking in.

The cocky charisma that made Cham Pain such a compelling wrestler to watch may have caused him some difficulty in the notoriously prickly and political WWE locker room. “I was just hard-headed,” Garner admits. “I wouldn’t listen to people. I wasn’t trying to be arrogant, I tried to ride my own road and it didn’t work out.”

“Marty saw his friends on TV, and we all loved him so much, and he didn’t get that opportunity and he got discouraged,” adds Matt Hardy.

That classic Cham Pain charisma, though, did make an impression on one big star.

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Marty was in Los Angeles in late 2002 doing motion capture stunts for a video game company and ended up connecting with The Rock, who was in town shooting “The Rundown.”

“We went out to the movie set, and as soon as The Rock saw me, he says, ‘First name Cham, last name Pain — a former male exotic dancer who ended up trading his g-string for the wrestling ring,’” Garner says. “He knew my whole spiel. We go out to dinner and he said, ‘Look, I want to tell you guys something. I didn’t take my lines from Cham Pain, but I like the way he presented to the crowd, I kind of took some of his style, I loved the way he did his spiel.’ I just about teared up. This was The Rock saying he took something from me.” The two ended up going out on the town the next night. “I met Turbo from the movie ‘Breaking,’ I met Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake,” Garner recalls.

“I am thinking to myself, ‘I am from Vass, North Carolina, with a population of 758 people. I am drinking Cristal with The Rock and Britney Spears.’”

After catching up with The Rock again at WrestleMania 19 in 2003, Garner returned to Vass and got a call.

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“Look, man, you ain’t never asked me for nothing, you have always been my friend, so I am going to ask you for something — do you want to come work for me for a while on a movie set?”

Garner spent the next two years off and on traveling the world as The Rock’s assistant. “When I got the job,” he remembers, “Rock said this isn’t going to last forever, I just want you to have some fun.” Eventually, the ride had to come to an end. “The Rock told me, ‘My wife is on me about us going out to clubs and stuff and wanted to know what your job actually is,” Garner says, “‘and I don’t think she dug it.” So Garner again went back to Vass. “I just got off an airplane where I was eating caviar and a ribeye steak,” he says, “and here I am, walking into a single-wide trailer, and all I could smell was chicken crap.”

After his Hollywood rock-star stage came to an end, Garner made another run at professional wrestling. He began working North Carolina independents again and got back on the WWE radar, working some dark matches from 2006-08 and even getting a pay-per-view match against a then-debuting Montel Vontavious Porter.

“I went up to Johnny Laurinaitis and asked him what I need to do to get a job,” Garner explains. “He said, ‘I don’t think we can make you any money in the WWE, you need to make a name for yourself.’

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“I decided to make a blog. This was back in the MySpace days and I would call it ‘The Forgotten Beatle,’ and it got picked up by a bunch of the wrestling sites, a magazine in the UK did a big article on me. After that article, people started a ‘Hire Cham Pain’ campaign together. I got to a show in Charlotte and got to the parking deck and there was ‘Hire Cham Pain’ all over the car. They were in England and there was a sign that was six feet long. Johnny Laurinaitis calls me and says, ‘My personal email is getting blown up, 300 or 400 emails a day wanting me to hire you. I don’t ever want to see you again. If you come into a WWE locker room again, I will have you arrested.’

“You told me to make a name for myself, so I did — and I got punished for it. So after that, I got out of the business.”

Garner returned to Vass once more and put wrestling behind him, leaving the ring for over a decade. However, the same wild man who made The Rock’s wife nervous is no longer who Marty Garner is.

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He is married, with two daughters. “I wanted my little girls to see me wrestle live,” Garner says. “I went to an independent show and got the fever again.” He had a cameo appearance in a Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Jarrett match at WrestleCade, taking a guitar shot from Jeff. That appearance — and him dropping his famous Cham Pain catchphrases during an OMEGA reunion at the same event — led to a 2023 booking at GCW, where he showed he could still hang with youngsters. He lost a competitive match with Cole Raderick, but a lot of the athleticism and timing that made him a success in his OMEGA days was still present. “I don’t tell my mind I can’t do it,” he says. “I just assume I can do everything I used to do. I just go ahead and try it.”

Reinvigorated, Garner continued grinding, working shows across North Carolina, doing what he loves, until an injury put him back on the shelf for a bit. “I had a knock-down, drag-out match with this dude — man, it was awesome,” he says. “And we did a bunch of high spots. I dove out into the crowd on him, did a front flip over the top rope. We were doing a bull-rope match — I wanted him to jerk me off the top rope, and when he did, I wanted to fall a different kind of way and I kind of messed myself up. I broke my collarbone and my rib on that last move he gave me. I’ve got to heal, man, and just get right.”

Always a hustler, Garner is judging boxing and MMA fights in the meantime while working on getting an OMEGA documentary made. He still thinks he has something to give the business. “I can talk, man,” he says. “Even today, I would take a managerial job for somebody. I would be their mouthpiece, because man, I’ve got stuff I know that would get over. I could give them five T-shirt [slogans] that would sell.”

“Marty is someone who just loves to entertain people, and he is destined to entertain people,” Matt Hardy says. “I would love to see him get some of that pro-wrestling success he didn’t get earlier in his career.”