Longtime area basketball coach Bob Birdwhistell said something that really struck me as really interesting recently.

I was on the WRUS radio talkshow, Feedback, on Wednesday morning with Lon Sosh and Don Neagle when Birdwhistell called in and wished the Logan County High School volleyball team well in the upcoming state tournament.

And then he said how he hopes the recent Fourth Region championship the Lady Cougars won will help the other athletic programs at the school.

On it's surface, that doesn't necessarily mean much.

After all, how can the volleyball team's success help, say, the boy's basketball team that won just three games last year.

Well, there's an old saying that says a rising tide lifts all ships - and maybe that can be the case at Logan County.

Before last week's awesome region volleyball title, the Cougars and Lady Cougars had been in the middle of a terrible slump in all sports. It had been nearly 20 years since the Logan County girls' basketball team won the Fourth Region title and went to the state tournament.

That was the last time any team from LCHS won a region championship.

But now, the volleyball team can serve (no pun intended) as a great, positive example to the other teams that winning a region title at Logan County is possible.

It always seems like the teams from Bowling Green dominate so many of the team sports - just like Greenwood had beaten the Lady Cougars four straight years in the region championship match.

But last week, despite losing to Greenwood three times in the regular season, the Lady Cougars overcame the odds and pulled out the first region title in the team's history.

Since then, volleyball has been the talk of the town.

I expect there will be plenty of people heading to Louisville today to watch Logan County take on Corbin in the first round of the state tournament.

The Lady Cougars have an outstanding chance of winning that match.

Corbin comes into the tournament with 27 wins on the year, but the one time the Lady Hounds faced a Fourth Region team, they lost.

Allen County-Scottsville beat Corbin 2-0 (25-21, 25-19) earlier this season in the Bluegrass Invitational.

The Lady Cougars take on Corbin today at approximately 4 p.m. (CDT) and will play Saturday at approximately 10 a.m. if they are successful against Corbin.

The second round match will be tough as it will be either Newport Central Catholic or Marshall County.

Regardless of what happens in Louisville, the Lady Cougars volleyball team has reached new heights and deserves all the credit in the world for that.

And who knows, maybe they'll even inspire the other sports teams at the school to do great things in the future as well.

- OJ Stapleton is the editor of the News-Democrat & Leader. Contact him at edit_ndl@bellsouth.net or 726-8398.