Random thoughts as we continue headlong toward Far East tournaments and playoffs early next month:

-- So we thought Kadena's football team was a bit short on skills-positions players? Don't tell that to Ernest Carr, he of the 194 yards and three touchdowns on 24 carries in the Panthers' 45-0 blanking at Kubasaki in Game 1 of the best-of-three Okinawa Activities Council football series. Kadena sure got the jump on gaining host rights to the Far East Class AA semifinal on Nov. 3. Carr could very easily have 'em forgetting all about the skills-positions exodus (Manny Duran, Jeff Morton, Sean Shattuck) that was supposed to hold back Kadena this season.

-- Opponents of Osan American's girls volleyball team better get their serve receive on, especially when Olivia Dickinson and Angela Thompson step to the line. Dickinson, a senior tranfer from Texas, has been especially effective -- last week against Global Visions Christian, she rattled off 13 aces on 32-for-32 serving. Thompson was 15-for-15 with nine aces in the same match, then was 10-for-11 in Friday's straight-set win over Yongsan International-Seoul. Dig in, opposing coaches might suggest.

-- It took two seasons of trying, but St. Maur International's Anna Novick on Saturday finally got the Tama Hills Recreation Center's 2.1-mile girls-course record she so long chased. The senior, daughter of Yokosuka Naval Base's emergency management guy Peter Novick, clocked the course in 12 minutes, 58.6 seconds, just under five seconds better than Sara Kelsch of American School In Japan in 1993. Novick's coach Richard Ringling expressed surprise at Novick's effort, saying that this season has been slower than last. "She has been perhaps overtraining so far this season," Ringling said, adding that the Cougars trained lightly on Friday, the day before the meet. "Maybe that was the key."

-- Don't look now, but Nile C. Kinnick and Kadena are starting to feel their oats a bit on the girls volleyball court. Hitter Mary Niemeyer and the Red Devils began the season 9-3, their best start since 1996, with new coach Al Garrido -- a two-time Far East coaching champion with Southern of Guam -- at the helm. The Panthers, meanwhile, have won two straight over Kubasaki, which they'd not done since 2003, and are getting solid play out of sophomore Aja' Walker and senior Helen Schrock. Coupled with Seoul American (7-2), DODDS-Pacific should represent well at the Far East Class AA tournament next month at Guam High.