Jefferson County Leader Sports

41Jefferson County LeaderThursday, March 8, 2012

Gordon Bess

TheInsideTrack

Cage fans will seea different landscape in county next year

March Madness leads to March Sadness for basketball fans when their favorite teams are

eliminated from postseason play. For most prep teams in Jefferson County, the end came last week (or the week before) in district action. From what I saw, I think it’s true that the further you go in the postseason, the more it hurts when you get bounced from the party.

I saw tears in the eyes of players, on boys and girls teams, as the final seconds ticked away on their seasons. There were plenty of long faces among the De Soto boys when their terrific 24-5 district-title season ended in Park Hills at the hands of the defending Class 4 state champs, Sikeston, in sectional play on Feb. 29. Adding to the emotion was the fact that this would be head coach Allen Davis’

Bryan DeGeareCrystal City boys basketball

The 6-7 jun-io r fo rward poured in a game-high 23 points to help vault Crystal City over the t op -seeded Bayless Bron-chos 66-49 i n F r i day ’s championship game of the Class 3 District 4 tournament, which the Hornets hosted. In the Hornets’ 62-55 win over St. Pius in the semifinals, De Geare scored 21 points, hauled in 14 rebounds and blocked seven shots. He is averaging 11 points and seven rebounds a game for the 24-5 Hornets, who were scheduled to play Scott City (20-8) on Wednesday, after the Leader deadline.

Check out the Athlete of the Week every Sunday after 6 p.m. at our website, myleaderpaper.com.

Bryan DeGeare

See BASKETBALL, Page 46

Leader Athlete of the Week

By Gordon BessFor the Leader

One school, two teams, two cham-pionships and two more nets to hang in the trophy case.

Those were the vital statistics from a memorable night in Crystal City Friday as the hoop dreams of Hornet fans were fulfilled with district titles for both the girls and boys basketball teams.

At the Class 3 District 4 tournament, the host Hornets carved out convincing victories, first in the girls game with a 56-43 decision over St. Pius, and then in the boys’ final as Crystal City – clad in its black road uniforms as the lower-seeded team – upset defending district champion Bayless 66-49.

It was the second straight district crown for the Hornet girls, who improved to 23-5 and advanced to the sectional round Wednesday, after the Leader dead-line. Crystal City’s opponent for that game was District 3 champ West County (24-3), which is the only team to have beaten the Hornets in 2012 (a 59-50 win back on Feb. 15).

Crystal City took command of the girls’ district final in the third quarter, outscoring St. Pius 14-7 to build a 37-25 lead with one quarter remaining. In that final stanza, however, the Lancers cranked up the defensive pressure, forc-ing turnovers that were converted into four points apiece by Alex Linderer and Haylee Eastridge, plus a basket apiece for Jessica Bax and Holly Magre.

When Linderer drilled two free throws with 3:22 left in the game, Crystal City’s lead shrank to five points at 43-38.

Sparkling CrystalHornet boys, girls earn district titles on their home floor

Ted Howell photosThe Crystal City girls squad celebrates its second straight Class 3 District 4 championship.

It was time for one of the Hornet seniors to answer on offense, and on Crystal’s next possession, Malorie Smith scored underneath off a rebound, was fouled and finished off a three-point play. The Lancers managed only five points after

that and Crystal City made 10 of 14 free throws in the final 2:49 to ice the victory.

As they’ve done so often this season, the Hornets had four players score in dou-ble figures, topped by Amanda Killgore with 16, followed by Smith (15), Audrey Cooper (12) and Daniece Riney (11). Cooper also had 14 rebounds along with five assists and two steals. She got plenty of help on the boards as Riney, Smith and Killgore combined for 23 rebounds.

Different players among Crystal City’s “big four,” as head coach Ken Jones refers to them, took charge at dif-ferent times in the game. Killgore had 11 points in the first half, Riney registered a big three-point play to end the third quar-ter and Smith scored 10 of her 15 points in the fourth quarter, most on repeat tries from offensive rebounds.

Jones marveled at the leadership by his senior quartet.

“You’ve got Killgore doing her thing, Smith doing her thing, and Riney had some moments where she was taking the game over,” he said. “And Cooper comes in there at the end, she’s breaking the press and hitting free throws every time they foul her.

“The big four really showed up tonight.”

The Hornet mentor was quick to iden-tify the crucial factor in his squad’s win.

“Staying composed,” Jones said. “We had a few times there where the pressure got to us, but instead of hav-ing multiple times where we would just cough it away, we’d (do) it once, some-times maybe twice, but then we’d get

Crystal City’s Libbie LaFloure shoots over St. Pius defender Jessica Bax in the Class 3 District 4 championship game.

See HORNETS, Page 42

Thursday, March 8, 2012Jefferson County Leader42

Ted Howell photoStacey Thornton of Crystal City, right, and Billy Tran of Bayless lunge for a loose ball in the Hornets’ victory Friday.

Hornets: ‘Hardest-working group’

our composure back. That’s a testament to the seniors, playing the game the way it needs to be played.”

Smith’s performance down the stretch was especially important after the Lancers mounted their comeback try midway through the fourth quarter.

“Malorie Smith is the most improved basketball player I’ve ever had, from day one as a freshman,” Jones said. “We’ve got two or three girls who are strictly bas-ketball, but Malorie’s a two-sport athlete. A lot of times you don’t see someone come in who’s a volleyball player first and put in the time she put in. She never misses a thing.”

Repeating as district champions, he said, was the product of hard work. “This is the hardest-working group I’ve ever had, as a group, coming in as freshmen. What they’ve done for four years, and all the things I’ve asked them to do – they deserve this.”

St. Pius finished at 16-12 with the loss. The Lancers had overpowered Bay-less (55-18) and Herculaneum (58-19) earlier in the tournament, but head coach Aaron Portell saw his team fall behind early in the final and struggle for traction

thereafter. “We’re two minutes into the game and I’ve got two starters sitting out with two fouls,” he said. “That just took us out of the flow and put us in a situation that we weren’t ready for.

“We played nervous the whole game,” he said. “We shot terrible, (tak-ing) shots that we weren’t comfortable shooting. We struggled in the first half scoring. We hung in there and our free throws kept us in it, (but) they (the Hornets) outworked us on the blocks for offensive rebounds. They were a lot more aggressive than we were, a lot more physical underneath. It just didn’t go our way tonight.”

Hot start powers boysWhile Crystal City’s girls won in

grind-it-out fashion, the boys caught lightning to start against Bayless and never looked back.

Hornet junior Bryan DeGeare nailed a 3-pointer from the corner on the first shot of the game and drained two more in the next three and a half minutes. That plus inside baskets from Eli Sample and Nick Rothweiler gave Crystal City a 13-1 lead

Continued from Page 41

See HORNETS, Page 45

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Dragons fall to Sikeston; Davis says he’s retiringClass 4 Boys BasketBall seCtionals

Matt O’Harver photoDe Soto guard Sean Solomon goes in for a left-handed layup in the Dragons’ sectional meeting with Sikeston on Feb. 29. Defending is Sikeston’s Jaterrance Jones.


A bad start led to a bad ending for De Soto in the boys Class 4 sectional game against Sikeston – despite

the Dragons virtually matching Sikeston point for point through most of the game.

De Soto couldn’t handle a ferocious Bulldog press in the opening minutes and quickly fell behind 12-2 before a capacity crowd at Mineral Area College on Feb. 29.

From there, Sikeston’s lead billowed in and out like an accordion as both teams went on brief repeated runs. All that mat-tered was the score at the end, of course, and the defending Class 4 state champion Bulldogs prevailed 71-59, ending the Dragons’ stellar season at 24-5.

The loss also marked the end of Allen Davis’ long tenure as head coach of the Dragons as he acknowledged afterward that he is retiring after 28 years and 536 career victories.

“This is my last game,” a somber Davis said after he met with the players in the postgame locker room. “It’s official. I knew I was going to do (this) earlier this year. I’m passionate about putting in everything I’ve got, and I felt this year I didn’t put enough into it. It’s my fault that things happened the way they happened.

“I let them down, so I need to get out. There’s things we could have done differ-ent and those are my mistakes.”

Davis said he took “total blame” for the loss. “I’m going to blame myself,” he said. “I’m the one that put them in that spot, not to be successful, and I should have done something different.”

The Dragon mentor pointed to those intense opening minutes as the deciding factor in the game.

“If I’d do one thing different, I’d probably have changed our press break,” Davis said. “You never know. You’ve got to be able to take care of the ball. (In) the

first half, first quarter, a couple of kids got really nervous and just threw the ball away. Every time we’d catch the ball it was a turnover.

“That was pretty much the game, the first four minutes.”

Late in the first quarter, De Soto center Colin Ferguson scored five points – including a slam-dunk basket on an alley-oop pass from Sean Solomon – and the Dragons made up some ground to trail 17-10 going into the second stanza. About midway through that period, Jake Patzner scored inside to cut De Soto’s deficit to a mere three points at 25-22. That was the closest the Dragons would get for the rest of the game.

With no player taller than 6-2, Sikeston couldn’t match De Soto’s height but more than made up for it with team athleticism at both ends of the floor. Forward Markeith Bratcher, for example, grabbed a steal and sped down for a layup with time running down in the first half, and then nailed a 3-pointer in the final seconds to put his team up 38-25 at the break.

It was 49-34 after three quarters, but the Dragons weren’t folding up the tent. Ferguson started the final period with a three-point play and a Solomon layup made it 49-39.

Sikeston’s quicksilver point guard, Vashawn Ruffin, drilled two baskets, but Jarred Sapper and Ferguson scored on putbacks and Jared White hit two buckets to cut Sikeston’s advantage to 58-49 with three minutes left in the game.

De Soto couldn’t sustain a real run, however, and Bulldog forward Jaterrance Jones got two inside scores to widen the lead back out to 64-52 with one minute left. From there, four different Bulldogs sank seven of eight free throws to seal the outcome. The last Dragon to score was Ferguson on a 3-pointer, only his second of the season.

The De Soto center, who along with White will ply his cage skills for South-east Missouri State next season, was the game’s top scorer with 23 points. White finished with 14 and Solomon had nine. Ruffin and his backcourt mate Terry Jamison had 18 and 17 respectively for the Bulldogs (23-4), who advanced to play Imagine Prep in the quarterfinals on Saturday.

With his 14 points, White ended his four-year varsity career as De Soto’s all-time leading scorer at 2,073 points in 111 games, an average of more than 18 per game. He was the ignition coil of a district champion squad that will be remembered as one of the best Davis coached.

“This is probably one of my better teams. They’re tough, they’re good,” Davis said. “We started the season shy one (returning) starter, so we had to battle through that. It’s a good team; I really can’t say who a better team is, you never know. It’s an awful good one.

“Jared White is awfully good. He’ll be good at SEMO and so will Colin. Maybe I’ll just follow them down there.

“I’ll be doing something. I’ll let you know.”

As of March 6, the De Soto High administration had made no official an-nouncement about Davis retiring as head coach.

Vikings’ latest win has a costly ending By Gordon BessFor the Leader

You may believe global warming is a hoax, but there’s no denying the climate change in the bud-

ding rivalry between Jefferson College and State Fair Community College in women’s basketball.

Temperatures were rising on Satur-day after Jefferson overcame a second-half deficit to take a commanding lead late in the game against State Fair at Hillsboro, in the regular-season finale for both schools. With the final seconds ticking down, Viking guard Jasmine Crawford was fouled a few feet in front of the State Fair bench and fighting to keep control of the ball as she was engulfed by several Roadrunners. Two players left the Jefferson bench to join the scrum that was quickly broken up by both coaching staffs and the officials.

After about 10 minutes of conferring over who did what to whom, the offi-cials charged Crawford and State Fair’s

Ryneka Church with flagrant technical fouls for fighting, and Jefferson’s Mari-kate Gardler and Terryine Singleton were given flagrant technical fouls as well for leaving the bench.

With Jefferson ahead 78-70 and only nine-tenths of second left on the clock, State Fair’s Cheyenne Williams shot

Matt O’Harver photoThe Vikings’ LaQuinta Jefferson drives past Jallissa Lewis of State Fair.

See VIKINGS, 7

sports


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before anyone had even broken a sweat. Bayless head coach Pat Triplett

called two timeouts to try to slow down the runaway train, but the Hornets promptly rang up three more treys and Stacey Thornton sprinted the length of the fl oor for a layup just before the fi rst-quarter buzzer. The scoreboard read 24-7 in favor of the Hornets, and from there it was a dead-even game as both teams scored another 42 points.

“We thought we’d be able to reverse the ball and get some open shots,” Hornet head coach Sean Breeze said. “We’ve got some shooters. And we said, if we’re going to get the shots, we’ve just got to knock ’em down.

“Before the game, I said, ‘Guys, I thought about all kinds of pregame speeches, but you already know what to do – just go play.’ And they did. We talked this whole tournament about play-ing Hornet basketball, which is focusing on defense and playing unselfi shly on offense. That’s what they did tonight and it’s why they won.

“That’s been the good thing about this team. When they’ve gotten the mo-ment, they’ve taken it.”

DeGeare finished with 23 points,

eight rebounds and fi ve blocked shots. Sample collected 16 points (12 in the fi rst half) and four steals and Thornton tallied 13 points and distributed a game-high eight assists. Edin Mehmedovic led the Bronchos with 19 points and 11 rebounds.

After the game, DeGeare tried to downplay his role.

“I was just trying to get the team the ball and work it around,” he said. “It’s teamwork – it’s not just a one-man game.”

The 6-7 junior added that he and his teammates “were never really worried” about getting complacent and squander-ing their big lead. “We always had con-fi dence the whole game,” he said. “It’s always about teamwork.

“It felt awesome, it really did. It was a big win. I’m loving it.”

As good as DeGeare’s numbers were, he was even better in his team’s 62-55 win over St. Pius in the semifi nals, when he pumped in 21 points (on eight-for-11 shooting), grabbed 14 rebounds and blocked seven shots.

Breeze credited his lanky center with cranking up the thermostat in the title game. “He was on fi re,” Breeze said. “He creates matchup problems with other big guys. He was phenomenal. In a gym full of good players, I thought he was the best tonight.”

But it took a total team effort to knock off the Bronchos, and Breeze couldn’t overlook other key contributors.

“Eli occupies defenses so much that it allows others to get more open looks,” he said, “and without Stacey Thornton we don’t make it through that tournament. His command and control of the team from the point guard position is what makes us go.”

Breeze also singled out Rothweiler’s role on defense. “In the championship game, Nick guarded both the point guard and the big boy (Mehmedovic). There are not very many players who can guard both the quickest guard and the strongest post player in the same game. That was as big a reason as any that we were able to pull away.”

Not only did the victory secure the

Sports briefsRock Legion sets tryouts for March 25

The Rock Memorial American Le-gion Post 283 baseball organization will hold tryouts March 25 at the post, 910 Montebello Road in Imperial.

The junior team tryout (for players born in 1995 or after) will begin at noon, with registration beginning at 11:15. The senior team tryout (for players born in 1993 or 1994) will start at 2:30 p.m., with registration opening at 1:45.

Players attending school in the Fox and Windsor districts are eligible to try out, as are parochial school and home school students who live within those districts. Players participating in a high school program and who have a game or practice on March 25 are asked to set up an alternate tryout date.

Jefferson Collegeoffers girls basketball

The Jefferson College spring basket-ball league, for girls teams in grades fi ve through eight, will have games on April 5, 12, 19, 26 and May 3 at the Fieldhouse on the Hillsboro campus.

Game times will be 6 p.m., 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. The cost is $30 per team per game, or $150 for the five-week league.

For information, call Doug Stotler at 636-797-3000, ext. 386, or send him an email at [email protected].

Hornets: Even with DeGeare’s hot hand, beating Bayless was a total team effortContinued from Page 42 second district title for Crystal City since

Breeze took over as head coach – the Hornets also won in his fi rst year, 2007-2008 – it extended the team’s winning streak to 14 games. Crystal City stood at 24-5 going into its Class 3 sectional game Wednesday, after the Leader deadline, against Scott City (20-8).

The Hornets have not lost since that disappointing week in mid-January when they dropped back-to-back games to Festus and St. Pius. Those losses were a much-needed kick in the pants for Breeze’s senior-dominated squad.

“After that Pius game, we had some

issues and some playing times changed,” Breeze said. “But the credit (goes) to the kids. It wasn’t anything I said. They just decided they wanted to win. They knew it wasn’t working. They really became a team, one cohesive unit.

“I’m so proud of them. This is why you coach and why you teach, to watch kids grow up and mature and get it. And they did.”

The Hornet mentor added one post-script to his team claiming a district crown.

“It was great to be able to win it on a night when the girls won it. It’s just a great night for the school.”

For more information, call junior head coach Zach Weiss at 314-791-2038, senior head coach Ed Sabourin at 314-603-3612 or general manager John Horn at 636-464-4768.

Ted Howell photoNick Rothweiler sai ls past Edin Mehmedovic of Bayless for a layup.

SPORTS


final game before he heads off into retire-ment after 28 years at the helm.

Beating Sikeston would have been a great capstone to Davis’ coaching career; just a year ago the Bulldogs went 30-0 in winning the Class 4 crown. And this was a winnable game for the Dragons, who outscored Sikeston 34-33 in the second half.

But De Soto lost in a textbook case of strategy and execution trumping talent. Sikeston was not more talented than De Soto; the Bulldogs are quicker, but De Soto is taller and had the most talented player on the floor in Jared White. The Dragons got behind the eight ball in the first few minutes when Sikeston pressed them hard, forced turnovers and built a quick 12-2 lead. From then on, the Bulldogs floated on that early cushion and won 71-59.

Davis blamed himself for the loss but Sikeston simply capitalized on its superior team athleticism and team de-fense in the early going. They benefited from having beaten De Soto earlier in the season (76-73 at De Soto) and no doubt figured that an early blitzkrieg would put the Dragons on their heels and get the boisterous Bulldog crowd fired up, which is precisely what happened.

Looking aheadThe departure of Davis, not to men-

tion the senior core of his last team – White, Colin Ferguson and Sean Solomon are graduating – will be part of a near-extreme makeover in county prep bas-ketball next year. Looking ahead, it’s not hard to categorize the 12 county schools, with their boys and girls programs, as to their prospects in 2012-2013. They fit into three categories: “On the rise,” for teams that most likely will be better next year; “Even keel” to describe teams that will

stay about where they were this year; and “Rebuilding mode” for the squads who have their work cut out to get to respect-ability or sustain what they have.

On the riseOn the boys side, ranked in order,

are four schools (2011-2012 record in parentheses).

1. St. Pius (15-11) will have the best backcourt in the county with career scoring leader Garrett McDowell back, plus Matt Wilson and Jordan Tucker, all juniors this year. And 6-7 big man Seth Koch also will return; he averaged 5.3 rebounds per game this season and will be counted on for more next year.

2. Windsor (10-15) was the most im-proved boys team in the county under new head coach Todd Dutton, who inherited a 2-22 squad from a year ago. The Owls lose their top guard, Joe Siudzinski, to graduation, plus a productive forward in Ian Asher. But they’ll still have seven ex-perienced seniors next year, led by center Anel Ganic, their No. 2 scorer this season who averaged nearly 12 points per game.

3. Jefferson (3-19) returns its entire team in the fourth year of its program. The Jays played their best basketball at the end of this season and should carry that over into next year. It will help if Ross Koenig returns for a second campaign as head coach.

4. Seckman (2-23) struggled all season but has some talent coming back in big man Paul Stephens (averaging nine points and eight rebounds per game) and guards Colby Holloway and Matt Harvey, who combined for 65 treys this season.

There are four girls programs I’d put in this category as well.

1. De Soto (14-12) was by far the most improved girls team in the county after winning only three games last year. The Dragons, who won the county large-school

conference title at 5-0, will miss senior point guard Kinsley Fitzpatrick but will return an outstanding core of Kelsey King-sland and the Krodinger twins, Courtney and Brittney (all freshmen this season), plus senior leadership from Kelsey Smith. They will be the team to beat next year.

2. St. Pius (16-12) won’t be far be-hind; the Lancers lose only two players to graduation.

3. Jefferson (11-14) will have its whole squad back and battle-hardened from a full varsity schedule this year. The Jays stunned St. Pius two weeks ago and will be good enough next year to beat anybody in the county, especially if they can improve their shooting percentage.

4. Windsor (8-18) is headed in the right direction under Andrea Haegele and also brings back almost everyone from this year’s team, including the Johnson sisters, Kaylee and Kelcey, who were second and third on the team in scoring this season.

Even keelBoys: Fox (5-21) loses no one to

graduation and will win more often if they can build a team around their top scorer, Tyler Brewer (12.5 points per game). Grandview (6-18) started over this year with new head coach Luke Guyot; he’ll have to replace Mark Silvia’s 13 points per night but forwards Austin Bean and Mike Eberhardt are capable candidates. Hillsboro (16-11) got the most out of a squad that lost a lot of firepower to gradu-ation and returns plenty of skill in the back court with point guard Taylor Hassell, Jake Brooks and Austin Weber. The Hawks will miss the versatile (and graduating) Erik Maynard, however. Northwest was only 6-21 this year and loses top scorer Chris-tian Lamborn but will have a senior-heavy team next season.

Girls: Hillsboro (7-20) says good-

bye to its top two scorers, Kara Pochon and Kristen Patterson, but has returning talent in Lexi Churchill and freshman Amber Peterson. Ditto for Fox (9-17) which will bring back all three of its offensive leaders in Selma Fific, Erin Birschbach and Nikki Fleischman. Northwest (9-17) still will have its No. 1 scorer Taylor Fortner as well as Alysiah Whittaker, who can score and rebound.

Rebuilding modeBoys: Festus (18-9) and Crystal

City (24-5 going into a sectional match-up with Scott City) face decimation by graduation. In the Tigers’ case, they lose all five starters, while Crystal City bids adieu to 12 players. De Soto (24-5) has talent coming back, most notably in big man Jake Patzner, but life without White, Ferguson and head coach Davis will be a challenge, especially if the Dragons maintain their traditionally tough schedule. Herculaneum (4-20) already lost five of its top players a month before the season ended and won only once after they departed.

Girls: Crystal City (23-5 before its sectional game against West County) and Festus (6-17) face the same prospect as their counterparts in the boys’ programs; the Hornets graduate eight and the Tigers will lose nine. Grandview (12-13) often had an all-senior lineup on the floor this season, led by Megan Capranica inside and Jessie Langhans outside. Seckman had a disappointing 9-18 mark this year and its top three players (Abby Hayden, Texas Crowe and Shelbey Stuckmeyer) are graduating. Herculaneum (9-18) made strides under new coach Riley Blair but leaned heavily on senior Kellie Pigg’s scoring inside. The Cats will have return-ees Ivanna Starkey, Miranda Coplin and Kayla Womack, who combined to aver-age about 19 points per game this season.

Basketball: St. Pius boys and girls teams both could well be better next season Continued from Page 41

Jaguar wrestlers get an extra edge – from parentsBy Kevin KrausFor the Leader

With a quick scan of its coaching staff, you can easily understand why the Seckman wrestling

program has produced three individual state champions in the last three years, and took fourth and third place as a team in the last two Class 4 state meets.

Start with head coach Cody Greene, the first state champion in Seckman history and an NCAA qualifier at the University of Missouri. Next is Greene’s chief assistant, Kevin Herron, who won his prep state title while at Fox and also qualified for the NCAA meet while grappling at Mizzou. Then note assistants Todd Faulkner and Frankie Valleroy, high school champs at CBC and Seckman, respectively. And fi-nally toss in Jeff Taylor, who coached both Greene and Valleroy, and Dan Hopson, who had a stellar coaching career at Fox and Oakville, and you have a wrestling pedigree few other staffs can match.

Yet there’s an-other dimension to the team that draws no notice but seems to energize the Jag-uars every time they hit the mats.

“They’re just the Seckman wres-tling parents,” said Greene, grasping for a fitting descrip-tion of his athletes’ biggest fans. “There wasn’t anything quite like this be-fore, but it really goes back to the Fox days when I wrestled there (before Seck-man opened). “If anyone deserves credit for starting this type of environment with the community, it was (little league wrestling head coach) Frank Valleroy (Frankie’s father) and

Steve Alden, back when Alden was the head coach at Fox.

“I thought back then, it was a pos-sibility that our parents (went) beyond

what was asked of them. When we were in little league with Frank, and would go to nationals or somewhere else, we’d have a 30-odd line of cars heading there with us. It was pretty important, as a kid, to be a part of something people thought was that important. That’s where it started, and Frank has been breeding it over the years.”

The Seckman parents even seem to have ratcheted it up a notch or two since those days of Greene’s youth.

“It’s pretty neat to be a part of it,” Greene said. “I’ve had great parents from the time I stepped in. If anything, they spoil me more and more by doing stuff for me.”

No parent has been around Jaguar wrestling as long as Melissa Waterkotte. Not only has she sent three sons through the program – Johnny, Blake and the late Jimmy Pepper – she married into a Northwest wrestling family that boasts Jake and Maxx Waterkotte among their better grapplers.

Melissa Waterkotte with her son, the late Jimmy Pepper, at the 2006 state wrestling championships in Columbia. Jimmy was the Class 4 runner-up at 135 pounds that year, his senior season at Seckman. He died in July 2007.

See PARENTS, Page 48

SportS


four free throws, awarded on the “net” of two technical fouls by Jefferson. She sank three of the four to make the final score 78-73.

Jefferson head coach Tonika Bruce was glum in victory because of the fallout from the last-second scuffle.

“Our three players (involved) are sus-pended for our next two games,” Bruce noted. Those games will be in the NJCAA Region 16 tournament this weekend at Lincoln University in Jefferson City. The

Vikings earned the top seed with a region record of 10-2 and will play in the semi-finals on Saturday against either Moberly (the No. 5 seed) or State Fair (No. 4). A victory in that game would put Jefferson in the championship contest on Sunday.

Whether it’s one game or two in Jefferson City, Bruce will be down three players. “I’m not happy,” she said. “It’s the second game we’ve played (State Fair) this year and it’s the second time they’ve thrown a punch.”

Bruce defended Crawford – the No. 2 scorer on the team – while acknowledging the reality of the suspensions. “She had four kids going at her,” the coach said. She added that while the officials ruled that the State Fair bench did not join the fracas, “I think everybody could see that definitely wasn’t the case.”

The Vikings beat State Fair on the Greyhounds’ floor in Sedalia back on Feb. 22 by almost the same score, 77-71. In this rematch, however, Jefferson fell behind early and had to turn up the juice defensively in the second half to pull out a win.

State Fair’s Jallissa Lewis sank a pair of free throws with 11:10 left to make it 55-45 for the Greyhounds. But then the Vikings went on a 16-2 run that included three buckets by Rayven Brooks. The third one gave Jefferson its first lead since the early minutes of the contest and the Vikings pushed it out from there.

Brooks finished as the game’s high scorer with 20 points, 15 in the second half. She also had five steals. LaQuinta Jefferson added 16 points and four as-sists. She swished a 3-pointer from the top of the key to expand the lead to 75-62 with 3:08 to go, and soon thereafter State Fair’s point guard Ariel Easton fouled out with 12 points and the game was out of reach for the visitors.

“We weren’t rebounding the ball and

we were missing a lot of layups and free throws,” Bruce said about her team’s uneven play in the first half. The Vikings trailed 37-33 at the break, but their defen-sive turnaround in the second half paved the path to victory.

“Our girls just stepped up and did a better job defensively,” Bruce noted. “Ul-timately, in the first half we didn’t press and in the second half we did, and I think it made the difference in us being able to capitalize on some of their turnovers.”

Rebounding also was a factor; the Vikings beat State Fair on the boards 43-37, led by Genise Presley’s 11 rebounds.

“It’s a physical game and State Fair is a great team, they’re aggressive, they’re quick. (And) they obviously have post-season experience. We lost to them in the (region) championship game last year to go to the national tournament. All of this means that we’ve got to prepare more because we may end up seeing them in the region tournament.”

The Viking mentor added that her squad has more than enough depth to compensate for the suspended trio. Of the 15 players on her roster, 13 have played in 20 games or more and eight are averag-ing five points per game or more, led by LaQuinta Jefferson’s 17 per outing.

On top of a 108-61 blowout win over Three Rivers CC on Feb. 29, the Vikings have now won 12 in a row and take a 26-4 record into the regional tournament. State Fair is 17-11 and went 6-6 in the region.

Vikings: Three players suspended for team’s next two gamesContinued from Page 44

Undefeated champsThe Festus fourth-grade girls basketball team defeated Seckman for the championship of the Fox Winter Basketball League on Feb. 1. The team was undefeated for the season. Front row, from left: Melasia Jones, Blair Baumer, Hannah DeRouse. Back: Coach Steve Garmon, Bria Garmon, Tamia Washington, Taleah Casey and Hayley James.

Frostbite sweeperColton Vaughn of Hillsboro, running in the 10-12 year-old age group, swept the St. Louis Track Club’s five-race Frostbite Series at Forest Park this winter. The five distances he ran, and his winning times, were the 3-kilometer (12:23), two mile (13:43), five-kilometer (22:18), four mile (30:54) and three mile (21:43).

SportS

Attention

De SotoLittle League

ChiliDinner

Saturday,March 17, 20125 p.m. - 9 p.m.

De Soto KC HallLower Level

Former Cardinal Andy Benes will be signing autographs

for ticket holders only!6 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Also special appearance by "Fredbird"

Silent Auction!• Adults $10

• Children 14 andunder $5

• Children 3 andunder FREE


If you’re ready, the fish are out there waiting for youOutdoorOutlook

John J.Winkelman

Lord Tennyson believed that spring turns a young man’s fancy to thoughts of love. That may be true,

but I believe a significant number of those young fellas are thinking quite a bit about going fishing.

Many trout anglers already have whet their appetites by wetting a line in the coldwater springs and streams of Missouri. Those who prefer that the air temperature be warmer than the water do not have to wait much longer to consis-tently get their way.

They also don’t have to wait to go fishing, said Nelson Scherrer of Festus. Reports from Lake of the Ozarks have people catching fish on patterns you usu-ally expect later in the spring.

“We haven’t had extended days of water temperatures at 32 degrees. There has been ice on the water, but it hasn’t frozen over,” Scherrer said. “At the Lake of the Ozarks they are still catching fish in three feet of water. They haven’t had a reason to go deep.”

He suggested three primary lure selections for success this time of year. The Rogue is a shad imitation designed with neutral buoyancy to suspend at the

preferred water level. It can be retrieved slowly without diving deeper in the water or floating back to the surface.

“I like bright colors like orange or chartreuse. They are going to stand out, but color does not count as much as rattles and the displacement of water,” Scherrer said.

The spinner bait is another early spring option. Shaped something like a safety pin, the spinner bait looks like a jig with fluttering blades of different shapes and sizes attached. It also is designed to imitate a shad or small fish.

“You want to slow-roll that spinner bait. That means slow enough to bump the bottom and structure but fast enough to keep the blades turning and displac-ing water,” Scherrer said. “The water magnifies the sound of those bumps and

attracts attention.”His third suggestion is a crankbait

like the Wiggle Wart. The crawfish or baitfish imitation wobbles in a wide path as it is retrieved. Again the allure of the lure is how it agitates the water as it moves and the vibrations that causes in the water. Healthy fish are sleek, strong swimmers, slicing gracefully through the water. Injured fish do not move as fluidly.

“If it’s wounded, that bass thinks it can catch it easily. Bass are predators. Just like a grizzly bear they are going to go after the weakest prey they can find,” Scherrer said. “If they have to expend their energy to catch something, they want to make sure they can replace that energy or they become the weak link.”

Not all spring fishing has to take place on big lakes. In fact, smaller bodies of water are more susceptible to tempera-ture changes.

“It doesn’t need to be a big tempera-ture swing in the spring,” Scherrer said. “Just a degree or two of water temperature can make a big difference, and smaller bodies of water are going to warm up more quickly.”

Portions of those ponds and small lakes that spend most of a day in direct sun can have water temperature several degrees higher than shaded areas. Wind also can play a role in affecting the un-derwater habitat.

“When warm winds out of the south hit the north banks it mixes air and water temperatures. Bass are going to move to the warmer water,” Scherrer said. “People wait until the water temperature goes up 10 degrees, when just one or two degrees can make a difference.”

So now is the time to respond to the signals of spring, with just one qualifica-tion. Scherrer has been fishing the pro circuits for several years, so he has some experience on his side. Regardless of the season, he will tell you that “now” is a good time to go fishing.

“You are going to find fish, and some good fish, too. Just go,” he said.

John J. Winkelman is the communi-cations supervisor at Jefferson Regional Medical Center and associate editor for Outdoor Guide Magazine. If you have comments or ideas for the Leader Out-doors News page, please send an email to [email protected].

“Jimmy started in little league when he was in the second grade,” Melissa Waterkotte said. “Then Johnny and Blake followed. Plus, you add the stepkids, Jake and Maxx, so I’ve essentially had five to keep track of. It’s just what we did, support our kids (through) the ups and downs, the highs and lows.

“It (the Seckman parent fan base) has been there since the little league days. For the most part, we don’t miss a match, don’t miss a tournament – we just support our kids. You can almost call it a family, because you spend so much time together. You travel so much during the course of a season that you really become a family.”

Laura Kraus, whose son, Matt, is a two-time state champion for Seckman, noted a change in what the group has called itself over the years. “It started with the ‘DDC,’ which was the Dedicated Dads Club,” she said. “I guess the moms didn’t think too much of that, and wanted to be more involved. So now we call it the DPC, for Dedicated Parents Club, and everybody gets along.

“Everybody’s there for everybody, and wants everyone’s child to succeed, not just their own. We have a great group

of people who will go out together after tournaments and have potluck dinners at the hotels. Cody needs to focus on the kids, and when all of the parents get along, that makes his job a lot easier.”

Greene vividly recalls the support his family gave him in his developing years.

“I have pictures from when I won state in high school, and my family was down there with me,” he said. “There might have been 26, 27 people in the picture, and that was members from both sides of my fam-ily. Do you know how special that made me feel, to have your family recognize what you put into this sport?

“I look at the parents we have now as a huge extended family, and I would say most of them look at me as a nephew or son, and take care of me pretty well. At our tournament, we have a hospitality room, and I asked some of our freshmen and sophomores to see if their parents would help provide some food. By the time everybody was done, that place looked like a (Las) Vegas buffet.

“Things like that feel special,” Greene said. “It does to me, and I know it does to the kids. To see our crowd down there at state, and have it recognized as one of the largest fan bases, is something we’ve been trying to get. From a wrestling perspective, it’s fun to be part of something that’s so big and cares so much about you.”

Greene said such support sets an ex-ample for the athletes themselves. When Matt Kraus came up short in his bid for a third straight state title last month (he fin-ished third in Class 4 at 132 pounds), “he wasn’t happy about it,” the coach said. “But when we walked off the mat with Brock Wingbermuehle (who won the champion-ship at 120 pounds), Matt was the first kid who picked him up in celebration.”

Because most of this year’s team will be back next season, so will their parents. “We’re losing two big point scorers in Kraus and Danny Farrell (who took third at 126 pounds),” Greene said. “But we’re also returning more base points than we’ve ever returned.”

Although she won’t have a son wres-tling for Greene any more, Laura Kraus said she’s not about to walk away from the program after all these years.

“I’ll be staying around, because

we’ve made great friends and built some solid relationships with the other parents. I have made some really good friends and, for the most part, we’re all in it together.”

The Jaguars’ chief mentor won’t be able to shake Melissa Waterkotte either, even though Blake Pepper, who lost his senior wrestling season to a football injury, will be graduating. “My daughter (Laura) is the varsity wrestling manager,” Waterkotte said, “so we still have another three years.”

Parents: Greene was surrounded by family support group when he won state titleContinued from Page 46

Lions soccer plans benefit 5k run

The Northwest High soccer pro-grams will hold a 5K run at 8 a.m. April 14th at the Valley Middle School-House Springs Elementary campus. The entry fee is $25 with proceeds benefiting the soccer programs. For information, visit www.northwestsoccer.webs.com.

Rockhurst signs FitzpatrickDe Soto High senior Kinsley Fitzpatrick, seated center, recently signed a letter of intent to play soccer this fall at Rockhurst University in Kansas City. Seated with Kinsley are her parents, Bryan Fitzpatrick and Diana Fitzpatrick. In back, from left, are De Soto athletic director Bob Thompson, principal Dan Hoehn and head soccer coach Tony Kuster.

OutdOOr News/spOrts

49Jefferson County LeaderThursday, Oct. 18, 2012

Gordon Bess

TheInsideTrack

Leader Athlete of the Week

AndrewSawdyCrystal City football

Sawdy, a 5 -11 , 152 -pound sophomore receiver and defensive back, caught 11 passes for 116 yards and scored the decisive touchdown in Crystal City’s 14-7 Homecoming game victory over St. Pius on Friday. His 39-yard touchdown catch, on a pass from Peyton Pollock, was a thing of beauty as he broke numerous tackles on his way to the end zone. He also had 19 tackles as a defender the week before in the Hornets’ loss to Herculaneum.


Softball programs are gaining altitude, and not just the state-bound Tigers

Call it renewal, revitalization or a flat-out renaissance, something is up in Jefferson County prep

softball. And I do mean Up.Festus leads the parade, of course,

by achieving its first-ever final four appearance. The Tigers will go after a Class 3 state championship starting at 1 p.m. Friday in a semifinal against Grain Valley, the District 14 champion.

But this goes well beyond one team.

Going into the district tournaments that began Oct. 3, the 11 teams in the

See SOFTBALL, Page 53

Tigers’ next stop: Springfield semifinalBy Gordon BessFor the Leader

Some softball teams can pitch. Some can play defense. And some can muster up timely hitting.

Championship teams do all three consistently. It remains to be seen whether the Festus Tigers are state-championship caliber. But they had all three vital ingre-dients in Saturday’s Class 3 quarterfinal contest and earned a 9-4 victory over host Kennedy.

The victory punches the Tigers’ ticket for the final four this weekend in Springfield, where head coach Jeff Montgomery’s squad will get to test its championship mettle.

“I’m just real happy for our program, our school and our kids,” Montgomery said in the visitors’ dugout after the game. “I’m very fortunate to have such a strong group of kids this year – just real excited about it.”

The Tigers advanced to Saturday’s game with a businesslike 8-3 victory at home over District 1 champion Park Hills Central in a sectional game on Oct. 10. Tiffany Link stroked a three-run double in the sixth inning to widen the Festus lead to 8-1 and pitcher Mollie Carter struck out 10, including three in the last inning, as the Tigers led the whole way.

On Saturday, Festus went up 1-0 in the first inning on Lauren Todd’s RBI single, driving in Breanna Peters. But the Tigers fell behind 2-1 in the bottom half of the frame with an uncharacteristic throwing error that was more costly than usual because Kennedy’s diamond has an enormous swath of foul territory down both base lines.

The Tigers drew even at 2-2 in the third with Todd again coming through, smacking a line drive off Celt pitcher Amanda Cabrera to chase home Chey-enne Pratt, who had doubled. It stayed that way until the fifth, when Todd doubled to left field to drive in Pratt and Peters. Link hit a bloop two-run single later in the inning and Carol Floyd capped the rally with a sacrifice fly for an RBI that left the Tigers in command at 7-2.

Kennedy got two of those runs back in the fifth, but it could have been a bigger rally had Peters not tracked down a long fly ball in right field for the first out. Then the Tigers tacked on two more insurance runs in the sixth on an error and Carter’s RBI base hit.

Kennedy’s best hitters were lined up in the bottom of the seventh and the first of them, Kathleen Miller, drew a leadoff walk. But Carter struck out her opposite number, Cabrera. Then Taylor Miller hit a sharp grounder up the middle and Tiger shortstop Sarah Weidner snagged it, stepped on second and fired to Link at first base for a game-ending and state-

Ted Howell photosFestus shortstop Sarah Weidner, left, and third baseman Carol Floyd celebrate the Tigers’ win over Park Hills Central in their Class 3 sectional contest.

qualifying double play.“I couldn’t ask for a better defense,”

Carter said. “Sarah making that double play was probably the best play of the whole game.

“My pitches were working, (but) I didn’t perform like I would like to,” she added. “But my defense came through for me. That’s all I needed.”

Montgomery noted the key defensive

plays as well.“We played

great defense when we had to,” he said. “Breanna Peters makes that play in right field when she gets turned around, and she catches the ball. Our defense in the outfield has been great all year. We strung hits to-gether.

“ We h a d a rough first inning, things looked a

little bleak. But this group has been battle-tested all year, so I knew we were OK. This group of kids doesn’t get too worked up when we’re losing. I liked their chances once Mollie got settled in.”

The Tiger mentor also underscored how well his team approached the game, staying loose but focused before and dur-ing the contest.

“It’s just confidence. I’ve done this long enough to know you can’t pressure kids. It’s the worst thing you can do. We try to keep things as normal as possible. That’s not anything new; I didn’t invent that. I think that’s a smart philosophy.

“They were ready to go this morn-ing. We hit before we came up here. We were just very focused and very loose and ready to play.”

Festus will make its first-ever trip to the semifinals. The team’s 26 victories (against two losses) is a school record, three better than the old mark. Two more wins will give the Tigers a state champion-ship. It all starts with a semifinal against Grain Valley (24-6) Friday at 1 p.m.

Montgomery will have his club ready. “We’ve got to get rested and work on some things and get sharp,” he said. “I want the kids to enjoy it. We’re going to go down there and play hard and try to have fun too.”

Ashley Davis slides safely into second ahead of the throw to Park Hills Central shortstop Georgia Richardson.

Cheyenne Pratt snags a popup in the win over Kennedy.

Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012Jefferson County Leader50

Black Cats stun Valle to win JCC championshipBy Phil GaitensFor the Leader

Powered by six touchdowns from star running back Dustin Johnson, Herculaneum edged Valle in a wild

41-39 shootout Friday, clinching first place in the Jefferson County Conference with a 6-0 record.

“We’re as proud as we can be,” said Dave Cook, Herculaneum’s head coach. “It’s exciting. This is the first conference championship we have won outright since 2001. That’s a big deal for us. It’s taken a long time to get a conference title back on our wall.”

Riding a wave of momentum, the Black Cats (6-2) have reeled off six straight wins, all against JCC opponents, after losing their first two games of the season.

Johnson, a junior who has rushed for 25 touchdowns and 1,650 yards, strafed Valle’s defense with long runs of 66, 55 and 45 yards. He piled up 302 yards on 28 carries.

“He had a good night,” Cook said, adding that the offensive line turned in a strong performance. “We did a nice job

up front.”Valle (6-2),

the two-time de-fending state Class 1 c h a m p i o n s , jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the second quarter and appeared to be in command on its home field as Her-culaneum faced a 21-7 deficit at in-termission.

But the Black Cats shifted their game into high gear in the third quarter.

“The kids came out and played a gutsy second half,” Cook said. “We had a couple of big hits.”

Herculaneum rallied behind John-son’s three third-quarter touchdowns, and as the final period began the Cats were clinging to 28-27 lead.

After Johnson scored with about three minutes left to play in the game, the Warriors responded when Tyler Fallert rushed for his fourth touchdown of the night with only a minute left on the clock.

Valle’s desperate bid to tie the

game fell short, however, when the Cats pounced on a bad snap, snuffing out the Warriors’ two-point conversion attempt. Herculaneum then sealed the victory when it recovered Valle’s onside kick and ran out the clock.

Cook cited a pivotal third-quarter interception by Cats senior Nathan Hol-land as a key defensive play in his team’s second-half comeback.

Herculaneum quarterback Jake LaBrayere completed only one of eight passes on the night, but that one comple-tion was crucial. His fourth-quarter 16-yard toss to Sean Hudson on third down kept the Cats’ drive alive and led to Johnson’s sixth TD romp.

Cook pointed to his club’s increas-ingly productive offense as a major factor in the Cats winning streak.

“Our offense has really stepped up,” he said. “We have gone back to a huddle and we’re (lining up) under center, and the kids have responded. You don’t see a lot of teams putting up 40 points on Valle.” In fact, the Cats’ 41 points were the most scored on the Warriors defense this season.

Of course, Johnson accounts for a huge chunk of the Herculaneum offense. “He’s definitely as good a football player and running back as you will find,” Cook said. “He’s got to be in the top 10 in small schools.”

The coach also emphasized the importance of his players’ dedication to conditioning and strength training. “The weight room is what builds champi-

onships,” he said. “I believe that has helped keep us healthy.”

A l t h o u g h the thrilling vic-tory gave the Cats the JCC crown, it didn’t improve their district rank-ing.

With the play-offs just around the

corner, Herculaneum remains seeded fifth in Class 2 District 2.

“I’m not happy with the way that’s shaking out but we have to play the hand we’re dealt,” he said. The seeds are determined by a point system that was designed to take into account the quality of a team’s opponents. Maplewood (7-1) occupies the top spot in the eight-team district.

Cook said he won’t find out until Sunday afternoon (Oct. 21) who the Black Cats will meet in the first round of the playoffs. Based on the current seed-ing, the Black Cats might face Lutheran North (3-5) from the Metro League Conference.

On Friday, Herculaneum will wrap up its regular season at home against Per-ryville (3-5). “They’re bigger up front and they have a couple of good skills kids,” Cook said. “They will be a handful.”

The Pirates are coming off a 20-12 victory over winless Windsor.

Nathan HollandDustin Johnson

Through Week Eight (Oct. 12 games)Place-Team Record Points

Class 1 District 11 Portageville 7-0 54.812 Valle 6-2 50.473 Thayer 5-3 43.884 St. Vincent 5-3 42.735 Hayti 3-5 33.686 Chaffee 3-5 32.147 Crystal City 2-6 29.428 Cabool 0-8 23.16

Class 2 District 11 Caruthersville 6-1 45.982 Charleston 6-2 41.153 Malden 6-2 40.894 Scott City 4-4 31.55 Jefferson 3-4 30.556 Grandview 3-5 24.67 St. Pius 2-6 22.168 East Prairie 0-8 14.41

Class 2 District 21 Maplewood 7-1 54.972 Brentwood 7-1 44.33

3 Carnahan 4-3 43.534 Lutheran North 3-5 39.375 Herculaneum 6-2 38.446 Trans. & Law 3-4 36.227 Principia 2-5 24.698 Cleveland NJROTC 1-6 22.87

Class 4 District 11 Sikeston 8-0 48.262 Hillsboro 6-2 39.613 North County 5-3 34.364 Festus 5-3 34.145 Cape Girardeau Central 2-6 31.856 Farmington 2-6 25.647 Perryville 3-5 22.578 De Soto 2-6 21.18

Class 4 District 21 Miller Career 8-0 45.912 St. Mary’s 6-2 36.253 Vashon 4-4 27.834 Lutheran South 3-5 26.065 Roosevelt 1-7 22.386 Affton 1-7 15.687 Windsor 0-8 12.62

Prep Football District Standings

Two-minute drillHillsboro 49, Lutheran South 19

Nick Baumgartner continued his strong season with three touchdown runs to lead the Hawks to a nonconference home victory.

Hillsboro’s other scores came on runs by Chris Walsh and Zach Hart and a touchdown pass from QB Justin Horn to Brennan Martin. The Hawks held the Lancers scoreless in the first half and blew the game open with three TDs in the final quarter.

“It was a pretty well-contested game for a half,” Hillsboro head coach Brian Robbins said. “We blocked a field goal just before halftime, and made some adjustments at halftime, got it to 49-7 and then put our younger guys in.”

Robbins said Baumgartner “played well on both sides of the ball,” as did Jacob Kelam, who had the field-goal block and had a 70-yard punt return for a TD called back on a penalty.

The Hawks suffered a big loss, however, with linebacker-tight end Andrew Reed tearing ligaments in a knee. “He’s done for the year, but he’s not done playing football,” Robbins said of his team’s leading tackler. “He’ll play in college.” Replacing him at inside linebacker are the trio of

Zach Warren, David Carter and Derek Mohart in yet another test of the Hawks’ depth.

“It’s been an ordeal. We’ve had our share of adversity,” Robbins said of his squad’s injury troubles this fall. “But we’ll rally around our kids.”

The Hawks (6-2) will close out the regular season at home Friday against St. Charles. The Pirates are 3-5.

Ste. Genevieve 45, De Soto 7In this battle of green-clad Dragons, the

visitors from De Soto were no match for a talented Ste. Genevieve squad, which won its seventh game handily while De Soto sank to 2-6.

De Soto’s lone touchdown came on an Austin Hayes run. On one of De Soto’s few big offensive plays of the night, Hayes hit Hunter Carey with a 40-yard pass, but Carey fumbled at the end of the play and the host team turned that turnover into a scoring drive. Ste. Genevieve led 35-0 at halftime to put the game out of reach.

“We didn’t do much to stop them and we didn’t

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Highlight-reel touchdown gives Hornets a ‘real’ win

Ted Howell photosCrystal City’s Andrew Sawdy high-steps through one of many tackle attempts on his way to the winning touchdown in the Hornets’ Homecoming game victory. Providing an escort are teammates Joe Ross, left, and Justin Morris.

Chris Filer


Crystal City had more than the usual motivation to win its Homecom-ing football game against St. Pius

Friday. And the Hornets earned that vic-tory by getting a lot more than usual on the biggest offensive play of their season.

With the Hornets trailing 7-6 halfway through the fourth quarter, Crystal City got the ball at midfield and picked up one first down to start a drive. On third down, quarterback Peyton Pollock lobbed a pass in the left flat to Andrew Sawdy. The sophomore wideout gathered in the ball at the St. Pius 30 and then transformed into a Sherman tank, shedding tacklers from all sides as he rammed his way into the end zone for a 12-7 Hornet lead.

Then Pollock pulled off a play that was almost as good, rolling right on the two-point conversion try. He looked to pass but Sawdy, his favorite receiver, had slipped and fallen. So the Hornet QB just kept on running and eluded defenders just enough to crack the goal line by the right pylon. Crystal City had a 14-7 lead and the Hornets made it stand for their first “real” win of 2012.

The Hornets notched a forfeit win over Lift for Life from a rain-delayed game Sept. 8 that the Eagles couldn’t make. But at 1-6, the Hornets were run-ning out of time to earn a win on the field. With St. Pius as their Homecoming op-ponent in their final regular-season home game, the opportunity was there.

“We knew it would be close,” Crystal City head coach Ken Weik said. “We’re a lot like each other. They play a lot of young kids, we play a lot of young kids. We’ve struggled on offense, they’ve struggled on offense. We know each other pretty well.

“I can’t say enough about our kids just hanging in there. When (St. Pius) scored, our kids could have gotten their heads down and they didn’t.”

After a scoreless first half that was a showcase of offensive futility for both squads, Crystal City needed only seven plays to get on the board at 8:40 of the third quarter with a three-yard touchdown

run by Justin Morris. The senior receiver-running back helped set up the score by catching a 43-yard pass from Pollock down to the Lancer 12-yard line.

Before the quarter was over, however, the Lancers responded with their first good drive of the game, resulting in a three-yard TD run off tackle by Chris Filer. Brendan Withrow, the sophomore kicker who is developing into a real weapon, booted the point-after through the uprights to put the Lancers on top 7-6.

But the Lancers, plagued by turn-overs all season, fumbled at midfield to give the Hornets the ball at the start of what became the winning scoring drive. The Lancers still had chances to score late in the game and had the ball at Crystal City’s 31 with two minutes left, but the second of two interceptions thrown by St. Pius freshman quarterback Mickey

Karoly torpedoed the Lancers’ hopes.

“It’s been like that the last three weeks,” Lancer head coach Jerry Woods said, noting that his team has yielded only 14 points in each of its last three games. “We won three weeks ago, last week it’s a 14-9 (loss) and we were in it right to the end. Tonight it’s 7-6, then it’s 14-7 and we were right there. We had our chances to try to score and take this thing to overtime. You can only ask to be right there in a close ballgame and give us a chance to win.”

Crystal City pulled out the stops to mark Homecoming, with a pre-game helicopter landing, a fireworks show and a new scoreboard on display. And the Hornets generated just enough fireworks on offense, especially on Sawdy’s memo-rable catch-and-run, to secure a big win.

“That was pretty impressive,” Weik said of Sawdy’s touchdown. “He was all over the place. Andrew is just that guy for us.

“We talk about him like he’s a sea-soned veteran and he’s a sophomore. He got on the field a little bit last year, but this is the kid’s first year of varsity ball. He just plays hard all the time and gives us everything he’s got, like you saw on that play there.”

Woods also noted how big that final touchdown was.

“Those were huge missed tackles because we were winning the ballgame right there,” he said. “It’s execution. It’s hard out there and you can’t execute 100 percent of the time, but we need 80 or 90 percent if we’re going to be victori-ous, especially in a close game. A missed play, a couple missed tackles, then that’s the ballgame.”

The first half gave neither head coach much to be encouraged about, especially with the evening being extended for all the Homecoming pomp. Adding to Crys-tal City’s frustration was the Hornets’ failure to score from the St. Pius six-yard line in the final minute before the half. But Weik’s team came through when it had to in the second half.

“We talked about Homecoming and all the things that go with it,” Weik said. “I like Homecoming. I don’t look forward to it every year but I don’t let it bother me. The kids are the same way. They enjoy the festivities and they should, they’re in high school. But it does wear on you. We were cramping up tonight. Being 0-0 at halftime scared me because we were worn out. But I was proud as heck of them, they were plugging away and doing well.”

The Hornets will take their 2-6 record to Grandview (3-5) for the regular-season finale on Friday while St. Pius, also 2-6, will host Valle (6-2).

do much on offense,” De Soto head coach Bob Thompson said. “They were far more athletic than us. We had a tough time getting anything going between the tackles. There was no question we were overmatched athletically.”

Still missing two key injured players, Nick Moore and Conor Bothell, Thompson had to go to his bench more than he would like. “We saw some good things from some younger players,” he said. “That was good to see. The effort is still there. It’s just a matter of teaching fundamentals and getting kids caught up who lack experience.

“It’s a hard stretch, but it’s part of what you have to go through sometimes in high school football.”

On Friday, Thompson’s Dragons will visit Potosi (3-5), which is coming off a 41-7 loss to North County. “We match up a lot better with them,” Thompson said of the Trojans. “I’m excited about it. It’s a chance to see how our young kids continue to develop. The season is winding down but we’re going to keep working.”

Two-minute drillSt. Vincent 56, Grandview 26

The Eagles’ recent woes continued at Perryville as the Indians ran over, around and through Grandview’s defense. The Eagles had some offense to show for their efforts, but it was way too little to make a difference.

Eagle head coach Mike Genge had a blunt assessment of the night. “Our defense played bad,” he said. “(St. Vincent) pretty much scored at will. We were down 36 at halftime (42-6). It was their Homecoming and they played like it was Homecoming. And we didn’t play disciplined football.”

Eagle receiver T.J. Churchwell had a productive game, hauling in two TD passes of 38 and 51 yards from quarterback Curtis Kellar. Churchwell finished with six catches for 114 yards. He had another 60-yard catch wiped out by a holding penalty. Kellar went 18-for-31 passing for 223 yards and one interception.

“We didn’t run the ball very well,” Genge said, noting his team’s mere 75 yards rushing. One bright spot was the return to play of running back Christian Murphy, who missed two games

with an injury. “Getting him back was a good help for us,” Genge said.

“We’re just not playing solid football,” Genge said. “On defense, we’re not playing aggressively.”

The Eagles, who were 3-2 earlier this season, are now 3-5 as they prepare to host Crystal City on Friday. “It’s a big game, a chance for us to move up in our district,” Genge said. “We need to get back on the winning track and we’d like to win at home. (All three Eagle victories were on the road.) “Home field has been kind of a curse for us.”

St. Charles West 28, Festus 14The Tigers lost more than the game at St.

Charles as several players sustained injuries. The worst befell senior Cory Uding, a mainstay on both sides of the ball, who broke his left leg early in the contest.

“It happened right in front of me,” head coach Russ Schmidt said of Uding’s compound fracture. “I’ve been around football for a long time and I’ve never seen anything like it. Cory

looked up at me and said, ‘Coach, my season’s over, isn’t it?’ ”

Two other Tigers, Corey Carr and Jordan Wilkes, suffered back injuries and were taken to a hospital, where their injuries were found not to be serious. Both accounted for the two Festus touchdowns, with Carr scoring on a two-yard plunge in the first quarter and Wilkes dashing 77 yards to pay dirt early in the third quarter. That tied the game at 14 but the Warriors responded with two TDs in that same quarter. The fourth period was scoreless.

Wilkes finished with 127 yards on four carries. The Warriors rolled up more than 400 yards of offense in raising their record to 5-3, the same as Festus. It didn’t help that the Tigers gave up a fumble and an interception to the turnover-free Warriors.

“Our k ids competed wel l g iven the circumstances,” Schmidt said. “Against a good football team, you can’t turn over the ball at all. When it was 14-14 we knew we could play. But

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SportS


Vikings tie up loose ends with overtime victory

Matt O’Harver photosLance Kohler of Jefferson College, left, challenges Lewis & Clark’s Nicholas Spiess for midfield ball control in the Vikings’ win Friday.


For Jefferson College head coach Ricardo Garza, Friday’s 2-1 over-time victory at home against Lewis

& Clark Community College was more than just a win. It also exorcized a couple of negatives that had bedeviled his club in an otherwise successful season so far.

For starters, getting the ‘W’ in ex-tra time was a first for the Vikings this fall. They opened the regular season playing South Suburban College to a 1-1 overtime draw. Then they lost 3-2 in overtime to Illinois Central back on Sept. 14. Garza was starting to wonder when the ball would bounce the Vikings’ way in OT.

He can now check that off his list. Forward Pete Grindel planted a penalty kick with 3:14 left in extra time to seal Jefferson’s 10th win of the season and send the Trailblazers back to Godfrey, Ill., with their first loss in their last five contests.

“The other thing is, we’ve missed three PKs throughout the season,” Garza said. “So it was also good that Pete (scored). He works so hard (but) sometimes things don’t go his way. And Lance (Kohler), who earned the PK, a pivotal, hard-working forward, he created it.

“So we won in overtime, with the guy who works hard earning it and with the other guy who deserves a goal cleaning it up. A perfect scenario. And the 10th win of the season is always good – you always want to be in double digits.”

The Trailblazers, an NJCAA Divi-sion II squad that came in with a 9-6-1 re-cord, got Jefferson’s attention with a goal by freshman forward Jeff Cameron less

than 10 minutes into the game. Eighteen minutes later, Grindel took a pass directly in front of the Lewis & Clark goal and caught Trailblazer goalkeeper Nick Waite out of position, allowing Grindel to tap in a dribbler and tie the score.

It stayed 1-1 to halftime even though

Jefferson outshot the visitors 11-2. Both teams locked down their defenses in the second half, with Waite making several athletic saves. That left it to Kohler to press on the goal in the overtime period and he drew the foul that set up Grindel’s winning PK.

Garza had rea-son to be happy with the Vikings’ play at both ends of the field. The defense limited the Trailblazers to only a few shots after their initial goal. “And that’s using five different defenders,” Garza said.

Viking goal-keeper Josh Rich-ter made the saves he needed to as

well. “Josh has struggled from a back injury,” Garza said. “He really played through that. He came up big for us.”

On offense, Jefferson had numerous near-misses that might have left some coaches frustrated even in victory, but not Garza.

“That’s why it’s good to get a win, because (the players) will forget about all that stuff,” Garza said. “I won’t, but the thing is, at the beginning of the year we weren’t creating enough, and now we’re creating a lot.

“I’m ecstatic. I’m very happy with how we’re playing because I know how important this is going into the postsea-son.”

The postseason starts with the NJCAA Region 16 tournament. The Vikings, who finished the regular season at 11-5-1, earned the No. 1 seed with a 5-1 regional record. They will host the tournament and enjoy a first-round bye, putting them in the semifinals scheduled for Oct. 23.

Jefferson last won a regional title in 2008.

Pete Grindel fires in a penalty kick for the winning goal.

Tigers, Black Cats dominate JCC cross country meetIn both the boys and girls varsity races,

Festus dominated the field at Satur-day’s Jefferson County Conference

cross country meet, with Herculaneum not far behind.

All seven Tiger harriers in both races earned all-conference honors, led by boys JCC Runner of the Year Christian Hunter. The senior covered the five-kilometer course at Engler Park in Farm-ington in 16:42, eight seconds ahead of run-ner-up Drake Smels-er of Herculaneum. Michael Karls, Max Manasala, Tyler Gil-lam, Dakota Hunter and Dustin Price ran 3-4-6-7-8 as the Ti-gers easily won the boys team title with 19 points.

Festus was al-most as overpower-ing on the girls side,

as Kaitlyn Elbl led a 2-3-4-5-7-10-11 parade that included Claire Darnell, Caro-lyn White, Crystal Beffa, Jamie Kempfer, Carmen Christopher and Lizzie Ohle-meier. The Tigers’ 21 points was enough to hold off the Black Cat girls, who were led by senior Kaitlyn Fischer’s winning run in 18:12. Fischer came in 1:24 ahead of Elbl to take the girls JCC Runner of the Year honors.

Herky boys winning all-conference recognition besides Smelser were Tristian Mock and T.J. Jenkins. Brittany Bishop, Sam Jarvis, Kaylin Manes and Mary Moloney all made the girls all-conference list for the Black Cats.

The only other school with more than one all-conference runner was Hillsboro, with freshman Aaron Dugan breaking up the Festus-Herky monopoly in fifth place and Billy Froelich coming in 12th. Hannah Bopp made all-conference with her 14th-place showing in the girls race. JeFFerson County ConFerenCe Meet

engler Park, Farmington, oct. 13Boys: 1. Christian Hunter, Festus, 16:41.84;

2. Drake Smelser, Herculaneum, 16:50.44; 3. Michael Karls, Festus, 16:53.65; 4. Max Manansala, Festus, 16:59.79; 5. Aaron Dugan,

Hillsboro, 16:59.24; 6 . Ty l e r G i l l a m , Festus , 17:03.68; 7. Dakota Hunter, Festus, 17:06.29; 8. Dustin Price, Festus, 17:10.59; 9. Tristian Mock, Herculaneum, 17 :23 .06 ; 10 . TJ Jenkins, Herculaneum, 17:43.12; 11. Hunter D a r n e l l , F e s t u s , 17:49.37; 12. Bil ly Froelich, Hillsboro, 17:54.9; 13. Dalton Rol land, Windsor,

18:04.19; 14. Jonathon Mienhardt, St. Vincent, 18:19.15; 15. Daniel Hendricks, De Soto, 18:25.06; 16. Josh Ferguson, Herculaneum, 18.30.44; 17. Levi Krauss, St. Vincent, 18:34.98; 18. Cody Townsend, Windsor, 18:46.96; 19. Adam Maxwell, Herculaneum, 19:08.98; 20. Alex Lipe, St. Vincent, 19:10.93; 21. Nick Cook, Herculaneum, 19:11.92; 22. Austin Horn, Hillsboro, 19:12.79; 23. Austin Jackson, Hillsboro, 19:34.67; 24. Devin Cortinas, Windsor, 19:38.47; 25. William Warren, Jefferson, 20:01.36; 26. Chris Repka, St. Pius, 20:02.38; 27. Ben Haefner, Windsor, 20:02.97; 28. Dylan King, De Soto, 20:15.26; 29. Austin Haas, Herculaneum, 20:24.25; 30. Joseph Richmeyer, St. Pius, 20:33.84; 31. Noah Harnacke, St. Pius, 20:34.03; 32. Ryan French, De Soto, 20:38.95; 33. Zack Hoff, De Soto, 20:50.16; 34. Brandon Reifsteck, Windsor, 20:58.47; 35. Brendan Davidson, De Soto, 21:03.33; 36. Alex Miget, St.

Vincent, 21:08.22; 37. Sean Fitzgerald, Windsor, 21:10.97; 28. Tyler Prater, Jefferson, 21:18.35; 39. Jacob Edwards, De Soto, 21:43.16; 40. Sam Henderson, Jefferson, 21:53.55; 41. Ryan Garrett, Windsor, 22:18.21.

team scores: 1. Festus 19; 2. Herculaneum 47; 3. Windsor 83; 4. De Soto 98.

Girls: 1. Kaitlyn Fischer, Herculaneum, 18:11.80; 2. Kaitlin Elbl, Festus, 19:35.84; 3. Claire Darnell, Festus, 20:44.5; 4. Carolyn White, Festus, 20:50.89; 5. Crystal Beffa, Festus, 20:57.78; 6. Brittany Bishop, Herculaneum, 21:03.41; 7. Jamie Kempfer, Festus, 21:05.1; 8. Sam Jarvis, Herculaneum, 21:26.24; 9. Kaylin Manes, Herculaneum, 21:37.95; 10. Carmen Christopher, Festus, 21:42.52; 11. Lizzie Ohlemeier, Festus, 21:58.87; 12. Mary Moloney, Herculaneum, 22:11.04; 13. Virginia Rice, Crystal City, 22:19.2; 14. Hannah Bopp, Hillsboro, 22:43.59; 15. Meghan Karoly, St. Pius, 23:14.74; 16. Brooke Gardner, De Soto, 23:38.26; 17. Krista Richardson, De Soto, 23:38.98; 18. Haley Davis, Hillsboro, 23:42.08; 19. Jen Farris, Windsor, 24:08.44; 20. Sarah Cook, Herculaneum, 24:11.44; 21. Ashley Gremaud, St. Vincent, 24:18.79; 22. Celeste New, Windsor, 24:36.59; 23. Jennifer Womble, Crystal City, 24:44.56; 24. Lacie Brayton, Windsor, 24:51.11; 25. Bailey Stilwell, Herculaneum, 24:58.75; 26. Megan Thomas, De Soto, 25:01.16; 27. Natalie Welsh, St. Pius, 25:06.95; 28. Aimee Marshall, De Soto, 26:35.06; 29. Iris Holzer, St. Pius, 26:56.62; 30. Hailey Hogevedt, De Soto, 29:26.45; 31. Grace Fraser, Jefferson, 30:20.98.

team scores: 1. Festus 21; 2. Herculaneum 36; 3. De Soto 81.

Kaitlyn Fischer

ChristianHunter

SportS


Bronchos give St. Pius a five-goal kick in the shins By Gordon BessFor the Leader

After winning 12 of their first 15 games and toting a five-game winning streak, the St. Pius boys

soccer team was primed for a challenge last week.

The Lancers got one, all right, when Bayless paid a visit on Oct. 10 and gave the home club more than it bargained for. More as in five goals in a 5-2 Bronchos victory.

“It was brutal,” Lancer head coach Dan Bokern said. “We couldn’t stop them. It was like they punched us, in a knockout, and we were on our heels the whole first half. (In the second half) we had better chances and could have gotten goals, but getting down three was tough.

“It exposed a lot and hopefully we’ll learn from it.”

Bayless got a quick 1-0 lead on a shot that grazed the left post and barely leaked past Lancer keeper Garrett McDowell. The Bronchos kept the pressure on and made it 2-0 midway through the first half.

Soon after that, St. Pius sophomore midfielder Luke Bandy cut the advantage in half with a strong shot from the left wing that found the net from 20 yards out. But the visitors banged in two more goals from close range before the half and the

Lancers were staring up at a 4-1 deficit. Bandy got his second goal of the

afternoon off a deflection in front in the second half. Bayless got it right back, however, for a 5-2 lead that the Bronchos held the rest of the way, although Bandy had a near-miss just above the crossbar late in the game.

The five goals were the most Bokern’s squad has allowed in a game this year (previous high: two) and going back further than that.

“It might be (the most) in a number of seasons,” Bokern said. “I can’t think back to when we had five goals against us.” Two came from Bronchos senior midfielder Fazlo Alihodzic, currently No. 1 in the St. Louis area in points with 81 (29 goals and 23 assists).

“(He’s) the best player we’ve played against – a very good player, dangerous with or without the ball,” Bokern added. “That last goal was just amazing; two guys couldn’t even stop him. For him it was a beautiful goal; for us it was the last nail.”

Bayless also had another “dangerous

weapon,” as Bokern decribed him, in Admir Mesanovic, a master of the long throw-in. “That guy could throw it in to the middle of the goal. We couldn’t clear it without giving them another throw-in. They must have had 20 (of those). I thought the guy’s arms were going to be sore.”

The Lancer attack, meanwhile, has been stuck in a two-goal rut for the last three games. “In all those games we had many chances,” Bokern said. “To get two (goals) after so many chances was almost like a letdown, it’s like what is going on? We had done OK defensively, but we weren’t scoring.”

The loss dropped St. Pius to 12-4 on the season while Bayless improved to 11-7. The Bronchos could loom in the Class 1 playoffs if St. Pius and Bayless both repeat as district champions. St. Pius will host the Class 1 District 1 tournament starting Oct. 27 and has five games left before then – four of them on the road. Victories at Perryville and Festus (Oct. 17-18) would give the Lancers the Jefferson County Conference championship at 5-0.

Ted Howell photoSt. Pius midfielder Ben Ruzicka, left, beats Adis Sahbaz of Bayless to the ball.

county (all except Grandview, which doesn’t field a softball team) were bunched into four districts: Crystal City, Herculaneum and Jefferson in Class 2 District 10; De Soto, Festus, St. Pius and Windsor in Class 3 District 2; Hillsboro in Class 4 District 1 and Fox, Northwest and Seckman in Class 4 District 2.

That meant at best the county could produce four district champions. We got three, for a batting average of .750.

Not bad for an area that often is over-shadowed by St. Louis and St. Charles County schools, and sometimes schools to the south, in nearly every sport.

And all three district winners had a different story behind their success, along with one big thing in common.

Jefferson captured the first district crown in school history – in any sport – with a remarkably dominant 12-2 win over a Metro (St. Louis) team that had won 14 games. The Blue Jays were the top seed and played like it. Then they showed they belonged in the postseason party with a tough 4-2 loss to South Cal-laway in the sectional playoffs.

Festus had to fight off a determined bunch of De Soto Dragons 8-5 in the semifinals and then came from behind in the final inning to beat St. Pius 6-5 for the Class 3 District 2 crown. The district was truly up for grabs as any of the top five seeds could have captured it.

The big surprise was Northwest winning in Class 4 District 2. The third-seeded Lions stunned Seckman in the semifinals, 13-4, and outlasted another upstart team, Fox, to win the final 4-3 in 13 innings. Fox upset No. 1 Oakville 7-6 in the other semifinal.

The three district champs won be-hind strong pitching: Sierra Brown for Jefferson, Mollie Carter for Festus and

Alicia Pingleton for Northwest. All three are seniors and pitched with that senior-year, this-is-my-last-chance mentality. I think a dominant pitcher makes even more of a difference in softball than it does in baseball.

It’s for that reason I would pick Carter as the MVP of the county this fall, with Pingleton second. Through their sec-tional win over Park Hills Central, Carter had 20 wins in 22 starts and rang up 185 strikeouts in 145.2 innings. Fittingly, she closed out both the district championship and the Oct. 10 sectional contest (an 8-3 win over Park Hills Central) by fanning the last batter.

Watching Carter pitch is an adven-ture. She has a tendency toward wildness at times, not enough to get in real trouble but often putting her behind 3-0 in the count with a ball that sails over the bat-ter’s head or skitters on the ground. She counteracts that with an ability to make great pitches when she has to, changing locations, putting a rise on the ball or throwing a well-timed changeup.

Carter has matured significantly since I first saw her pitch two years ago, when an opponent’s rally could upset her focus and concentration. That doesn’t happen anymore. She fell behind early against both De Soto and St. Pius in the district tournament and locked it in after that, giving up only one run in the last four innings against De Soto and one run in the last six against St. Pius.

“This is one of the best feelings I’ve had in a long time – since sophomore year,” she told me moments after the Ti-gers rallied to beat St. Pius in the district final. “We talked last night – we don’t give up, and we just carried it over here.” It was sweet redemption for a bitter one-run loss in the same game last year to De Soto.

But back to my original point. Soft-ball in this county is unquestionably on

the upswing. Of those 11 county teams, seven had winning records: Festus at 26-2, St. Pius 17-4-1 (best-ever for the Lancers), Seckman 16-5, Windsor 15-8, De Soto 15-11, Northwest 15-12 and Jef-ferson 12-10. Hillsboro, after losing eight of nine starters from a year ago, was right at .500 at 12-12. Fox was a very respect-able 12-14 against a rugged schedule and got the huge district win over Oakville in one of the biggest upsets of the season.

Even the other two schools with losing records, Crystal City and Hercula-neum, each garnered six victories despite lean rosters. The Hornets resurrected their varsity squad after shutting it down in 2011 and had only one senior, Marissa Hutton, who was their top pitcher and hitter. Herculaneum’s only pitcher, Katie Brown, suffered an ankle injury early in the season and for a while coach Matt Bunch had to keep the team going with duct tape and a prayer or two.

Some good young talent will keep most of the county teams competitive and then some next year, although pitching will be an obvious question mark at Fes-tus, Northwest and Jefferson. No matter what, the games and the rivalries will be as entertaining as ever. As Seckman head coach Steve Bonastia frequently points out, softball is a crazy sport in which any-thing can happen and anybody can beat anybody in a short seven-week season. I can’t wait for the next one.

Kudos…to Eddie Moreno, athletic direc-

tor at Hillsboro, and Northwest AD Jeff Taggart. Both recently earned the Certi-fied Athletic Administrator designation from the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.

To earn the certification, Moreno and Taggart completed four courses,

passed a comprehensive exam and met other requirements, including on-the-job experience. Moreno, by the way, is not stopping there; he plans to start working soon on requirements for the Certified Master Athletic Administrator.

Softball: Three out of a possible four district titles shows the sport is on the rise hereContinued from Page 49

County offers youth instructional basketball

The Jefferson County Parks and Recreation Department will sponsor a youth instructional basketball program at Sacred Heart School in Crystal City. The program, emphasizing instruction, learning and fun, is open to co-ed teams ages 7-9 and 10-12 and will run from Nov. 17 through Jan. 19.

The program will include three prac-tices and six games. The registration fee is $70 and includes a full uniform and medal for each player. There will be a manda-tory skills evaluation for each player in both age groups from 9-11 a.m. Nov. 17 at Sacred Heart. Register before Nov. 7 by mail or online at the department’s website, jeffcomo.org/parks.

Paid referees and volunteer coaches are needed.

For more information, go to the web-site or call 636-797-5334.

Sports briefs

Futsal league startingJefferson College is hosting a futsal

(indoor soccer) league for boys and girls of all ages with games starting Nov. 9 at the college Field House. The season will entail six games played on Friday nights and Saturday mornings. The cost is $300 per team or $30 per player. Deadline to register is Oct. 31. For more information, call Ricardo Garza at 636-481-3397.

SportS


OutdoorOutlook

John J.Winkelman

Technology yields fast, accurate deer harvest updatesThe introduction of the telecheck

system in Missouri triggered a lot of hand-wringing and hysteria

about fi ve years ago. The most common concerns were that cheating would be rampant and small businesses that oper-ated check stations would be forced to close their doors.

No doubt a few of those places did see a downturn in their gross receipts that one week each year, but if they closed since the implementation of telecheck, other factors are involved. The state Department of Conservation’s electronic harvest report-ing system has proven itself in many ways.

As for cheating, now that conserva-tion agents are equipped with smart-phones, they can get data reports imme-diately in the fi eld and spend more time investigating potential violations. Cheat-ing is going to happen, but the new system actually helps enforcement efforts.

The instant access to the data is the part of the system that everyone could like. The conservation department web-site is updated three or four times per hour with harvest totals by county. The site shows a county-by-county map, color-

coded by deer or turkeys checked, and a listing of each county’s total harvest broken down by season.

Last week, following the conclusion of the urban portion of the season, Jeffer-son County was conspicuous on that map as the only place in the state with a harvest total above 500, graduating to a different, darker shade than the rest of the state.

Jefferson County’s success rate is boosted primarily by its position as the top harvest county for archery hunters early this season. It is not uncommon for Jefferson to be at or near the top among bow and arrow hunters. Last year’s total of 1,016 was just 10 short of the harvest total in the top county, and the two prior years, Jefferson led the state in archery harvest.

Our county has an impressive lead over second place. Early last week, Jef-

ferson’s 443 total was nearly 100 more than Franklin County’s second-place total of 346. Last year’s top county, Jackson, had reported 262 deer harvested so far. As mentioned earlier, those numbers are updated every 15 or 20 minutes at mdc.mo.gov and are just a few mouse clicks away for anyone who wants to see how many deer have been taken in their favor-ite hunting areas.

The results from the recent urban sea-son, which includes the northern third of Jefferson County, also provide some inter-esting data for die-hard number crunchers. The urban zones consist of all or parts of 12 counties open for hunters using modern fi rearms to take antlerless deer Oct. 5-8. Statewide, the harvest total jumped dramati-cally from 570 in 2011 to 1,108 this year.

The main reason for the signifi cant increase was the usual – the weather. Last year, the season included temperatures in the 80s; this year, a few of those morning hunts started with frost on the ground. The weather matters a little to the deer, but hunters like the morning chill.

In Jefferson County, the percentage increase was even greater, with the total harvest for the urban season leaping from 41 last year to 105 in 2012. The interest-ing portion of the stat line is that four of those deer were antlered bucks. Statewide, only 10 of the 1,108 deer taken during the antlerless-only season had antlers and 40 percent of those were in Jefferson County.

Conservation agent Jeff Breuer said a variety of scenarios could lead to those mis-

takes, and it is up to the agent’s discretion if the violation deserves a warning or citation.

“It could be hunters not positively identifying their target, taking shots they shouldn’t,” Breuer said. “It could be buck fever or an antler that was just barely legal. Some people don’t know the regulations well enough, and others just think they are not going to get caught. They don’t realize we do spot checks.”

Southern Jefferson County is in-cluded in the antler point restriction area, so hunters have to make sure any deer they take (except for hunters under age 15 during the youth season) has at least four points on one side.

“You have to make sure,” he said. “You always have to look closely, even during archery season.”

Breuer added that he was not sur-prised by Jefferson County’s big lead in the archery harvest total.

“I would say those numbers are ap-propriate for the number of hunters we have, the deer herd here and the hours that hunters spend,” he said. “We have some deer hot spots and in those smaller plots, archery is a good option. I’m seeing deer everywhere.”

John J. Winkelman is communica-tions supervisor at Jefferson Regional Medical Center and associate editor with Outdoor Guide Magazine. If you have questions, comments or ideas for the Leader’s Outdoor News page, send an email to [email protected] or you can follow him on Twitter at @johnjwink99.

OUTDOOR NEWS/SPORTS

WINDSORGirls tennis: At the recent Class 1 District 2

team tournament, the Owls defeated St. Pius 5-2 but lost to North County, the eventual champ, 2-5.

Against St. Pius, Owl singles winners were No. 1 Katie Leutzinger over Grace Elbl (6-2, 6-4), No. 2 Kayla Dye over Mary Smreker (6-2, 6-2), No. 4 Sierra Dubis over Capri Vita (6-2, 6-0) and No. 6 Hannah Edmundson over Gillian Holzer (6-2, 6-0). Riley Hawkins lost to the Lancers’ Caroline Wilson in the No. 3 match 6-2, 6-2, and Windsor’s No. 5 Alex Dorris lost in three sets to Erica Tomalini, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3. Dye and Dorris teamed in No. 2 doubles to beat Vita and Wilson 6-2, 6-3 while the Nos. 1 and 3 doubles did not play.

Singles winners against North County were Pauline Thieule in the No. 1 match, 6-3, 6-1 over Miranda Maeys, and Dorris at No. 6 (6-1, 6-3 over Brittany Naucke). Thieule and Leutzinger lost in the No. 1 doubles match, the only one played, to Maeys and Cheyenne Anderson 6-2, 6-2.

In the Class 1 District 2 individual-doubles tournament at Potosi on Oct. 6, two Owl doubles teams earned wins over their counterparts from St. Pius in the fi rst round. Hawkins and Dubis downed Smreker and Rachel Seevers 6-2, 6-3 and Dye and Dorris easily beat Tomalini and Holzer 6-0, 6-1. Hawkins and Dubis then beat Potosi’s Lillian Stringer and Carli Pashia 6-3, 6-3 in the second round, but Dye and Dorris lost to the Trojans’ Alex Coleman and Carli Nixon 6-0, 6-1. Hawkins and Dubis wound up fourth overall after losing to North County’s Maeys and Anderson 6-0, 6-0 in the semifi nals and to Coleman and Nixon of Potosi 6-0, 6-1 in the third-place match.

Thieule won her fi rst district title in the singles competition, getting a bye in the fi rst round and then topping Wilson of St. Pius, Bryson Starkey of Fredericktown and Buse Beker of North County. Through district play her season record stood at 17-2 and she also won singles titles at the Potosi and Farmington tournaments in addition to her district title.

Boys soccer: Both the varsity and JV teams won a pair of games last week over Hillsboro and DuBourg. The Owls traveled to Hillsboro on Oct. 9 and the varsity edged the Hawks 2-1 while the JV earned a 6-0 shutout. In the varsity game, Zach Kreter scored off an assist by Branden Rueweler with 15 minutes left in the fi rst half and Nick Urban booted in the game-winner in the second half, assisted by Erik Bello. Sophomore goalkeeper Alex Trenary made 10 saves in picking up the fi rst varsity win of his career. The JV cruised past the Hawks on three goals by Christian Stelling and tallies by Andy Schaefer, Nick Lammert and Brandon Sears, with keeper Brendon Alaniz

earning his fi rst career win and shutout.Hosting DuBourg on Oct. 10, Kreter pulled off

a hat trick with three goals in the fi rst 15 minutes and Matt Brotherton added a goal in the second half for a 4-2 Owl victory in the varsity contest. With his third goal, Kreter moved to No. 1 on Windsor’s all-time scoring list with 12 game-winning goals. The JV pitched another shutout, 2-0, on goals by Lammert and Stephen Sabo, with Alaniz getting shutout credit in goal. With the dual victories, the varsity improved to 7-8-1 on the season while the JV moved to .500 at 4-4-2.

Results

Two-minute drillContinued from Page 51

the more young people we put in the game, the more mistakes happened.

“Our kids are resilient,” he said. “They’re going to bounce back. There’s a lot of pride in that locker room.”

Festus returns home to host Cape Girardeau Central (2-6) in the annual battle of the Tigers on Friday to wrap up the regular season.

Chaffee 41, Jefferson 39The Blue Jays traded scores with the visiting

Red Devils all night and outscored Chaffee 12-8 in the fourth quarter, but a 21-point second period made the difference for the winning squad.

“Their offense clicked pretty well and they did a good job of taking advantage of what we were giving them,” Jefferson head coach Derek Scroggins said. “Our offense did all right, but we had trouble trying to stop them. I didn’t have our defense ready to play to the level that we needed.”

Quarterback Austin Graves accounted for four of the Blue Jays’ six touchdowns, three on short runs and one on a 40-yard pass to Luke Dawson. Darrick Brumley, who started the season at QB before Graves seized the job, had a four-yard TD run and Josh McWhorter rambled 50 yards for a score.

“That was one of our best runs ever,” Scroggins said of McWhorter’s jaunt. “He looked really good and ran through tacklers.” The senior was coming back from missing several games with an injury and picked up right where he left off in the Blue Jay running attack with 123 yards on 14 carries. Conor Bourisaw matched him with 17 carries for 121 yards as Jefferson piled up 566 yards of total offense, 522 of it on the ground.

The Blue Jays, now 3-4, close their regular season on Friday hosting St. Vincent (5-3) with their fi rst Senior Night and will salute nine seniors in pregame ceremonies.

39AJefferson County LeaderThursday, Nov. 8, 2012

Gordon Bess

TheInsideTrack

Football playoffshorrify just in time for Halloween

How’s this for understatement: Playoff football was not kind to Jefferson County.

Of our county’s 12 schools, spread across seven districts in fi ve size classes, two teams were guaranteed to advance past the fi rst round of games on Oct. 25-26. That’s how the fi nal district seedings worked out.

At least two would survive. Only two did – Hillsboro, which blanked De Soto 41-0, and Fox, a 19-14 winner over Seckman.

In the eight playoff games that pitted

See FOOTBALL, Page 43A

Kaitlyn FischerHerculaneumcross country

The one big item still missing from the Black Cat senior standout’s running resume was an individual state championship in cross country, and Fischer took care of that on Saturday, fi nishing fi rst in the Class 2 girls race in 18:41, nearly a minute ahead of runner-up (and defending champ) Saga Barzowski of Arcadia Valley. Fischer led Herculaneum to a second straight team championship and the third in her four years at the school.


Leader Athleteof the Week

Tigers, Black Cats run to double glorySTATE CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS


At Saturday’s state high school cross country meet in Jefferson City, the competition got a double

1-2 punch from two Jefferson County powerhouses.

Festus and Herculaneum each brought home a championship and a second-place trophy. The Tiger boys outran defending champion Warrensburg to take the Class 3 title while the Festus girls came in second to a superb Ste. Gen-evieve squad. Herculaneum, meanwhile, lived up to its traditionally lofty standards at this meet with a girls’ championship and a boys runner-up fi nish in Class 2.

Head coach Bryant Wright’s Festus boys had the most impressive perfor-mance, placing six of their seven runners in the top 26. The top fi ve each earned all-state honors (for top-25 fi nishers), from sophomore Michael Karls in sev-enth through junior Max Manansala in 24th. The Tiger girls had two all-state fi nishers who came in together, Kaitlin Elbl in 11th and Jamie Kempfer in 12th. Both are juniors.

As expected, senior Kaitlyn Fischer paced the Herculaneum girls to a sec-ond straight Class 2 championship and the third in her four-year Herky career. Fischer took command from the outset of the race and fi nished nearly a minute ahead of rival and friend Saga Barzowski of Arcadia Valley, a two-time former champion herself. (Another former Class 2 champion, Lutheran-St. Peters’ Court-ney Rogers, came in third.)

It was Fischer’s fi rst individual title in four tries, after three top-three fi nishes. She has six state titles in track, but she ac-knowledged that this win in cross country meant more to her.

“I’ve won those (track titles) for a while now and cross country has always been my favorite,” Fischer said. “Coming out every year, and getting second, and third, and then second again, I was like, ‘Oh, come on!’ So this means so much more. I appreciate it every step of the way.”

Her time of 18:40.97 on the challeng-ing fi ve-kilometer course at Oak Hills Golf Center also is a Class 2 state record and the fastest-ever by a Herculaneum girl, topping Lesley Dugan’s 18:44 in 1983.

For the Festus boys, the team win was redemption for falling short a year ago to Warrensburg despite the Tigers having the individual champion in Drew White. This time Festus had 58 points to Warrensburg’s 65. The difference was the fi fth man as the Tigers’ Manasala, No. 17 in the point count, was well ahead of Warrensburg’s Albert Fleer, who came in 49th overall and No. 30 in the point count.

Gordon Bess photosThe Festus boys were already running near the front before the mile mark at the state cross country meet. From left are Tyler Gillam (463), Christian Hunter (464), Michael Karls (466) and Max Manasala (467).

As he watched his runners mount the platform for the medal presentation, Wright talked about the biggest day in his program’s history.

“You have goals in life and one of my goals was to get two trophies in the same day at the same state meet, and the

boys and girls did it,” Wright said, his voice faltering a little with emotion. “The best thing is, they’re such great kids and they’ve worked hard. They wanted it and they went after it. I hope that somewhere along the way in their life they realize that whatever they want to do and however they want to do it, they can look back at this day and say, ‘I did it then and I can do it now.’

“It’s one of those days, you just don’t want it to end and you don’t want it ever to become commonplace. I’m just proud of the kids and happy for them.”

The Herculaneum boys fi nished sec-ond to Lamar but were in third place at the three-mile mark and grabbed second with great fi nishes down the long fi nal straightaway. “Every kid passed kids in the last 160 meters,” noted Ryun Kasten, the former Black Cat head coach who was there to cheer on his old team.

Kyle Davis, Herky’s new head coach and a former state champion himself, said it felt a lot like when he and his Potosi teammates were running and winning at this meet years ago.

“We always shoot to win,” Davis said. “But even if Drake (Smelser, the team’s No. 1 man through the season) would have won the race, because our two through fi ve (runners) did what they were supposed to do, we would have still been second. Evidently we achieved basically our maximum. We scored fi ve less points today than the team that won last year.

“We had a great day. It was a great fi nish.”

Kaitlyn Fischer opens up a widening lead early in the Class 2 girls race.

See CROSS COUNTRY, Page 41A

Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012Jefferson County Leader40A

Hawks’ aerial heroics secure district championship By Gordon BessFor the Leader

At 5-8 and maybe 165 pounds soak-ing wet, Justin Horn is hardly an imposing figure on the football

field. The Hillsboro quarterback will never be confused with Peyton Manning or Drew Brees and he’s perfectly happy winning football games by feeding the ball to the stable of talented running backs the Hawks have produced in recent times.

But on Monday night at Hillsboro with a district championship on the line, the Hawks’ senior signal-caller turned his right arm into a deadly weapon. And with a lot of help from receivers Jacob Kelam and Brennan Martin, Horn and the Hawks overcame a bigger, faster Cape Girardeau Central team to win 28-20 and move into the quarterfinals of the Class 4 playoffs.

In a contest that featured several “plays of the game,” two of the biggest came in the closing minutes with Hill-sboro trailing 20-14. With the Hawks facing a third-and-22 on their eight-yard line, Horn hit Kelam with a 39-yard pass to midfield. Two plays later, the pair connected again for 23 yards. But after running the ball down to Cape Central’s seven-yard line, the Hawks faced a third-down play at the 11 and the clock was running with under a minute left.

Horn went back to pass and drifted right but spotted Martin open across the field, dashing to the back of the end zone. Still backpedaling, Horn lofted the ball and Martin brought it down just inside the back line for a touchdown to tie the game at 20 with 23.2 seconds left. Andreas

Lervik kicked the crucial extra point for a 21-20 lead and the boisterous Hillsboro crowd roared its approval.

The Tigers had one last possession but hurt themselves with an unsports-manlike-conduct penalty that enabled Hillsboro to pin them at their 15-yard line on the kickoff. Then Cape Central quarterback Dennis Vinson threw an interception to Nick Baumgartner, who hot-footed it 22 yards for a “pick six” touchdown and an exclamation point to his team’s championship win.

“Our ability to throw the football tonight was key,” Hillsboro head coach Brian Robbins said. “Credit to our kids because we were struggling with some things, to be honest with you. (Cape Cen-tral’s) defense, with their size and speed, was giving us some fits.

“We never relented. They scored some points and did some things to us

and they were so much bigger and faster, but our kids played with a lot of heart tonight. It was really fun to watch.”

There was little fun in how the Hawks started the game, how-ever, as they fumbled on their first play from scrimmage with the Tigers recovering at the Hawk 30-yard line. But Hillsboro’s defense held and the Tigers settled for a 26-yard field goal by Calvin Lovig.

The Hawks went

three-and-out on their next possession and Cape Central, behind running back Jacob Campbell, moved down for an-other Lovig field goal, this one from 30 yards, and a 6-0 lead at the end of the first quarter. Hillsboro again couldn’t muster a first down to start the second quarter, but caught a break when the Tigers’ Chris Martin fumbled at the Cape Central 35. The Hawks fumbled it right back, how-ever, and Hillsboro’s offensive frustration continued.

Cape Central put together another drive, but this time Lovig’s 41-yard field-goal try hit the crossbar and bounced away to keep the score 6-0.

And that’s when the Hawks turned to the air. With under three minutes left before halftime, Horn hit tight end Garrett Anderson for a leaping 25-yard catch over the middle to midfield. Then he pitched a perfect strike to Kelam in full stride and the junior was pulled down three yards shy of the goal line, a 57-yard gain. Chris Walsh bulled in for the TD and the Hawks had an improbable 7-6 lead at the intermission with their entire first-half of-fensive output in those last two minutes.

Cape Central seized the momentum to start the third quarter as Campbell ran five times for 67 yards and a touchdown for a 13-7 Tiger lead. Then the Hawks responded by bringing their run game to life on two big gains by Baumgartner, aided by a personal-foul penalty on the Ti-gers. Baumgartner capped the drive with a 26-yard touchdown run and Hillsboro was back on top 14-13.

But Cape Central counterpunched with a big pass play of their own, a 39-yarder from Vinson to Kyle Thomp-son, to set up Vinson’s two-yard TD run, putting the Tigers back on top 20-14 near

Matt O’Harver photosPitch and catch: Justin Horn, above, connected with Jacob Kelam, right, for a 57-yard pass that set up Hillsboro’s first touchdown in the Hawks’ win over Cape Central.

the end of the third quarter. Despite a terrific third-down catch

by Brennan Martin for a 27-yard gain, the Hawks stalled on a drive to Cape Central’s nine-yard line to start the fourth quarter. But Hillsboro’s defense returned the favor, stopping the Tigers at midfield, where they punted to put Hillsboro at its eight-yard line. That’s where the Hawks started their game-winning and championship-winning drive.

Horn finished with nine completions in 14 attempts for 210 yards and noted that his TD throw to Martin was the first time they had run that play all season.

“We threw it together at the last sec-ond on one of the timeouts,” Horn said. “It happened to work and we came out on top. I’m proud of everyone for stepping up. I was overwhelmed and jumping for joy.”

He added that while the team pre-pared for this game “just like normal,” they did work more on the passing game in the short five-day interval after beating North County 34-26 in the second round of district play Oct. 31.

“We were expecting to run and mix in a little pass like we always (do) and they came down (on the running game) and we had to pass, and everyone stepped up,” Horn said. “We had good protection by the offensive line, great routes by our receivers, good catches. We did what we had to do.”

Kelam caught only three passes, but they covered 126 yards and the two longest came on the same route.

“It was a three-step slant,” he said. “They were just playing that zone so I thought I could get in there. Justin just threw great, perfect balls right to me – perfect throws. Justin had a good game. That’s why we won this game.”

As Robbins noted, passing was part of the game plan, just not Plan A.

“Justin’s been able to throw the ball all year long when he’s been healthy,” Robbins said. “We’ve got several kids who can do things with it when they catch it. He did a nice job distributing the ball to those people and kind of let them go with what their abilities allow them to do.

“(Cape Central) did some things coverage-wise that we game-planned for and our kids were able to execute those plays, and that’s what you’ve got to do in playoff football.”

It is Hillsboro’s second straight dis-trict championship, only this one means more than last year’s because the state’s new playoff system crowns only eight district champs instead of 16.

“I’m not a big fan of the (new) sys-tem,” Robbins said. “I don’t think it’s a good thing when you reward fewer kids. But hats off to (our) kids for being one of the eight that are district champions.”

The Hawks upped their record to 10-2 while Cape Central finishes at 5-7. Hillsboro will play St. Mary’s at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at St. Mary’s in the Class 4 quarterfinals. The Dragons are also 10-2 and like Hillsboro have scored points by the bushel this fall, racking up 35 points or more in nine of their 12 games and their last six in a row.

Hillsboro’s defense had its moments, too, as here Derek Mohart, left, and Zach Hart bring down Cape Central running back Jacob Campbell.

ResultsCRYSTAL CITY

Cross country: In the Class 1 District 1 meet at Jackson on Oct. 27, Josie Miller (22:54) and Virginia Rice (23:20) placed fourth and sixth respectively to qualify for the Class 1 state meet. Following them were Jennifer Womble (18th, 24:16), Ali Waites (21st, 25:03) and Jessica Reynolds (27th, 26:31). In the boys race, Robert Bauman finished 35th in 20:57 and Jacob Seay was 41st in 22:12.

HILLSBOROFootball: The Hillsboro Junior High squad

defeated Troy 52-16 on Oct. 11 to finish the season 5-1. Michael Keller, Dalton Lamb, Jason Porta and Jared Bentley all scored touchdowns for the Hawks, while Kane Cochran, Sean Armstrong and Cory Walsh keyed the defense.

JEFFERSON COLLEGESoccer: The Viking men’s soccer squad

beat Illinois Central College 2-1 on Oct. 27 in the NJCAA district tournament to earn a No. 5 seed in the NJCAA Division I national tournament next week in Albany, Ga. Jefferson got goals from Sanel Hasanovic and Lance Kohler, both assisted by Oscar Ortiz, in the victory, which avenged a regular-season overtime loss to ICC.

Jefferson (14-5-1) will play Marshalltown Community College of Marshalltown, Iowa in the first round of the national tournament at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13 at Darton State College, host school for the tournament.

Women’s basketball: Jefferson opened

Continued on Page 43A

SportS


Hillsboro freshman Aaron Dugan capped a terrific first season in cross coun-try, finishing 20th in the boys Class 3 race, good for a medal and all-state honors.

2012 STATE CROSS COUNTRY MEETJefferson City, Nov. 3

Class 1 girls: 28. Josie Miller, Crystal City, 22:48; 42. Virginia Rice, Crystal City, 23:32.

Class 2 girls: 1. Kaitlyn Fischer, Herculaneum, 18:41; 25. Maylin Manes, Herculaneum, 21:15; 29. Sam Jarvis, Herculaneum, 21:28; 31. Mary Moloney, Herculaneum, 21:36; 38. Brittany Bishop, Herculaneum, 21:45; 88. Kristen Keeney, Jefferson, 23:12; 97. Meghan Karoly, St. Pius, 23:33; 120. Sarah Cook, Herculaneum, 24:19; 132. Bailey Stilwell, Herculaneum, 24:59. Team score:1. Herculaneum, 89

Class 2 boys: 19. Tristian Mock, Herculaneum, 17:56; 30. Austin Haas, Herculaneum, 18:15; 32.

Fatima turns the tables on Lancers at state tourney

Rhonda Kassen photoThe St. Pius volleyball team with their second-place trophy and medals. Front row, from left: Ashley Politte, Maddy Kassen, Tori McClanahan and Anna Kovarik. Back: Claire Reed, Grace Richmeyer, Hannah Osman, Jo Ellen Grohs, Taylor Patterson, Macie Fitzgerald, Sami Meyer, Amie Held, Christina Halfmann and Angelina O’Donnell.

In a reversal of last year’s champion-ship final, St. Pius lost in straight sets (14-25, 19-25) to Fatima in the Class

2 volleyball state title game on Saturday in Cape Girardeau.

St. Pius downed Fatima in the same game a year ago for the Lancers’ first state championship in any sport. But this time around, St. Pius didn’t have an answer for the talented Comets, who won their first state crown in volleyball.

St. Pius head coach Karrie Hermann said her team, playing in the champion-ship match for the third straight year, “didn’t go out with our big game” on Saturday at the Show-Me Center. “It was a shame that, if they had to have a bad day, it had to be today,” Hermann said.

The Lancers had more unforced er-rors and fewer of their trademark rocket-ing kills as they finished their season with a still-sparkling record of 34-4-1.

“Things just didn’t go our way,”

Hermann said. “The girls did a great job. They have all worked really hard. It has been a lot of pressure on them, being the third time here.”

In Friday’s pool play among the final four teams, St. Pius split with Fatima (31-29, 20-25) and swept Bishop LeBlond (25-19, 25-17) and Mountain Grove (25-23, 25-19). For the tournament, Amie Held had 32 kills and 42 digs, Maddie Kassen had 25 kills, Grace Richmeyer had 20 kills and Sami Meyer recorded 44 digs.

St. Pius will lose five players to graduation, including Held, Meyer, Taylor Patterson, Hannah Osman and Jo Ellen Grohs, who missed the final part of the season with an ankle injury.

“I can’t stress enough what a great impact these seniors have made on our program,” Hermann said. “They have been tremendous leaders – very team-oriented. They’re leaving our program in great shape.”

Owls capture first title on PKs; Lancers cruise againBoys soccer District Playoffs

JT Jenkins, Herculaneum, 18:16; 40. Drake Smelser, Herculaneum, 18:23; 49. Colton Kassen, Jefferson, 18:27; 61. Josh Ferguson, Herculaneum, 18:33; 72. Adam Maxwell, Herculaneum, 18:41; 122. Nick Cook, Herculaneum, 19:43. Team score: 2. Herculaneum, 108.

Class 3 girls: 11. Kaitlin Elbl, Festus, 20:04; 12. Jamie Kempfer, Festus, 20:05; 33. Crystal Beffa, Festus, 20:51; 40. Claire Darnell, Festus, 21:01; 41. Carolyn White, Festus, 21:02; 95. Carmen Christopher, Festus, 21:59; 97. Lizze Ohlemeier, Festus, 22:02. Team score: 2. Festus, 100.

Class 3 boys: 7. Michael Karls, Festus, 16:46; 14. Christian Hunter, Festus, 16:57; 15. Dakota Hunter, Festus, 16:57; 20. Aaron Dugan, Hillsboro, 17:06; 21. Tyler Gillam, Festus, 17:07; 24. Max Manansala, Festus, 17:10; 26. Dustin Price, Festus, 17:17; 52: Hunter Darnell, Festus, 17:56. Team score: 1. Festus, 58.

Class 4 girls: 70. Katelyn Evans, Seckman, 20:36.

Class 4 boys: 18. Larry Lopez, Fox, 16:32; 36. Cyle Quick, Fox, 16:52.

Cross Country: Dugan earns medalContinued from Page 39A


They had to do it the hard way, and not they way any team would prefer, but the result was what

mattered to Windsor when the Owls earned their first-ever boys soccer district championship on their home field Oct. 30.

Windsor defeated Hillsboro 5-4 in the Class 2 District 2 finals on penalty kicks as the Owls finally prevailed after two overtimes and 110 minutes of play. Tanner Reed, one of 14 seniors on Wind-sor’s veteran squad, booted the winning tally on the fourth PK while a sophomore, goalkeeper Alex Trenary, sealed the win by making the save on the fifth and last Hillsboro attempt.

The Owls relied on their top two of-fensive players, seniors Nick Urban and Zach Kreter, to build a 4-1 lead early in the second half. Then the momentum swung 180 degrees the other way as Hillsboro peppered the Owls with three

goals to send the match to one overtime and then another.

Both teams struggled offensively in the extra time, for different reasons. Hills-

boro had a player pick up a second yellow card, leading to a red card that forced the Hawks to play one man short. Windsor, meanwhile, saw Kreter – who a week before had become the school’s all-time leader in goals and points – head to the bench with a back injury. That brought in Reed while Trenary, who tended goal in the first half, replaced Alex Gajdosik in the net for the overtimes and PKs.

Urban finished with a three-goal hat trick while Kreter had a goal and two as-sists. But the ultimate hero was Trenary. “He was the man of the match,” Windsor head coach George Van Dyke said. “He gave up one goal in regulation time and then made five tremendous saves in over-time. Just a tremendous effort.”

The same could be said for both teams on a memorably long evening of soccer.

“It was a great game,” Van Dyke said. “It tugged at your heart. It hurt at times and it was glorious at times. To pull off our first district title is incredible.”

Hillsboro scored first on a goal by the Hawks’ leading scorer, Matt Maxwell,

who added one later on. The Hawks preserved that lead until two minutes remained in the first half, when Urban scored twice, only 12 seconds apart, both goals assisted by Kreter.

“To go down early on a Maxwell goal, the way we fought back was great,” Van Dyke said. “Going into halftime we had a little bit of confidence. We knew we need-ed to take care of business, stay positive, stay focused, and we did and we stayed after them. We dominated possessions.

“Kreter scored on a wonderful shot to make it 4-1. You would think we’d put it into a defensive shell and protect the ball – you would think. But credit (Hill-sboro head coach) Chris Schacht and his boys for fighting. They tied it up late in the second half, and at that point it was anybody’s game.”

For Van Dyke, the way his team won was both bittersweet and ironic. He noted that at the end of the second overtime, the officials told both teams and coaching staffs that PKs were “a horrible way to decide such a good game,” but that one team had to be on the losing end, and by state rule it had to be on penalty kicks.

The Owl mentor also recalled a simi-lar game years ago that involved some of his players and had a different outcome. “I’ve coached these seniors for four years and I’ve known these boys since they were in middle school,” he said. “I saw them play (in) a CYC city-county cham-pionship game years ago, and they lost on penalty kicks that they missed. The goalie didn’t save them, they missed.”

But Reed didn’t miss this time and the Owls (11-11-1) advanced to their first sectional game ever, Tuesday (after the Leader deadline) against District 2 champion Perryville (17-6-1).

“Tip the hat to Jefferson County soc-cer,” Van Dyke said. “With St. Pius win-

Matt O’Harver photoWindsor players rush out to mob goalkeeper Alex Trenary after he made the final save on a Hillsboro penalty kick to give Windsor a 5-4 double-overtime victory in the Class 2 District 2 championship game.

See SOCCER, Page 42A

sPorts

Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012Jefferson County Leader42A SportS

ning (its) district yesterday and Per-ryville (winning) their first district title, that’s three out of the six Jefferson County Conference teams (that) won their districts.”

St. Pius downs SaxonyDistrict championships are the stock

in trade for St. Pius soccer teams, whether you’re talking about the boys or the girls. But the man who coaches both squads still gets plenty nervous when the goals don’t come as early or as often as he’d like in championship contests.

So there was Dan Bokern again last week exhaling with relief after his Lancer boys took care of business with a 3-1 win over Saxony Lutheran in the Class 1 District 1 title game.

“I was hoping we’d get a few more goals and make it easier on the old man,” Bokern said, poking a little fun at himself. “You get too anxious sometimes. But in the end it was good. A win’s a win.”

And this win, the seventh in a row for

Soccer: Lancers got a two-goal advantage in first half and finished with it

Bokern and crew, upped the team’s record to 19-4-1 and put the Lancers in the hunt for the Class 1 state championship, some-thing that eluded them last year when

they finished third at state. They were scheduled to take on District 2 champion Bayless (18-7) on Nov. 6, after the Leader deadline, in the sectional round.

Seth Koch scored on a header off a well-placed corner kick by Luke Bandy for the first goal of the game less than half-way through the first half. Kelly Wilson made it 2-0 with a breakaway goal about 10 minutes later. But early in the second half, Saxony’s Logan Sprandel grounded a score past St. Pius goalkeeper Garrett McDowell to cut the lead in half at 2-1 and get Bokern’s anxiety meter in gear.

Pius regained a two-goal lead when Jeff Penaloza headed in a shot for the final tally of the game as the Lancers kept the Crusaders off the scoreboard for the rest of the second half. The last

Continued from Page 41A

Matt O’Harver photosSt. Pius forward Jordan Tucker, left, gets off a shot around Saxony Lutheran defender Curtis Boren.

goal helped make up for numerous missed chances for the Lanc-ers, especially in the first half when they had the wind at their backs.

“With that wind you never know,” Bokern said. “You don’t realize how much the wind affects the game until you’re against it. We won (the choice for the first half) and chose it. I usually go against it, because we play pretty well against the wind, keeping (the ball) down and mov-ing. Then it’s always nice, if it stays, to have it in the second half.”

S a x o n y h e a d c o a c h R y a n

Schweain, who saw his club lose to St. Pius for the third time this season, was gratified for a more competitive game – the previous encounters this season were 4-0 and 6-0.

“The second half we played well,” Schweain said. “In the first half, we came out a little bit sluggish and maybe a little intimidated because we knew St. Pius is a good team. We were hoping to get the wind in the first half, but we came out and played as hard as we could. We wanted to at least try to give them a game and make them work for it, because they dominated us the first two times they played us. And I thought we did that today.

“We enjoy playing Pius; they’re al-ways a good team and the game is always well played. I wish them all the best.”

Critchlow resigns at SeckmanBy Kevin Krausand Gordon BessFor the Leader

Insisting it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision, Jamie Critchlow announced late last week that after

only two seasons on the job, he has resigned as the head football coach at Seckman High School.

“There was just not enough of me to go around,” Critchlow said. “With my kids, my administrative duties, all that kind of stuff, I didn’t think I was putting enough into coaching.

“The situation I found myself in wasn’t fair to the players or my own children. It just wasn’t the way I like to operate, not when you have 70 players that you absolutely love, plus my kids and family.

“Sometimes I felt more like a spokesperson than a coach, and that wasn’t fair to the players or my coach-ing staff.”

Critchlow, the husband of Fox Superintendent Dianne Critchlow and director of the Fox School District’s at-risk program, said he could feel this decision coming on months ago.

“I’m not the kind to make snap decisions, especially something as big as this,” he said. “I had thought about it at the end of last year, head-ing into this season, as far as the time management part. I didn’t feel I was doing it to the best of my abilities. This will free up some time to commit to my family.”

While he wouldn’t speculate on his successor, Critchlow, whose Jag-uar teams went 5-15 in two seasons, said his replacement could already be

on staff at Seck-man.

“ T h e r e ’ s a few of them who would be capable of tak-ing over,” he said. “When I took the job, I was able to as-semble a pretty h i g h c a l i b e r staff, and a few

with some good pedigrees.“But the situation is not in my

hands to determine who will take the program over. I think, with the change in schedule and the facility upgrades, whoever gets the job will find a posi-tive future for the program.”

Seckman activities director Brad Duncan said the school will follow the same approach it took when it hired Critchlow to succeed Josh Freeman two year ago – look for candidates within the school district first, and then widen the search to outside in-dividuals.

“We have quite a few positive people in the program right now,” he said. “If we don’t find anyone in the district, then we’ll open it up.

“I was as surprised as anybody (at the resignation). Jamie has a world of knowledge about football,” he said. “I didn’t have a personal conversation with him as to why he’s resigning.”

He said the search committee most likely will include himself, Seckman High principal Don Grimshaw and one or two people from the district’s central office.

“The process will kind of speak for itself as we go along.”

Jamie Critchlow

Soccer mastersThe St. Rose Raiders C-2 soccer team, above, took second place at the CAC Tournament last month in Farmington. In the front row, from left, are Drew Hardin and Ethan Patterson. Second row: Ethan Shelby, Brody Turner, Allison Hahn, Andrew Merseal and Aidan Taylor. Third row: Hunter Novotny, Phoenix Sprous, Abigale Dean, Abigale Rasnic, Karter Bone and Morgan Wolf. Back: coach James Wolf.

Luke Bandy of St. Pius controls the ball as Saxony’s Ryan Palmer moves up.


county schools against non-county oppo-nents, our local squads lost by an average of 35.1 points.

That’s the mercy-rule threshold, folks, where the clock doesn’t stop so the game gets over sooner.

The anemia on offense was wide-spread. In those eight contests, three teams were shut out (Crystal City, Grand-view and Northwest) and three more almost were (Festus, St. Pius and Windsor each managed six points).

Some of this was to be expected. In a seeded tournament, high seeds will beat up on low seeds. But the average win-ning margin was somewhat surprising. Or maybe not. Go down the list of teams and there are explanations.

• Crystal City had problems scoring all season and ran into an angry bunch at Valle after the Warriors lost the Jefferson County Conference championship to

Herculaneum two weeks earlier.• Festus and Grandview were hit hard

by injuries to key players.• Windsor and St. Pius were putting a

lot of underclassmen on the field. Some of those kids have talent and will make both of those squads better next year, but they got overwhelmed this time out against superior, more experienced teams.

• Jefferson in effect lost its home game against Scott City when the visit-ing Rams won the coin toss. They took the wind and kicked off, forcing the Blue Jays to play into the teeth of a monsoon. The Jays quickly fell behind 19-0, too big a hole to climb out of as they lost 46-22.

The most disappointing game had to be Herculaneum’s loss to Lutheran North. Herky’s offense was productive behind 2,000-yard man Dustin Johnson, but the Black Cats forgot the first law of playoff football: Thou Shalt Not Beat Thyself with Turnovers. They also forgot how to play pass defense as Lutheran North

quarterback Justin Baker torched the Cats for 361 yards and four touchdowns.

The loss snapped the Black Cats’ seven-game winning streak and cut short a remarkable campaign for first-year head coach David Cook and his team. I covered their second game of the season, a home contest against Northwest Academy (also known as Transportation & Law). The game was strange for two reasons.

First, it was delayed by rain and rescheduled for Labor Day and second, Herky was a dazed and confused team that afternoon in a 34-12 loss. Johnson had his only sub-100-yard outing of the season and only one touchdown. He would score 33 more over the next eight games, making him the highest-scoring player in the St. Louis area.

Herculaneum’s ascension and John-son’s emergence were two of the biggest stories in local football this fall. The other was the continued strong performance of Hillsboro under head coach Brian Rob-bins. As he is quick to point out, his Hawks got better as the season went on despite nagging injuries to several key players.

Kudos

…to 2011 Festus graduate Sadie Darnell, who has excelled this fall as a member of the Southern Illinois Univer-

sity Carbondale cross country team. Last week, Darnell was named to the Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete team for maintaining a 4.0 grade-point average and finishing 11th in the conference meet. Earlier this season she won the Saluki In-vitational, for which she was named MVC women’s cross country athlete of the week.

OutdoorOutlook

John J.Winkelman

State biologist predicts a big deer harvest this seasonDeer hunters are likely cheering

the prediction from the state’s deer expert for a strong harvest

despite the statewide outbreak of disease this year.

According to a release from the De-partment of Conservation, biologist Jason Sumners said the summer drought and a significant number of deer deaths related to hemorrhagic disease should have little impact on the overall harvest.

The drought is directly related to the spread of the disease. Even though more than 5,000 deer were reported to have died from the disease, any population de-clines are generally localized and patchy.

“Some deer die from hemorrhagic disease every year, but this year’s out-break was worse than most,” Sumners said. “You can lose 50 percent of the deer in a small area and practically none a few miles away.”

Whatever impact the disease may have on the overall deer population will be made up by the other effect of the sum-mer drought. Just like many other crops throughout the state, acorn production was down significantly.

The state conducts an annual survey

to estimate the size of the acorn crop, and this year’s totals were the smallest on record, Sumners said. Acorns are the primary food source for deer and other wildlife in Missouri woodlands, and a small crop usually results in improved harvest throughout the Ozarks.

“Forest covers a much larger percent-age of the landscape in southern Missouri. As a result, the availability of acorns plays a much larger role in determining whitetails’ feeding behavior in the Ozarks than it does in the rest of the state,” Sum-ners said. “When acorns are scarce, deer are much more concentrated around a few productive trees, food plots and agricul-tural crops. This makes it much easier for hunters to find them.”

The survey covers both white oak and red oak acorns. Trees in the white oak family have rounded leaves, while

red oaks have pointed leaves. White oaks produce their acorns annually while red oaks set fruit in one year and produce the next. Adequate rainfall in 2011 and an early spring this year gave the red oak acorns an advantage that showed up in the annual surveys with red oak trees outproducing white oak trees in every region of the state.

Good acorn production in the Ozarks the past two years has had the opposite ef-fect on deer harvest in the heavily wooded parts of the state. With the previous years’ harvest numbers down, that means more deer have survived to be available this year for hunters.

“Any local reductions in deer popula-tion due to hemorrhagic disease are likely to be offset by a very strong deer harvest in the Ozarks,” Sumners said.

Two other factors this season are closely associated with the calendar. With Thanksgiving Day as early as it can possibly be (Nov. 22), the firearms deer season opens on Nov. 10, which is the earliest possible opening day, based on the formula the state uses to set the season each year.

Deer are generally most active in the

earliest portion of their mating season. Hunters may see more bucks chasing does or even bachelor groups still breaking up with sparring among the males in the herd.

Moon phases also get significant credit for their impact on deer harvest. Although I have never been a believer in solunar tables, with the new moon scheduled for Nov. 13, only a sliver of moon will light the last few hours of night during opening weekend. Deer can see well in the dark, but less moonlight may force more daytime activity.

The biggest factor is always the weather. While it really doesn’t matter to the deer – they live with it 24/7 – cold, rain or windy conditions are not good for hunters. If the temperature and conditions allow hunters to stay in the woods longer, the harvest numbers should be strong as predicted.

John J. Winkelman is communica-tions supervisor at Jefferson Regional Medical Center and associate editor with Outdoor Guide Magazine. If you have questions, comments or ideas for the Leader’s Outdoor News page, send an email to [email protected] or you can follow John on Twitter at @johnjwink99.

Football: There are explanations for the pounding many local teams tookContinued from Page 39A

Gym looking for new home, will host bouts

The Realm Gym, a nonprofit youth boxing club based in House Springs, will host a 12-bout boxing show at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 24 at the Hillsboro Civic Center. The event will raise funds for the gym, which has to vacate its current location at 4645 Gravois Road in House Springs by Dec. 1 and relocate in a new building.

Anyone with information on a prospective site for the club in the Cedar Hill-House Springs-High Ridge area should call Kirk Douglas at 314-346-6515.

Sports briefs

Results

Eagles to hold alumni football game

Grandview High will hold its first-ever full-contact alumni football game at 9:30 a.m. Nov. 17 at the school stadium. Cost to participate is $50, which will include a T-shirt, game video and lunch after the game. Locker room doors will open at 8 a.m. for equipment check-out and final registration. Alumni players can pre-register with head coach Mike Genge by emailing him at [email protected]. The game will be held rain or shine.

Hawkettes to host turkey trot Nov. 17

The Hillsboro Hawkettes dance team is sponsoring a 5k run/walk at 8 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 17 at Hillsboro City Hall. Registration is $20 and all proceeds will help send the team to a national competi-tion in Florida. The race will include age divisions of 13-under, 14-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49 50-59 and 60-and-over. Packet pick-up will be at the city hall lobby at 7 a.m. on race day. For more information, call Patty Orchard at 636-208-7513 or Mona Jeude at 314-471-4777.

Orioles seeking playersThe Jefferson County Orioles, a new

youth baseball program, is looking for players for its 7-U and 8-U teams. The Orioles will play 25 to 30 games in the upcoming season. The program is looking for competitive players with at least one year of experience. For more information, contact Jeff Montgomery at [email protected].

its 2012-2013 season with a pair of victories at the State Fair Classic tournament in Sedalia. The Vikings surged to a 32-12 halftime lead and hung on to beat Kaskaskia College 65-62, with Shaia Horton pouring in 21 points and three other players in double figures in scoring: Elaine Herrera (12 points) and Sierra Contreras and Vannessa Winston (10 points each).

The second game was almost the opposite as Jefferson trailed 35-30 to Vincennes at halftime and surged to a 65-54 win, with Horton again coming off the bench to pop in 18 points. Herrera added 10 and Contreras and Desiree Smith each added nine.

Continued from Page 40A

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