Through most of the 2021-22 Chillicothe High School basketball Hornets’ first four games, the offensive “game” of their top returning player, 6’3” junior guard Griff Bonderer, was mostly rusty and rough edges, perhaps owing to his missing the first couple of weeks of preseason practices while finishing the football season.
It was publicly announced this week, following last weekend’s conclusion of the season with the 2021 Show-Me Bowl championship games at Columbia which involved Midland Empire Conference and Class 3 District 8 champion Kansas City: St. Pius X, that 14 members of the Chillicothe High School football Hornets had been accorded some form of postseason honor by coaches of conference and/or district teams.
The beginning of conference competition for area high school basketball teams commenced for many this week, while the lone area school involved in a tournament found its stay there shorter than it would have liked.
PLEASANT HILL, Mo. — Despite having only one vacancy (132 pounds) in their lineup, Chillicothe High School’s wrestling Hornets had merely one top-3 finisher – junior 195-pounder Brock Miller – in the even-more-challenging Steve Leslie Invitational tournament at Pleasant Hill last Saturday.
Missouri’s young hunters (ages 11-15 years), in their annual late youth deer season which ran from Nov. 26-28, harvested 3,467 deer, second-highest number of deer ever for that season and just 432 deer fewer than the record 3,899 taken last year.
SAVANNAH — In what might rate as the most-impressive week of play by a Chillicothe High School girls’ basketball team in many years, the 2021-22 Lady Hornets earned their just desserts Saturday. Seeded fifth in a loaded field of seven teams in the 47th-annual Savannah Invitational girls’ hoops event, the veteran Lady Hornets followed strong victories over talented and experienced squads from Maryville (last year’s Midland Empire Conference champion) and top seed St.
SAVANNAH — By the time this article reaches print, Chillicothe High School’s basketball Hornets could be at the .500 mark with a great chance to be over it by week’s end. In a recent addition to their schedule, the Hornets – victorious for the first time in the young 2021-22 season last Friday when they out-executed Kansas City: Hogan Prep Academy 60-43 in the seventh-place game of the Savannah Invitational Tournament, hosted a Lexington Minutemen squad with a deceptive prior record of 4-1 Tuesday night ahead of a game at Trenton this Friday.
While their three returning 2020-21 state qualifiers, including sixth-place medalist Brock Miller, all delivered wins by fall in the 2021-22 season and home opener under the spotlight at the Chillicothe Middle School fieldhouse last Thursday night, it was a Priest’s prayer being answered which keyed the Chillicothe High School wrestling Hornets’ 45-24 conquest of the visiting Marshall Owls.
The always-busy first full week of high school basketball play in the C-T area, which includes multiple tournaments in which area schools participate, concluded Saturday with two area girls’ teams reigning as tourney champs and a former Chillicothe High School star having guided his team to a close season-opening triumph.
COLUMBIA, Mo. — There was a home-game feel and black-and-gold appearance to the Marceline High School football Tigers’ involvement in Saturday’s final game of the Missouri State High School Activities Association’s 2021 Show-Me Bowl series of state-championship games on Faurot Field in the University of Missouri-Columbia’s Memorial Stadium last Saturday.