Sports

with Wehrle With spring turkey season opening two days ago and some nice warm weather in the last couple of weeks, it appears this spring is well on its way to North Missouri Grand Slam time. I know a lot of my readers have never heard of this outdoor adventure “game,” which isn’t nationally advertised, so let me explain what I’m talking about.

Chillicothe High School’s tennis Hornets clawed their way to a narrow Midland Empire Conference home victory early last week before dropping a pair of matches on the road, including a potentially- key one to one of the squads they’ll have to surmount to repeat as district champions.

Following a 1-4 start to their season, the Chillicothe High School baseball Hornets successfully bobbed back to the surface twice last week, only to slip back below when they couldn’t hold onto a 4-1 lead in the final inning of their last game of the week. Beginning with an extra- innings 6-5 triumph at Cameron they nearly let get away a week ago, they alternated wins and losses, falling 8-1 to Hughesville: Northwest and 5-4 to Sedalia: Sacred Heart on either side of a 16-3 mashing of Clinton.

A tremendously-successful 2022-23 Chillicothe High School girls’ basketball season was finally wrapped up in late March with the traditional postseason awards event after all honors teams had been announced. Three members of the Lady Hornets squad which went 23-5 with four of the five losses being to fellow Midland Empire Conference teams which were eventual state runnersup and the fifth to a 19-7 Class 6 team on a day when CHS’ top player was absent received postseason honors-team recognition. Senior guard Jessica Reeter, center, was first-team all-Midland Empire Conference and Missouri Basketball Coaches Association all-district and Class 4 All-State. Junior Jolie Bonderer, second from left, was both first-team all-MEC again and on the MBCA all-District 16 team even though a pair of injuries – one before the season and the other about a third of the way through it – kept her from potentially being a candidate to repeat her 2021-22 All-State status. Classmate Kayanna Cranmer, left, came on very strong during the last half of the season and gained MBCA all-district and second-team all-MEC recognition. All three of those averaged scoring in double figures and were team leaders in one or more statistical categories. Bre Pithan, second from right, and Izzie Montgomery, right, like Reeter concluded their senior seasons having been part of not only this and the previous two seasons’ hoops success – those three squads went a composite 63-18 and Reeter played extensively as a freshman on a 20-8 club her freshman year. While valuable role players on the hardwoods, Pithan and Montgomery brought their own state-level talent “chops” to the successful chemistry mix of the basketball team, Pithan having been a 2021 All-State softball player and member of back-to-back state runnerup teams on the diamond, including socking a walkoff home run in last fall’s extra-innings win in the state semifinals, and Montgomery being a 2-times qualifiers for the girls’ state

With the boys mainly riding their strength in distance running and the girls faring best in field events, Chillicothe High School’s teams each secured second place among the 12 teams in their respective gender divisions of last Thursday’s annual Chillicothe Joe Shy Relays track-and-field meet. Scoring double-digits points in six events and led individually by sophomore runner Cain Evans, CHS’ Hornets amassed 130 points, about the same distance (461/2 points) ahead of third-place Lawson as behind champion Maryville (49-1/2).

While virtually certain not to make it throughout the regular- season campaign that way, not with the deep, skilled team St. Joseph: Bishop LeBlond has again, the Chillicothe High School golf Hornets’ to-date unflawed 2023 season remained that way last week and figures to have remained so Monday when they had their only action of this week.

The Chillicothe High School soccer Lady Hornets continued to bob and weave around the .500 mark last week, utilizing veteran forward Juliann Gabrielson’s second 3-goals “hat trick” of the half-finished season in last Wednesday’s home match against Savannah to get a split of their two outings of the week. After being blanked 4-0 on their Bob Fairchild Field home pitch the preceding Monday, the Lady Hornets bested Savannah 5-1 in Jerry Litton Memorial Stadium II a week ago.

Extremely windy weather on the first day of the April 1-2 youth season made for tough hunting and resulted in only 2,550 turkeys checked in for the season, the lowest youth season harvest since 2018. The top three youth-season turkey harvest counties statewide were Osage-71, Miller-65, and Texas- 64.