MEADVILLE — Nailbiters were largely out of fashion during last week’s 44th-annual Meadville Invitational tournament with only four of the 22 total games ending with single-digits differences. Not unexpectedly, the undefeated host Lady Eagles marauded their three opponents, playing the final quarter of each game with leads of at least 30 points – meaning the game clock rarely stopped in those frames.
TRENTON — Chillicothe High School’s wrestling Hornets were short on success when they made the short trip to Trenton for boys’ and girls’ matches a week ago last night. Even though the host Bulldogs were empty in five of the 14 weight classes – the vacancies at 106 and 126 pounds shared by CHS, they overcame the 18-point deficit that created by winning all except the last of the nine contested bouts, claiming a 41-21 boys’ victory.
CAMERON — A tightly- packed set of challenging games for the Chillicothe High School basketball Hornets in the revamped Cameron Shootout on the heels of a tough, faraway road game the preceding Saturday brought many strong stretches of play, but no payoff, in terms of scoreboard victory. A 5-1/2-minutes lapse at the start of the second half in a tie game against a strong, solid Smithville squad doomed the Hornets to a 66-49 first-round defeat on Jan.
While Higbee’s top-seeded squads were finishing first in the boys’ division and second in the girls’ of last week’s Keytesville Invitational high school basketball tournament, Southwest Livingston’s boys were making a push toward .500 on the season.
MACON — Led by four squad members who didn’t taste defeat on the evening, Chillicothe High School’s wrestling Hornets brought home a pair of wins from three dual matches they had last Thursday. The Hornets bested host Macon 44-24 and Palmyra 66-18, while the girls topped North Callaway 18-6.
MEADVILLE — The top two seeds in each gender division of last week’s annual Meadville Invitational tournament encountered no roadblocks on their way to the championship game, winning their eight games by a combined margin of 36 points with only being less than a 22-points spread, a trend that continued on to last Saturday’s title contests (see story on page B2). In last Friday’s and Saturday’s other final-round games, in the girls’ thirdplace clash, Tina-Avalon (12-6) got past Linn County R-1’s girls, 38-26.
ST. JOSEPH — Interrupted last year, Chillicothe High School’s wrestling Hornets restored their recent trend of having multiple individual Midland Empire Conference champions last Saturday, while the Lady Hornets accomplished that same distinction for a second-straight time.
After – since Kansas City: St. Pius X joined the Midland Empire Conference four years ago – being unable to defeat SPX’s Lady Warriors when it might well have propelled them to a conference championship, the Chillicothe High School basketball Lady Hornets finally pulled it off this season.
Having an overnight stay at an Air BNB lake house on the Lake of the Ozarks the night before, the Chillicothe High School basketball Hornets continued to thrive at a distant site that has played like a home away from home since 2016. Participating for an eighth-consecutive year in the Camdenton High School-hosted “Laker Shootout” and facing the host school in the event for a fifth year in a row, this year’s Hornets posted their 10th victory of the season in 14 tries, besting Camdenton’s Lakers a fourth time in succession, 62-57, last Saturday afternoon.
Here’s a day-by-day recap of last week’s C-T-area high school basketball games. Friday, Jan.