BY PAUL STURM C- T Sports Editor PSTURM@ CHERRYROAD. COM Talk about things playing out the way you drew them up… Every football team’s dream – receiving and returning the opening kickoff of the season for a touchdown – came true for the 2022 Chillicothe High School Hornets last Friday night, propelling them toward 29 unanswered points in the first quarter and an eventual 42-7 rout of the visiting Marshall Owls.
INDEPENDENCE — The opening weekend of the 2021 Class 3 state runnerup Chillicothe High School softball Lady Hornets’ 2022 season could have gone better, but not a whole lot. Playing in the 24-teams Greater Kansas City Suburban Invitational tournament to begin their campaign for a second year in a row, the salty Lady Hornets bolted out of the gate with two solid “pool-play” wins last Friday and then opened competition in the tourney’s “gold division” bracket play with another triumph before dropping backto- back 1-run games to Class 5 schools to wrap up the tourney.
By PAUL STURM C-T/LCL Sports Editor psturm@cherryroad.com Few high school programs have generated the successive success Hamilton’s Penney Hornets have over the past 13 years – four undefeated state championships, beginning with unprecedented back-to-back crowns in Class 1 and then Class 2 in 2009-10; five state title-game appearances; 11 district championships and state-playoffs berths; nine double- digits wins seasons; at least nine victories in all but one of the previous 13 campaigns and nary a losing mark. A 148-31 cumulative won-lost record.
By PAUL STURM C-T/LCL Sports Editor psturm@cherryroad.com Following a peerless start to the ’20s in which all the stars aligned, leading to – on the heels of a runnerup finish in 2019 – Missouri’s 8-man state championship two falls ago, the Southwest Livingston Wildcats football team went through a predictable transitional season in 2021. With a new head coach and nearly- all-new starting lineup, the co-op team comprised of Southwest, Tina- Avalon, and Hale high school students had a trying season, but avoided a full crash-and-burn scenario, managing to claim three victories in 10 tries.
By PAUL STURM C-T/LCL Sports Editor ptarmic@cherryroad.com Once common, but something of a rarity recently, this year’s Chillicothe High School Hornets – while surely havtng higher targets – initially hope to achieve something their program surprisingly has done only once in the past 12 years: Post consecutive winning seasons.
“We’re just trying to develop depth there,” states Smith, who serves as offensive coordinator. Elsewhere on offense, there’s a greater sense of certainty, even with the lack of an experienced quarterback after graduated Gage Leamer handled nearly all the snaps the past two years.
By PAUL STURM LCL/C-T Sports Editor psturm@cherryroad.com This season’s Brookfield Bulldogs look to improve on an up-and-down 4-6 season of a year ago that included a midseason 3-games winning streak which briefly pushed them above .500 in Cory Luke’s debut as head coach, On the “plus” side of the balance sheet when assessing the prospects for a winning fall this year are quite a few returnees in the offensive “skill” position and at the “second level” of the defense.
By PAUL STURM LCL/C-T Sports Editor psturm@cherryroad.com With about 50 players on the roster, the 2022 Marceline High School Tigers kick off their new season today (Saturday, Aug. 27) against southeast Missouri’s Perryville: St.
PSTURM@CHERRYROAD.COM When last seen in true competition – a day before Halloween 2021, Chillicothe High School’s softball Lady Hornets were entering the bottom of the seventh inning of a game against Jefferson City: Blair Oaks potentially one single run away from the biggest treat in their quarter-century-old program’s history – a state championship. Alas, just as happened a decade earlier in the same Springfield location – the Killian Sports Complex, their quest came up frustratingly short.
With a perfect 7-0 week behind strong starting pitching and the torrid hitting of rejuvenated pending-retiree Albert Pujols last week, the St. Louis Cardinals turned the 1-1/2 games lead over Milwaukee they began the week with into a 5-games margin that threatens to give the Redbirds firm control of the division heading into September.