April 26, 2010           

bryan@prepcasts.com  

                  Prepcast Blog

So many times we get caught up in the stats, strategy of sports. That's good to spark conversations and kick around ideas about sports. However, there's always the "personal side of sports". Coaches, players carrying on through sports as they bring along the every-day life situations. This week, there were some significant "personal sides"

at Waynesville, the Waynesville Tigers faced the Lebanon Yellowjackets wearing their "PC 27" patch on their uniforms. The patch brings the memory of Patrick Clegg who was hit by a pitch (almost one year to the day) against this very same Lebanon team. Clegg died a few days later. This was the first game between these two schools since last year's tragedy. Without question, both communities couldn't help but take pause as those patches made their appearance. Further, some of the Lebanon players wore eye black with "PC 27" as its shape. Lebanon won the close game 8-7 as Dave Stewart banged out two doubles for the winners.

at Springfield Board of Education meeting, Stephanie Phillips was honored for receiving the Class 5 Basketball Coach of the Year Award. Phillips , who battled colon cancer though out the entire season and missed a few weeks due to treatments, gave a very emotional "thank you" speech to the Board. Phillips, whose team reached the Final Four in Class 5, recognized the entire administration on all levels and her family for their support during this challenging year.   

at Jackson High School, baseball coach Tatum Kitchen was enjoying the thrill of his wife delivering his first child. As sometimes happens, he missed two games. His team lost the first one 7-6 in 10 innings to Dexter but rebounded to "give Coach a gift" with a 12-2 shellacking of Poplar Bluff. In this game, Jackson pounded out two home runs in the seven run 5th inning including a long shot by Zach McDowell who finished with four ribbies for the day.

REVENGE...

Last week, we wrote about a triple play by Leopold over Oak Ridge that led them to the championship victory in the Oak Ridge Tournament. We mentioned that these teams would see each other again. Well, they already met again! This time, Oak Ridge road the strong arm of ace Brett Thomas to a 9-5 win. Oak Ridge(7-5) took a 9-0 lead into the final inning when Leopold rallied for five runs but "ran out of outs". Thomas raised his personal record to 4-0 and has given up one earned run in his last four game on the bump.

FIRST TIME RANKED IN SCHOOL HISTORY

Some schools seem to expect to be ranked in the state rankings. Not so at Higbee High-- for the first time in the school's history, Higbee landed in the top 10 of Class 1 baseball rankings. Building on that recognition, Higbee (10-1) blanked Missouri Military Academy 8-0 behind Arthur Fuller's 6 innings of  pitching. Fuller hung up 12 K's in his efforts.

SOME HOT TEAMS DURING THIS RAINY WEEK

Valle Catholic (13-4) won a key MAAA-Small School victory this week has they handled West County 12-4. The winning components of this game were provided by names that have dotted the roster for a couple years now-- Nathan Geile (winning pitcher and two doubles), Jason Blum (two hits-double). The other ace of this talented staff, Mike Greminger will hurl another day. The Warriors won the Red-Blue Classic Tournament in Springfield the previous week with the Championship win over Republic  and appear to be headed towards their usual appointment in the Final Four. You can listen to many of the Warrior games on Prepcasts-Ste. Genevieve.

Boonville (12-3) had to rally late to beat Moberly 9-5. The Spartans had the Class 3, #3 team down through four innings before the Pirates scored two runs in the 4th, added an insurance tally and kept their conference mark unblemished at 9-0.

Ladue (13-2) went on the "road" and grabbed two one-run victories! The Rams beat Licking 5-4 and Timberland 3-2 at Lebanon this week. Casey Watts, who has become the "Closer par-excellance", closed out the Timberland game as well as delivering two RBI's in the game. Lucas Tamaren raised this average to .476 with three hits in the contest.

Concordia (7-2) has been  "quiet on the Western Front-that is western side of the state" while piling up the wins. This week the Orioles pounded 16-3 win over Northwest. Jacob Harms provided the complete game (5 innings) victory.

Lee Summit West (12-5) scored four runs in the 6th in the Jackson County Tournament semifinals to upend Lee Summit North (10-4) 7-5. Randen Schleiden and Sam Shaw each had two hits in the win for theTitans.

Windsor Owls (11-5) edged Festus 3-2 in an important Jefferson County game this week. Brent Engelbach was the winning pitcher and banged one over the boards as Windsor bunched all three of their runs into the 4th inning. After a slow start, the Owls have now won 8 of their last 9 games.

Winfield (11-3) is riding a seven game winning streak. The Warriors have not one or two but FOUR .400 hitters in their lineup.  Nick Gremaud (.462), Dalton Entwhistle (.438), Jon Brown (.429), Dane Gronewald (.414) form this SLUGGERS ROW. Gronewald is 4-0 on the hill with a sizzling 0.62 ERA for the year!

Pacific (11-0) recorded their fifth shutout of the season this week as they whitewashed St. Clair 8-0. Larry Schimsa led the Indians with two doubles from the plate.

Continues...

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