Sports

Although the odds were long for one and quite short for the other, this first weekend of Missouri high school football’s 2024 postseason will find both the Brookfield Bulldogs and Marceline Tigers with a Friday night and no game to play.When the Missouri State High School Activities Association issued its classification and district assignments for this fall’s season in late August, the fact that Marceline was in a 10-teams district (Class 1 District 2) made it more likely than not the Tigers would be idle from game play this weekend, since only the district’s four lowest-rated squads would square off to see who would advance to next Friday night’s district quarterfinals.When MHS opened with back-to-back victories, it heightened the prospects of Marceline avoiding one of those bottom four runs on the district ladder.Such a fate effectively became chiseled in stone when the Tigers edged Trenton two weeks ago for its fourth win and became official after last week’s final week of regular-season action when Marceline settled for the fifth-best rating in the district.Counterintuitively, Brookfield had much-greater uncertainty about getting a pre-playoffs break, even though it steadily marched toward what would become an undefeated regular-season mark of 9-0.That was because, placed in Class 2 District 8 with six other teams, only the district’s highest-rated club would get a bye in the first round of district competition.It wasn’t until the Bulldogs completed their perfect march through August, September and October with last week’s 42-0 “Bell Game” triumph at Marceline while also-undefeated Mid-Buchanan was nipping East Buchanan that they were assured of that top rating and the week off which accompanies it.However, now they have it and head coach Cory Luke says he considers the situation as a positive for his undisputed Grand River Conference East champions, even though they won’t know with certainty who their first postseason foe will be until tonight.“I really feel like it’s really positive this late in the season,” he tells the LCL of the brief respite, “not to give the kids a break from playing, but to heal up small injuries, little stuff like that.

Area waterfowlers have been eagerly awaiting the opening of the Missouri North Zone duck season on Nov.

With the opportunity to sew up a share of the 2024 Grand River Conference East football championship in their inaugural season in the loop – and, it worked out, capture it outright, the Brookfield High School Bulldogs had ample reason to be focused on last week’s league contest at Milan and not shift their focus ahead to tonight’s annual “Bell Game” battle with county neighbor Marceline.Whether that motivation proved fully sufficient might be debatable, given a general lack of the ’Dogs’ usual offensive production until the final quarter, but the BHS defense made sure the zero in the team’s record would remain in place by keeping the same digit on the scoreboard all night last Friday.Thanks to the Bulldogs’ defense “pitching a shutout,” the touchdown Brookfield scored on its opening possession of the contest would have been enough to prevail, but – to be safe – it wisely pushed the ball across the Wildcats’ goal line twice in the last period, as well, punctuating an 18-0 victory.With Polo unexpectedly outscoring South Harrison at the same time, leaving all other GRCE clubs with at least two league defeats with only one week of the regular season remaining, Brookfield’s eighth-straight triumph of ’24 cemented its conference championship as an undisputed one with its 7-0 GRCE ledger.“It was a battle,” young BHS head coach Cory Luke, already in his fourth year, said of the clinching conquest.

There’s going to be plenty of deer hunting available to Missouri hunters this year, with no fewer than seven firearms seasons scheduled, in addition to an almost-4-months-long archery deer season.

Having aced the first portion of their rugged, 3-parts test at the end of their pursuit of the 2024 Grand River Conference East football championship in their inaugural year as members of the league, the Brookfield High School Bulldogs will make the short trip northwest to Milan tonight for part two.An unexpected 48-6 home trouncing of South Harrison in last week’s latest GRCE “battle of Bulldogs” hoisted Brookfield’s perfect record to 7-0 overall and 6-0 in the loop heading into this evening’s 7 o’clock contest against last year’s Grand River Conference-East Division champion Wildcats.“The first quarter was pretty competitive,” fourth-year BHS head coach Cory Luke candidly reflected on last week’s rout.

Marceline district co-medalist, BHS’ Bennett, Sutch to Farmington next week MOBERLY — In a stunning, career-peak performance, Marceline High School junior golfer Ella Sportsman earned… Login to continue reading Login…

The past couple of seasons have seen Marceline High School’s football Tigers scrambling to ascend the upslope that was the back half of a regular-season trough created by a very slow start.Two years ago, after a 0-4 start, they managed to finish on level ground, courtesy of a 5-games winning streak that preceded a first-round district-playoffs loss.

There’s going to be plenty of deer hunting available to Missouri hunters this year, with no fewer than seven firearms seasons scheduled, in addition to an almost-4-months-long archery deer season.