In milder-than-normal conditions, but with some pesky precipitation as a complication for some – particularly softball, preseason practices for 2024 high school fall sports programs around the county swung into action this week.
As they clashed with each other for the first time in 2024 Wednesday in a rain-caused doubleheader that pitted clubs with essentially matching records, the Missouri Major League Baseball scene has a distinctly rosy hue.Even though they took vastly-different routes to much the same destination, the MLB vista finds both the Kansas City Royals and St.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column on the disappearance of bobwhite quail from this area, citing my hunting of them from the time I arrived in Chillicothe back in the 1960s until the early ’90s, when quail numbers became so scarce that I felt I shouldn’t shoot any more.Interesting enough, cottontail rabbit populations in this area likewise have dropped during the same period, from large numbers “back in the day” to a scarcity – almost a rarity – now.My experience with rabbits is very similar as my experience with quail, with the exception that, from the time I was old enough to walk fields and forests back in Iowa where I was born and lived until the early ’60s, rabbits were pretty much everywhere in the great outdoors.I started hunting and bringing home cottontails as soon as I was permitted to carry a gun afield, starting with a “pump-up” air rifle and graduating to my dad’s old Stevens .22.Dad never owned a shotgun, so my first really successful rabbit hunts were with his old Stevens Buckhorn bolt-action .22.
Coincidence or confidence?Playing with some renewed crispness for a third-straight game last Sunday – a span which exactly matches the return of injured early-season standout Julio Guerrero to game action, the Chillicothe Mudcats closed June with a performance they hope they can repeat consistently through their July college-level baseball play in the MINK League.The Mudcats put together one of their top two or three games to date in 2024 in an 11-1 7-innings victory over Warren County (Iowa) and, for the moment, jumped back over the Crop Dusters into sixth place in the league standings.“Just a good all-around win,” Tyler Hudlow, Chillicothe head coach, commented.While not tying his team’s securing two of the three games since Guerrero’s return and its very-competitive performance against league-leading St.
The Missouri Department of Conservation has announced potential price adjustments for many hunting and fishing permits to take effect in 2025.The present permit prices have been mostly the same for several years, while the cost of doing conservation work has increased significantly.For 2025, the MDC is proposing small increases to most non-resident permit prices and a few resident permit prices.The resident permit prices to see relatively-small increases would be for the daily fishing permit (from $8 to $9), the annual trout fishing tag (from $10 up to $12), the youth trout tag (from $5 to $6), the daily hunting permit (from $14.50 to $15), and the migratory bird permit (from $6.50 up to $7.50).The price increase proposal would affect 13 non-resident permits, but those increases also are minimal at $11.50 or less.The department is seeking public comments about these proposed price increases during a comment period from July 2 to Aug.
If you’re not a hunter or bird watcher, you might not be familiar with a small upland bird that was once the most numerous of all our “game birds” in much of the Middle West – the bobwhite quail.There weren’t any quail in Iowa where I spent my early years.
MARCELINE — While the Marceline High School track-and-field season ended a couple of weeks ago with uncharacteristically-limited representation in the Class 2 state championships meet – only one boy (senior hurdler Hudson Schmitt) and one girl (sophomore middle-distance runner Emery Dodd), several Marceline middle schoolers displayed potential for future years, should they continue on with the sport as they move into high school in the next couple of years, results shared through the season by boys’ head coach Dan White and girls’ head coach Todd Lowther suggest.Through more than a half-dozen meets of varying sizes and highlighted by sweeping the team championships of the April 15 Brookfield Invitational and taking second place in each gender division of their own home meet on April 10, Marceline had 36 event victories from seven individuals (not counting relay-team members) – five girls and two boys – and three relay groups.Most of the event victors did so multiple times and, perhaps most impressively, the MMS Lady Tigers’ 800- and 1,600-meters relay groups (individual members are not listed in the reported results, so how many different athletes were involved cannot be definitively related in this article) won every time out except in the 800 at the Kirksville Relays on May 1, when it took second.Solo-event champions for the black-and-gold included Ella Moseley (100 meters, 200, high jump), Gentry Burns (long jump twice, 200 meters), LeeAnna Haslett (triple jump twice, high hurdles), Raegan Duey (pole vault), Katey Kussman (800), Gaven Schreiner (1,600 four times, pole vault three times), and Owen Thornberg (200, long jump, high jump).Marceline competitors took second places 52 times, including the aforementioned winners recording many of them.
As the Major League Baseball season curved from its traditional opening third toward its lengthy heart with the passage of the Memorial Day holiday Monday, for Missouri’s teams, it did so with a mutual positivity not seen in nearly a decade.Although the boys in blue followed their 6-games winning streak last week with three losses in a row to begin this week, those waiting for the Kansas City Royals to fade away likely have been dissuaded and now consider the club legitimate contenders for American League postseason play, although an injury to either Bobby Witt, Jr., or Salvador Perez still might derail them, were one to occur.Much less cemented into playoffs contention, but at least revived from their horrid start, the St.
Both Brookfield and Marceline high schools will send one player to participate in boys’ golf state tournament play this coming Monday and Tuesday.
MONROE CITY — Eight Marceline Tigers and three Brookfield Bulldogs punched tickets to tomorrow’s Class 2 sectional high school track-and-field meet in last Saturday’s District 3 meet at Monroe City.The MHS athletes qualified in five total events – three boys’ and two girls’, while the trio of BHS competitors – all girls – head on in four events.Marceline’s Emery Dodd captured gold, winning the 800-meters run in a season-best 2:34, while teammate Mya Florine was second in the javelin throw with a heave of 111’4-1/4” (33.94 meters).Hudson Schmitt was second in the 300-meters intermediate hurdles in a season-best 41.8 seconds despite nearly losing his balance as he landed after the heel of his lead foot clipped the final hurdle.