The six high school baseball programs in or virtually bordering Linn County will need positive finishes to their 2023 regular seasons over the next couple of weeks to have a chance at winning seasons. As this week began, only Linn County R-1 and the Thunder 3-way co-op between Mendon: Northwestern, Brunswick, and Keytesville were above ground, each at 4-3.
With some Kansas City Chiefs fans probably still celebrating the team’s second National Football League championship in four years nearly three months later, the NFL brings its annual draft of collegiate players to downtown Kansas City’s Union Station tomorrow through Saturday, an event which figures to bring many thousands back to the site of the post-Super Bowl celebration program. The first round of the 2023 NFL Draft presented by Bud Light will be held tomorrow evening, with the remaining six rounds spread across Friday and Saturday.
Entering last week, Brookfield High School’s baseball Bulldogs were a .500 team with a 2-2 record. Despite back-to-back Clarence Cannon Conference losses as the week’s action got going, they managed to exit it the same way – at .500.
Several strong individual rounds were produced by Marceline and Brookfield high school golfers last week as those schools hosted their annual 18-holes tournaments on consecutive, sun-splashed days. A week ago today, Marceline’s Tigers used second- and fourthplace individual finishes from Braden Lichtenberg and Lance O’Dell to power a third-place team showing in the MHS Invitational at the Marceline Country Club.
With five event wins, Brookfield High School’s track-and-field Lady Bulldogs were a strong runnerup to Higginsville (Lafayette County) in the team competition in last Thursday’s Gary Ferguson Relays meet hosted by Trenton. With both the blue-and-white 800- and 1,600-meters relay groups “breaking the tape, Samantha Sharp sweeping the 1,600- and 3,200-meters runs (and being second in the 800), and Kylin King capturing the 400, Brookfield’s girls accumulated 85 team points.
With the National Football League set to momentarily wedge its way back onto center stage in the region the latter half of next week when it conducts its annual draft of college players at Kansas City’s Union Station April 27-29, neither of Missouri’s Major League Baseball teams has done anything thus far to make it a _ght for fans’ attention once that time arrives.
Junior hurdler Caleb Stallo provided Marceline High School’s only event triumphs in track-and-field meets at Shelbina and Huntsville last week. Stallo took the 110-meters high hurdles in both meets, finishing in 16.29 seconds in the April 10 event hosted by South Shelby and in 16.68 ticks in the Westran Relays last Thursday.
With spring turkey season opening two days ago and some nice warm weather in the last couple of weeks, it appears this spring is well on its way to North Missouri Grand Slam time. I know a lot of my readers have never heard of this outdoor adventure “game,” which isn’t nationally advertised, so let me explain what I’m talking about.
Although it turned out she didn’t absolutely have to, Brookfield High School sophomore star runner Samantha “Sam” Sharp overtook runaway team champion Lawson’s Jocelyn Calvert on the final lap after drafting along behind her for the first seven to not only win the 3,200-meters run, but also earn the Bob Carter Memorial Gold Shoe Award of last Thursday’s 2023 Chillicothe Joe Shy Relays as the 12-schools trackand- field meet’s leading individual female points producer. In adding the 3,200 win to her earlier victory – also over Calvert – in the 1,600 and a runnerup showing in the 800, Sharp provided 28 of the Lady Bulldogs’ 61 total points in the meet.
Extremely windy weather on the first day of the April 1-2 youth season made for tough hunting and resulted in only 2,550 turkeys checked in for the season, the lowest youth season harvest since 2018. The top three youth-season turkey harvest counties statewide were Osage-71, Miller-65, and Texas-64.