Sports

Seventeen players from the 12 high school basketball teams representing Linn County or adjacent schools have been chosen to all-district teams selected by either members of the Missouri Sportswriters and Sportscasters (MSSA) or Missouri Basketball Coaches associations (MBCA). Announced today, the MSSA’s geographically- wider all-northeast and all-central district teams for 2022-23 Missouri State High School Activities Association classes one or three teams have a dozen county players, including three from Meadville’s state-championship girls’squad, three from the Mendon: Northwestern boys, and one apiece from the Linn County R-1, Marceline and Brookfield girls’ and boys’ clubs.

If you would like to attend this year’s North Central Missouri Wild Turkey Federation banquet, you need to get your tickets pretty quick. The banquet will be held at the Chillicothe Elks Lodge on Harvester Road on this Saturday and doors will open at 5:30 p.m.

After proving many skeptics wrong with a round-of-64 triumph over Utah State last Thursday, the University of Missouri-Columbia basketball Tigers’ saw their remarkable season end last Saturday with a 78-63 loss to 15th-seeded Princeton in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at Sacramento, Calif. The seventh-seeded Tigers (25-10), picked 11th in the Southeastern Conference preseason poll, made the league tournament semifinals for the first time and won the program's first NCAA game in a decade in the inaugural season under head coach Dennis Gates.

SPRINGFIELD — Carrying the weight of two months of expectations and the extra pressure of trying to complete a difficult- to-attain perfect season, Meadville High School’s 2022-23 basketball Lady Eagles soared to the task one last time last Friday. Having twice already in their three previous Class 1 state tournament games having out-performed high-caliber opponents in the fourth quarter to prevail and advance to the 2023 MSHSAA Show-Me Showdown championship game, Meadville once again was the best team down the stretch, choking off nearby Chadwick’s Lady Cardinals on only two points in the final frame to complete a 39-28 triumph that netted MHS its second-ever girls’ hoops state title.

Missouri’s snagging season opened today and eager anglers will be on the water for the next six weeks, trying to sink their hooks in one of Missouri’s true “monster” fish, as paddlefish (spoonbills) can grow to over 7 feet long and over 100 pounds. The recent warmer weather might have taken the chill off their spawning waters in the tributaries of Lake of the Ozarks, Truman Reservoir, and Table Rock Lake, their major spawning grounds in the Show-Me State and started their annual upstream run.

Weather permitting, which looks rather unlikely, 2023 spring sports action could get underway in the county this weekend. Brookfield High School’s baseball Bulldogs are slated to commence their new season at home this Saturday with a split doubleheader against Centralia and Trenton, facing the former at 10 a.m.

After early lead, erased 3-points deficit in final 2:15 to best Leeton, 51-46, last Thursday SPRINGFIELD — Some “on the fly” in-season schedule adjustments that reacted to the early-season’s growing reality of the potential high ceiling the 2022-23 Meadville High School basketball Lady Eagles could have bore their intended fruit. Adding games against then-undefeated and Class 2 No.

In a flashback to the mid-1990s when a junior-laden squad charged its way into the ranks of the final four Class 1 teams playing and, after finishing fourth, the bulk of that squad returned to win it all the next year, the 202223 Meadville High School Lady Eagles – keyed by a dynamic trio of non-senior guards – will be in Springfield tomorrow and Friday as participants in the Class 1 state tournament semifinals and finals. The 29-0, state-records-setting Meadville girls will meet Leeton's Lady Bulldogs (26-3) in the semifinals at 6 p.m.

Missouri’s annual paddlefish (spoonbill) snagging season will open next week on Wednesday, March 15, and will run through April 30 on all popular snagging waters in the state. Missouri’s in-state spoonbill snagging “hotspots” are Lake of the Ozarks, Harry S.

Unbeaten Lady Eagles hold state-quarterfinals foe to 23 points last Saturday MOBERLY — Having seen a quick start in their state-tournament- opening game against North Shelby four nights earlier offset by a second- and third-quarters recovery by the tall, talented Lady Raiders, Meadville High School’s “mighty mites” were poised and prepared for the more-patient approach their head coach invoked when a similar situation arose in last Saturday’s Class 1 state tournament quarterfinal contest against St. Elizabeth’s Lady Hornets.