Don Crim
QUINCY – Three of the seven Quincy University men’s basketball players who entered the transfer portal have found new homes. Guard Jake Hamilton is moving on to the University of Missouri-St. Louis, center Mason Wujek is headed to Emporia (Kan.) State and Jamil Wilson will play for the University of Tennessee Southern. The 6-foot-3 Hamilton,…
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QUINCY – Twice each week since late March, more than 40 boys and girls ages 4 and up arrive at the Quincy University pool for an hourlong swimming session. Some of the youngest ones fear the water at first and must be coaxed into the pool. Others are putting their faces in the water and…
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QUINCY – Quincy Notre Dame product Alex McCulla has been named to the all-Missouri Valley Conference golf team, and Illinois State is headed to the NCAA Division I tournament after winning the league title for the second time in three years. A final-round 285 enabled the Redbirds (856) to outlast Murray State (859) and Belmont…
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QUINCY – The exodus from the Quincy University women’s basketball team continues in the wake of the April 4 departure of second-year coach Courtney Boyd. Sophomore guard Mariann Blass announced last week on X, formerly known as Twitter, that she is transferring to Truman State. Blass started 28 games before missing the final five with…
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QUINCY – Danny Stephens is looking for a “fresh start” to his college basketball career. After being sidelined because of injuries during his two seasons at the University of Missouri, the former Augusta Southeastern High School all-stater has decided to transfer to Western Illinois University. Because he was redshirted after suffering a foot fracture during…
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QUINCY — Quincy High School’s Bradley Longcor III is one of 12 finalists for the Illinois Mr. Basketball award. The Illinois Basketball Coaches Association, along with the Chicago Tribune, released the names of the finalists March 23. Voting by coaches and media members concludes today (March 31.) The winner will be announced April 4. Voting…
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QUINCY— The Doggy Paddlers. Raise your hand if you had that in the office pool as the new name for Quincy’s Prospect League baseball team. Anyone? Golden Rule Entertainment, the company that owns the Quincy Baseball Club and engineered the return of summer baseball after a one-year hiatus, announced the team nickname and unveiled its…
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QUINCY — And just like that, the local basketball season is over. The final buzzer sounded Friday evening when top-seeded Grand Valley State, the No. 2-ranked team in the country, eliminated the Quincy University women in the opening round of the NCAA Division II Midwest Regional. Coming off eight straight losing seasons and picked to…
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CANTON, Mo. — After accepting congratulatory handshakes and hugs and posing for pictures with teammates and fans, Preston Brewer finally felt the enormity of the moment. While trying to describe the physical pounding he took from relentless Harrisburg defenders for 32 minutes in Friday night’s Missouri Class 2 quarterfinal victory on his home court, he…
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QUINCY — Lee Bennett took a moment to pose for a photograph with a group of Centralia High School students acknowledging his 700th career coaching victory last Wednesday night after the Orphans demolished Charleston in the semifinals of the Class 3A Effingham boys basketball regional. The celebration was short. “There’s a lot of people who…
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PAYSON, Ill. — One by one, seniors and their parents were introduced before last Friday night’s boys high school basketball game between Payson Seymour and Western. Blake Schwartz’s name was called last. After exchanging hugs with his mom and dad in front of the Payson bench, he was asked by the public address announcer to…
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QUINCY — Local college basketball teams are entering the final two weeks of the regular season. The Quincy University women’s team finds itself in the thick of the Great Lakes Valley Conference race with four games remaining after being picked to finish seventh in the preseason coaches’ poll. A 14-game winning streak has catapulted the…
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QUINCY — Little by little, the roar is returning to Pepsi Arena. The stands on the east side of the arena were nearly full for Saturday afternoon’s much-anticipated women’s basketball showdown between Quincy University and Drury. There was a vocal student section across from the Hawks’ bench that made its presence known, and fans were…
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QUINCY — Gloria McCloskey Rogers doesn’t act like a woman who will celebrate her 90th birthday in less than four months. When she’s not watching over two great-grandchildren, ages 1 and 3, at a home she shares with her daughter in Plano, Texas, you may find Rogers jetting around the country, appearing on podcasts and…
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QUINCY. — Joe Wootten returned the phone call from his car four hours before his Bishop O’Connell High School boys basketball team was scheduled to play Fairfax (Va.) Christian in a Monday afternoon matinee. The severe winter storm that descended upon the Washington, D.C. area earlier this month forced teams to postpone and reschedule games.…
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QUINCY — The women’s basketball game between John Wood Community College and Danville Area Community College on Saturday afternoon could have been billed as “Camp Point Central Day.” The coaching matchup featured Kyle Bent (Central Class of 2004) for the visiting Jaguars and Ali Schwagmeyer-Belger (Central Class of 2008) for the host Blazers. Pockets of…
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QUINCY — The first column of 2024 celebrated the extraordinary life of Tom Gott, a man of many stories. The final one toasted Ed Heller and the lasting impact he had on thousands of area athletes as a player, coach and official. In between, I was introduced to two remarkable Quincy families — the Lunts…
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LAGRANGE, Mo. — Joe Heller remembers what Saturdays during basketball season were like growing up. His mom, Carol, would pack the referee bag for his dad, Ed. Five separate changes of clothes were available, each change neatly packed together so Ed could just pull out the next set at each stop. “He was stuck babysitting…
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PITTSFIELD, Ill. — It was an opportunity to turn back the clock and enable a band of brothers to reunite and reminisce about their accomplishments on the basketball court four decades ago and the friendships that have endured since. The 1984-85 Pittsfield High School basketball team is remembered as one of the best in school…
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QUINCY — While it remains to be seen how the University of Missouri women’s basketball team will ultimately fare this season, it’s clear Abbey Schreacke will play an important role. The Quincy Notre Dame product has been impressive off the bench for the Tigers, who ran their record to 5-2 last Friday by dismantling Arkansas-Little…
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HANNIBAL, Mo. — Roland Romano took a seat near the top of the south section of bleachers at the Veterans Sports Complex among a contingent of Ladue Horton Watkins fans. He was wearing a white cap featuring the name of the youth soccer teams he coached decades ago. The atmosphere of the Missouri Class 3…
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QUINCY — It’s getting down to nitty-gritty time in the high school football postseason. Now that preliminary playoff rounds are out of the way, three area teams have advanced to the quarterfinals in Illinois and three Missouri teams will play for district championships this week. Reigning Illinois Class 1A champion Camp Point Central has been…
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QUINCY — The longest boys soccer game in Illinois High School Association history was played 40 years ago. Performing on the biggest stage on Nov. 3, 1984 — the state championship game at St. Charles High School — Quincy Notre Dame and Palatine Fremd battled through 80 minutes of regulation and another 40 exhausting minutes…
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QUINCY — Family first. Raul and Barb Hun have made that a priority with their eight children. It means nurturing relationships, remaining close and being there for each other through the good times and the challenging ones. “These are your first friends,” Barb explained. “These are the ones that will be your friends your whole…
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QUINCY — The final week of the high school football regular season has arrived. Quincy High School, Quincy Notre Dame and Camp Point Central have all clinched league championships in Illinois and are on the cusp of securing home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Clarence Cannon Conference title is still…
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QUINCY – Of all the eye-popping statistics the Quincy High School football team has produced, and the choices are many considering its video game-like offense, one stands above the rest. This senior class has been involved in more victories (30) in the last three-plus seasons than the program achieved in the 1980s (16), 1990s (20)…
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HANNIBAL, Mo. — Both teams must still play two additional league games after this week, but the North Central Missouri Conference football title could be determined Friday night when Hannibal travels to Kirksville. Both Hannibal, 3-2 overall and ranked fourth in Missouri Class 4, and Kirksville, 5-0 and ranked sixth, are unbeaten after two NCMC…
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PALMYRA, Mo. — The Palmyra football team has accomplished what it needed to do during the first four weeks of the season. Win the winnable games. The Panthers ran their record to 3-1 Friday night with a 46-6 victory over winless Highland. That’s one more win than the previous two teams recorded combined. They haven’t…
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QUINCY — The formula for the Quincy High School football team is simple. Catch us if you can. Quincy’s explosive offense has picked up where it left off last season by scoring 40 or more points in each of its first three games. The undefeated and state-ranked Blue Devils are churning out nearly 470 yards…
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KIRKSVILLE, Mo. — It appeared the book was closing on a career spanning more than four decades when Gregg Nesbitt announced in February he was retiring after 14 seasons as the head football coach at Truman State University. Instead, another chapter is being written. One day after Nesbitt announced he was leaving Truman State as…
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QUINCY — Rico Clay proved he could be a defensive force for the Quincy High School football team in last season’s opener against Quincy Notre Dame when he intercepted two passes, returned the first for a touchdown and came within 5 yards of doing the same with the second. This season, he displayed his offensive…
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MENDON, Ill.— It wasn’t the debut Sawyer Allen envisioned. After winning the starting quarterback job with his work over the summer and through preseason practice, the Unity-Payson sophomore approached the 2023 season opener at home against Winchester West Central with eager anticipation. “I had every opportunity to show Coach I want to be the quarterback…
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QUINCY — At long last, the high school football season kicks off Friday night in both Illinois and Missouri. There will be the usual rivalry games — Quincy Notre Dame will host Quincy High School and Hannibal will host Jefferson City Helias. And Camp Point Central will open the defense of its state championship at…
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Random observations now that the Cardinals have clinched the season series against the Cubs: I didn’t realize it was a problem in need of a solution, but a change in the Illinois High School Association’s all-star game participation by-law went Into effect July 1. The new rule prohibits high school students at IHSA schools from…
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QUINCY — Baseball’s trade deadline is 5 p.m. Tuesday. Will St. Louis be buyers, sellers or bystanders? After an excruciating slow start, the Cardinals used a 33-18 run during a 51-game stretch to catapult into contention in the National League Central Division and the wild-card chase. Hope replaced frustration. But they have the second-worst record…
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QUINCY — Random thoughts with the opening night of high school football season just 40 days away: • Illinois has had just four winning football seasons since the 10-2 Sugar Bowl team under Ron Turner in 2001. The program has been mired in mediocrity, managing just 15 campaigns of eight or more wins in 134…
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QUINCY — One book is out, another is on the way. Former Quincy University baseball coach Jim Pransky has published a memoir based largely on the 25 years he spent as a scout for five Major League Baseball organizations. In “Baseball’s Test of Spirit: A Man’s Unlikely Odyssey into the Scouting World,” Pransky writes about…
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QUINCY — Catching up while wondering if any player 29 of the 30 NBA teams had no intention of drafting has received as much attention as Bronny James: The Illinois men’s basketball program, fresh off an appearance in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, got a boost with the signing of Will Riley, a…
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QUINCY — For men of a certain age — I was born 10 days before Don Larsen threw the only perfect game in World Series history — the death of Willie Mays means another link to our youth is gone. Baseball was the national pastime for kids growing up in the 1960s. While we knew…
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NOTRE DAME, Ind. — It has been 40 years since Rich Marcolla last tossed on a pair of shoulder pads and strapped on a football helmet to play linebacker for St. John Vianney High School in suburban St. Louis. He, like many of the students at the all-boys Catholic college preparatory school, was a fan…
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WENTZVILLE, Mo. — Joel Adam has a lifetime of ballpark memories. Like the times he snuck under the fence at old Q Stadium as a kid to take batting practice with his dad, Bill. Or playing high school and American Legion baseball for Mike Hellenthal in Quincy before continuing his career at Culver-Stockton College. There…
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QUINCY — Quincy Notre Dame had just seen its baseball season end with a 3-1 loss to Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin in the Class 2A regional semifinals. As the crowd began to disperse, with some fans celebrating and others consoling, David and Sharon Lunt loaded their lawn chairs and other items into a little wagon and…
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QUINCY — Former Quincy High School soccer standout Donivan Bradshaw continues to rack up state championships as a coach. The number reached six last week when Jenks (Okla.) High School outlasted Broken Arrow 1-0 to repeat as Oklahoma Class 6A champions. Bradshaw, a 1996 QHS graduate who was selected as one of the top 11…
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QUINCY — If watching the Cardinals flounder during the first six weeks of the Major League Baseball season has been painful, some fans in West-Central Illinois will get a reprieve of sorts. It was announced last week that subscribers to Comcast and its Xfinity television service can no longer watch any of Diamond Sports Group’s…
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QUINCY — The 51st Pepsi Little People’s Golf Championships will look a lot like the 50 before it. Many of the sponsors and volunteers remain the same. Ditto for the format. The youngest golfers will play at the Knights of Columbus Par-3 Course and most of the rest at Westview Golf Course during the three-day…
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QUINCY — Jim Pransky grew up in a secluded, rural area in northwest Pennsylvania near the New York border. The closest town was two miles away and few other kids were around. So, he threw baseballs at a pitch-back, listened to Yankees games on a transistor radio and voraciously read fictional sports series books by…
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QUINCY — Some of the legends of karting gathered at the DoubleTree By Hilton on Friday night in Bakersfield, Calif., for the induction ceremony of the inaugural class of the Go Kart Hall of Fame. Forty-two people were enshrined, 16 posthumously. There were drivers, mechanics, promoters and manufacturers. All pre-dated 1993 and were selected for…
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QUINCY — It somehow seems appropriate that my dad’s birthday in early April coincides with the start of the Major League Baseball season and mine in late September signals its end. Perfect symmetry, like the game itself. My dad, Charlie Crim, turned 91 on Sunday. While he celebrated by sharing homemade dessert and ice cream…
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Crim: With more than five decades of coaching experience to share, Fray still willing to answer call
QUINCY — Mike Fray and Pat Rafferty lunch together every Thursday morning at Sprout’s Inn, arriving when the restaurant opens at 10:30. A corner window booth is set aside if it’s just the two of them, a table if they call ahead to say there will be guests. Tracy, their waitress, has their drinks already…
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QUINCY — First-year Quincy University women’s basketball coach Courtney Boyd sat in the conference room down the hall from her office in the Health & Fitness Center and pulled out her cellphone. On the screen was a staff breakdown of the point rating system the Great Lakes Valley Conference uses to determine its eight postseason…
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QUINCY — Questions and observations as the march toward high school state basketball tournaments continues in both Illinois and Missouri, with some college teams harboring postseason aspirations in the waning days of February: First-year Illini West boys coach Blaize Kimmel stood outside his team’s locker room giving fist-bumps and hugs while offering words of encouragement…
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QUINCY — The one thing Tom Lepper promised ahead of his acceptance speech after being inducted into the Quincy University Sports Hall of Fame was that it would be brief. “I’m not a guy that tries to draw attention to himself, you know,” said the man who never openly sought the spotlight but couldn’t escape…
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QUINCY – John Wood Community College guard Katey Flynn admits it’s strange not playing alongside her twin sister, Klare, on the basketball court this season. The Flynn twins had been teammates in whatever sport was in season growing up in Mount Sterling. The only previous separation came during their freshman year in high school when…
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QUINCY — Random thoughts on a bitterly cold day while waiting for friends to post more Facebook pictures of themselves either playing golf or frolicking in a heated pool in Florida: Would the NFL have considered postponing the Dolphins-Chiefs playoff game because of “dangerously cold” weather conditions featuring a “significant risk of frostbite” had it…
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QUINCY — For many years, one of the benefits of being a member of Cedar Crest Country Club was the opportunity to sit around the patio either before or after a round of golf listening to Tom Gott tell stories. “Stop me if I’ve told you this before,” he would caution before launching into a…
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QUINCY — As the calendar flips to another year with Muddy River Sports, it’s time to look back to some of my favorite columns from 2023. I must note it does not include the story on Bob Baucom and his 50 seasons as a basketball referee, only because it appeared just days ago. However, the…
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CAMP POINT, Ill. — Bob Baucom and his officiating crew were preparing to work a game in the Central girls basketball tournament a few years ago when they received a warning from the referees who had worked the previous game as they came off the floor. Keep an eye on the three ladies sitting at…
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PALMYRA, Mo. — Trey Watts was a little unsure about his decision when he first began saddle bronc riding as a high school freshman in Muncy, Pa. “I didn’t know if I was going to make it,” he admitted. “I was bucked off a lot when I first started. There were a lot of ungraceful…
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QUINCY — Maybe the perception of the Missouri football program is changing. Coming off a 36-7 demolition of Tennessee after going toe-to-toe with top-ranked Georgia between the hedges, the Tigers moved up to ninth in the College Football Playoff rankings. There was talk of a New Year’s Six bowl game. They were double-digit home favorites…
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QUINCY — The offensive juggernaut that is the Bowling Green football team has compiled an array of head-shaking statistics. The Bobcats have scored 50 or more points in all but one game this season — a 44-8 victory over Palmyra in Week 2 — and have topped 60 points five times, with a high of…
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SHELBINA, Mo. — It’s the game high school football fans in Northeast Missouri have been waiting for. Undefeated Bowling Green versus undefeated South Shelby. Two of the state’s most prolific scoring teams will collide Friday night at Charles Rash Memorial Field in the District 7 championship game for the right to advance in the Class…
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QUINCY — High school playoff potpourri: • Quincy Notre Dame is nothing if not resilient. The Raiders easily could have played out the string after losing back-to-back winnable games against Southern Boone and Columbia (Mo.) Father Tolton to fall to 1-5, seemingly extinguishing their postseason chances. Instead, they won their final three games in convincing…
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PALMRYA, Mo. — Even as his team was closing out the high school football regular season with a loss to undefeated and state-ranked South Shelby, first-year Palmyra coach Dalton Hill saw things that made him hopeful. “I was proud of our guys in the first quarter, the first quarter and a half, when we held…
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SHELBINA, Mo. — If one play could summarize the South Shelby football team’s season, it might be Kendal Hammond’s 10-yard touchdown run midway through the third quarter of Friday night’s 48-14 dismantling of previously undefeated Centralia. The 6-foot-2, 215-pound senior took the handoff, veered off right tackle and cut toward the end zone with a…
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QUINCY — I had hoped to write a column about the University of Missouri posting a possible program defining victory over LSU to run its record to 6-0 heading into the second half of the college football season. That appeared possible for much of the game Saturday but, as it has been prone to do,…
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QUINCY— The Quincy Notre Dame football team can only think of what might have been. The Raiders were eliminated from playoff consideration Friday night with a 35-28 loss to Columbia (Mo.) Father Tolton at Advance Physical Therapy Field, a game in which they held a 12-point lead five minutes into the second half and seemed…
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QUINCY — It has been 40 years since the Quincy Notre Dame football team engineered one of the biggest one-season turnarounds in school history. The Raiders were coming off back-to-back 2-8 seasons in 1983 and had lost 19 of their previous 23 games, dating to the tail end of the 1980 campaign. It had been…
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QUINCY — There’s no questioning the offensive firepower the Quincy High School football team possesses. Coming off a record-setting sophomore season, quarterback Bradyn Little already has thrown for 1,105 yards and 12 touchdowns while completing nearly 73 percent of his passes through four games. Tykell Hammers is averaging 16.3 yards per catch and has scored…
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HANNIBAL, Mo. — After carrying the football 28 times, most of them straight-ahead bursts into heavy traffic between the tackles, Mike Ferreira admitted his body had absorbed some punishment. “I’ve got a few bruises, but I’ll be good,” Hannibal’s junior running back said after the Pirates evened their record at 1-1 Friday night with an…
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QUINCY — Before Friday night, the last time I went to a high school football game for the purpose of writing about it was Nov. 11, 1995. Quincy Notre Dame was playing at Lewistown that Saturday afternoon in the quarterfinals of the Class 2A playoffs. Abundant sunshine was unable to mask 20 mph winds slicing…
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QUINCY — Welcome to a toasty Week 1 of the high school football season, which will feature later kickoff times, extended halftimes and multiple water breaks in efforts to beat the oppressive heat. Word to the wise: Plan accordingly for sitting on metal bleachers. Former Major League Baseball player and manager Lou Pinella once said…
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PALMYRA, Mo. – A fortunate stroke of serendipity introduced Jacob Barnes to disc golf. His aunt, Erin Moore, a physical education teacher in Texas, was visiting family the summer before Barnes entered fourth grade. The two went out to play miniature golf, and Barnes requested a return engagement the following day. Moore had another idea.…
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QUINCY — Matt and Amy Longo decided to finally test the snowbird experience by spending January and February in southwestern Florida. They had the opportunity to play bingo, poker, shuffleboard and pickleball and develop friendships with other residents in a 55-and-older community. There were trips to the beach, to spring training baseball games and to…
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The Major League Baseball season opens Thursday. Say hello to the pitch clock and bid goodbye to drastic infield defensive shifts and the unbalanced schedule. With that as a backdrop, the St. Louis Cardinals will attempt to be the first repeat champion in the National League Central Division since the Chicago Cubs in 2016-17. The…
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QUINCY — It has been a bracket-busting tournament. No, we’re not talking about 16th-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson toppling No. 1 Purdue. The Boilermakers, after all, have now lost to a double-digit seed in each of the last three seasons, so the outcome should not have been a complete shock. Rather, this concerns the NCAA Division II…
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ROCHESTER, Minn. — A case could be made that the Meisters are Rochester’s first family of basketball. Kurt and Angie Meister’s oldest child, Lincoln, is a 6-foot-10 junior forward on the Minnesota-Duluth men’s basketball team. The Bulldogs won 23 games during the regular season and qualified for the NCAA Division II national tournament for the…
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QUINCY — The NCAA Division II swimming and diving national championships begin Tuesday in Indianapolis. Quincy University freshman Wyatt Walsh, one of the country’s best in both the 200- and 400-yard individual medley, should be competing. But he’s not. You see, Division II swimming and diving teams are required to have a minimum of eight…
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QUINCY — Pat Rafferty says he will know when it’s finally time to walk away from basketball and coaching. At 72, after spending nearly a half-century with teams in high school and college gymnasiums, that time has yet to arrive. “He’s in his happy place,” John Wood Community College coach Brad Hoyt said of his…
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QUINCY — As the Great Lakes Valley Conference enters the final week of the basketball regular season, the only certainty on the men’s side is that nationally-ranked Indianapolis will finish first and be the top seed for the league tournament March 2-5 in St. Charles, Mo. Otherwise, we’re left to decipher the GLVC’s rating system…
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QUINCY — The Quincy Notre Dame girls basketball team begins its quest this week for a second consecutive Illinois Class 2A state championship and seventh overall in program history. Only Chicago Marshall with eight has captured more titles since the first girls champion was crowned in 1977. Adding to the potential legacy of another first-place…
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QUINCY — Kaci Bailey inherited 14 players on a team coming off a two-win season when she was hired as the Quincy University women’s basketball coach in April 2021. Not the ideal recipe for immediate success. “It was late in the recruiting cycle, and I told the coaches we needed to try to sign a…
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QUINCY— Quincy University coach Steve Hawkins likes to compare a basketball season to an airplane flight. “There’s always going to be some turbulence,” he explained. His team is trying to navigate its choppiest stretch yet. After surprising preseason prognosticators by winning six of their first seven Great Lakes Valley Conference games to rise to the…
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PITTSFIELD, Ill. — Charlie and John Hull were slipping on headsets and helping broadcast sporting events when most kids their age were collecting Pokémon cards. Just 10 and 13 years old, respectively, they would tag along with their dad, Jack Hull, who was working alongside the late Harry Wagy for WBBA-FM in Pittsfield. Jack soon…
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MACON, Mo. — My cellphone rang the day after Christmas. I looked at the screen to see it was Tom Sneed, or Tommy Joe as he was called growing up, a moniker some of us in the family still use. He’s a second cousin on my mother’s side. It had been a while since we…
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QUINCY — This week marks one year since joining Muddy River Sports, and what a year it has been. As we begin 2023 and start the countdown to Matt Schuckman’s 50th birthday celebration, let’s look back at some of my favorite columns of 2022. From Warsaw to West Point to the world, Rothert’s journey is…
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NEW SALEM, Ill. — Jim Shields retold the story of a reporter once asking him about the difference between coaching boys and coaching girls in high school basketball. “I said the boys never gave me a state championship,” Shields laughed. It was a vintage answer by a career coach, a straight shooter, a man who…
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QUINCY — The voice. Instantly recognizable, it was a fixture on Quincy airwaves for more than four decades. Commanding yet comfortable, perfect for radio, whether Jeff Dorsey was doing play-by-play of a sporting event or hosting a daily morning show. “There have been a number of great play-by-play guys, with (future baseball Hall of Famer)…
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QUINCY — Entering the season, it appeared the Great Lakes Valley Conference did the Quincy University men’s basketball team no favors by scheduling it to open league play against Indianapolis and Lewis, opponents projected to finish first and third, respectively. The one caveat was that both games would be in Pepsi Arena, and the Hawks…
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One month after sinking to a last-place tie, Iowa is poised to win the Big 10 West. Such is life in college football’s strangest division. The Hawkeyes, written off after being blown out 54-10 by Ohio State on Oct. 22 to fall to 3-4 overall and 1-3 in league play, control their destiny after pulling…
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What did we learn last weekend in college football? Defending champion Georgia is clearly the best team after throttling the high-powered Tennessee offense, Alabama is no longer invincible after losing on the road for the second time, and Illinois is not quite ready for prime time after falling at home to a struggling Michigan State…
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Around the horn … Former Quincy University men’s basketball coach Ryan Hellenthal has landed a new job as director of basketball development and basketball administration at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, the school announced last week. At SIUE, he is reunited with Cougars coach Brian Barone. Both were assistants on the coaching staff at Garden City (Kan.)…
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Notes, quotes and great thoughts from a sports weekend that, for the first time in a month, did not include my alma mater turning a winnable college football game into an excruciating loss: OK, so Missouri was on a bye. No game, no angst. Surely the Tigers won’t lose on Saturday to Vanderbilt, the only…
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When it became apparent I wasn’t going to make a living pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals, even though I had spent most of my childhood emulating the windup and mannerisms of Bob Gibson, it seemed the next best thing would be writing about the team every day. A baseball beat writer. In St. louis.…
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SHOREWOOD, Ill. — Dean Cappel and his wife, Connie, live in an active 55-and-older community west of Joliet. When they’re not traveling or doting on their six grandchildren, they like to spend time playing water volleyball and bocce ball and riding bicycles. “I just came back from the weight room,” Cappel said as we began…
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QUINCY — It would have been a trade that changed the course of baseball history. In July 2000, with Eli Marrero on the disabled list and Mike Matheny playing with cracked ribs, St. Louis was in the market for a backup catcher. The Cardinals, who would go on to win 95 games and the Central…
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Stats, stats and more stats for your reading pleasure on a leisurely Labor Day. Every Cardinals fan knows 42-year-old Albert Pujols looked like a younger version of himself at the plate in August, fueling a surge that propelled St. Louis to the top of the National League’s Central Division. Just how hot was he? Jayson…
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In case you missed it, Alabama is once again the consensus pick to win the college football national championship, with Ohio State nipping at its heels, and so yawn. Sure, Georgia, Clemson and Utah have the potential to reach the four-team playoff, but the Crimson Tide are expected to avenge last season’s championship game loss…
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FRISCO, Texas — D.A. Weibring was keeping an eye on the Open Championship, wondering whether rain would cancel an afternoon trip to the driving range with a grandson and anticipating the arrival the following day of four grandkids ages 6 and under for a sleepover. “You want to know what the old guy is up…
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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Chandler Hayden has always defied stereotypes. “Doing things out of the norm builds confidence,” she explained. The 2019 graduate of Pittsfield High School is anything but typical. And perhaps her boldest move yet came last month when Hayden, a University of Tennessee track and field thrower, was one of 15 college athletes…
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QUINCY — Youth baseball had a different look when Darin Dodd was a player. “Traveling” for competition then meant driving from the family home in the Hickory Grove subdivision on the eastern edge of Quincy to play Little League games at Maranatha Park on Einhaus Lane, just west of North 12th Street. Fast forward to…
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