High School Girls’ Tennis
With a reduced playing field, Mt. Pleasant defeated Burlington Notre Dame last night in three of their four matches to exit with an 8-1 victory. Mia Gray took down Chloee Anderson 8-3, Katana Phangchanthong won against Lacie Felkins 8-2, and the pair of Lila Cook and Bella Dodds defeated Anderson and Felkins 8-2 in the one doubles match for Mt. Pleasant. The Nikes’ lone win belonged to Paige Kramer as she outdueled Cook, 9-7. The Panthers will travel to Burlington on Thursday, August 14th.
Burlington Notre Dame will make the trip to Davis County on Thursday.
Fairfield posted another shutout this time against Keokuk in a 9-0 final. Natalie Steele and Nevaeh Logan had the closest match of the night in the #1-singles matchup with Steele winning the third set 10-8. The Trojans will face off against Fort Madison at home on Thursday.
High School Volleyball
New London and Danville will head over to Burlington Notre Dame on Thursday, August 14th, for a scrimmage.
Looking at a preview for the Southeast Conference, Washington will attempt to defend their first conference championship in school history after defeating Burlington in the conference tournament last year. The Demons will return two All-SEC First Teamers in Leighton Messinger and Layla Green, but will be on the search for their next setter after graduating Lauren Hinrichsen. Burlington rattled off 31 wins last year, the most in at least the last two decades. They will have to replace Annalise Buxton, no small task, but this team returns the core of the lineup from last year as they gear up for another run at the conference title.
Mt. Pleasant will return their two All-Conference attackers in Addison Clark and Alex Scott and their main setter in Abby Carthey. This senior class is loaded with talent and experience, they would like to make a run under first year head coach Alicia Schrader. Fairfield will be led by Faith Jones in her senior season as she finished second on the team in aces and tabbed 640 assists. Fort Madison is in a similar boat as Mt. Pleasant with a mostly senior-led group returning; Keokuk will need to find their next hitter after graduating Camryn Atterberg, the only Chief to log over 100 kills last year. The SEC tournament is slated to start on October 6th.
Meet the Players Night
Mt. Pleasant will host their “Meet the Panthers” Night on August 19th at the Mapleleaf Athletic Complex. The concession stand will be open for the night, starting at 6 pm. The booster club announcement will kick off the festivities followed by the introductions of the fall sport teams: cross country, girls’ tennis, football, volleyball, and the fall cheerleaders. The cheerleaders will perform at 6:50 pm, afterward the football team will stage a practice to finish the night.
Winfield-Mt. Union will hold their Meet the Players night on August 21st at 6:30 pm located at the Winfield-Mt. Union track. There will be a free will donation dinner starting at 5:50 pm.
WACO Football
WACO has put together four straight winning seasons, advancing past the first round of the postseason in each of their last four trips. It will be a new cast of skill position players trying to make it five consecutive years after graduating their starting quarterback, running back, and wide receivers from last year. Yet, for head coach Chad Edeker, this squad is anything but inexperienced,
“You know, we have a lot of seniors, we actually have 13 seniors on this team. You know, just in the last, you know, last couple of days our camp we went to you can really see those seniors starting to merge and looking wanting to shine, all the kids that played last year, you take, you take Trey here, my son, and Niles Reichenbach, those two are two of our captains, Raefe Davison and Nick West are our other two. Those four, I think we’ll do a really good job of leading…”
The Warriors start the season on the road against Central City on August 29th at 7 pm.
College Football
The Associated Press released their first Top 25 list of the season and Texas sits atop the standings to lead the SEC with 10 total teams within the Top 25. The Big Ten has six teams listed in the Top 25, but Iowa remains on the outskirts. Iowa State found a slot at #22. It is the first time the Cyclones have started the season ranked since 2021.
The Chuck Bednarik Award watch list put two Cyclones and one Hawkeye on their radar yesterday as the award goes to the most outstanding defensive player in college football. For the Cyclones, defensive lineman Domonique Orange is expected to have a big year after notching 24 tackles, including 4.5 behind the line of scrimmage last year. Jontez Williams, who led the Cyclones with four interceptions and five pass breakups, will look to build upon his Second Team All-Big 12 nod from a year ago.
Aaron Graves has the perfect name to handle the defensive line for the Hawkeyes. Already on the Nagurski and Lott IMPACT Trophy watch lists, Graves was a force last year, accruing 33 tackles, eight tackles for loss, six sacks, three forced fumbles, which led the Big Ten, and three pass breakups.
This Day in Sports History
1879 – First National Archery Association tournament (Chicago).
1950 – First international game by an NFL team, New York Giants beat CFL’s Ottawa Rough Riders, 20-6 at Ottawa’s Lansdowne Stadium.
1994 – Members of the Major League Baseball Players Association go on strike leading to cancellation of the World Series for only the second time in MLB history (1904); labor dispute.
