Friday, Aug. 28
By STEVE PORTER
September is right around the corner. It’ll be here Tuesday, but who is counting the days, anyway?
After all, fall sports are in full swing now, since high school football got going Friday night. From Alton to Jacksonville to Quincy to Bethalto, Wood River and Roxana, pigskin fans ventured to local venues or checked to see how their favorite teams were doing.
That makes it all worthwhile, as far as I’m concerned. It’s great to see prepsters back in action. You should take some time to see them yourself, if you know what I mean.
Let’s fall forward, as time tend to do in the spring when you have to reset those clocks.
We can always fall back a little later this year. So fast forward, please. And on with the show.

Lee Bennett won 100 games in just four seasons as Alton Redbirds boys basketball coach and solidified his stock as one of the best coaches in the southern half of the state with a quick turnaround job at Centralia.
But after a recent golfing trip to the California coast with buddy Steve Medford – a former prep hoops star at Jersey and current assistant coach at Alton for Lee’s brother Layne – Lee Bennett has only now achieved a feat that will be envied by the masses. The masses that ever swing a golf club, at least.
Layne Bennett reports that while playing the famous links of Spyglass at Pebble Beach, Lee got a hole-in-one on the 197-yard hole No. 5 at a Spyglass course ranked among the toughest in the world. There was no official word on Medford, though unconfirmed reports indicated he took a charge on a group trying to play through on the par 5, hole No. 15.

By GREG SHASHACK

Like all area schools, Southwestern High just finished its 2008-09 sports year. Yet unlike some others, the Piasa Birds enjoyed success throughout the seasons.

It might have emerged as one of the finest ones in Piasa Birds history, covering more than 50 years. There was plenty to celebrate.

For example, Southwestern won or tied for five SCC West championships. They were best or shared division honors in football, girls and boys basketball, softball and baseball.

Of course, the softball team went on to finish second in the Class 2A finals at East Peoria. Southwestern has a quartet of top-four finishes in the IHSA softball finals this decade.

Both basketball teams and the softball team were spotless in the West.

There’s more.

Southwestern’s volleyball team won 19 games and finished second to perennial power Carlinville.

And the boys and girls track teams each captured championships, including the Macoupin County ones and a sectional at Wood River. The girls sent 14 individuals to the state finals at Charleston.

Southwestern supporter Jeff Reno said the communities in the district rallied around their Piasa Birds and toasted their performances.

“A good group of seniors were involved and although some athletes doubled up, the talent was spread across the spectrum,” he said in an e-mail.

Reno is correct. Southwestern had a sports year to savor. More good things could be on the way in 2009-10.

Thuusday, May 28, 2009

By STEVE PORTER

It’s the busiest time of the high school sports year — and we like it, like it, yes we do. There’s something for everybody.

Take girls soccer, for instance. Marquette is playing in the Class 1A state finals this weekend in Naperville. The Explorers are trying to bring home a championship trophy for the first time since 1984, when Marquette baseball reigned at Springfield.

State tennis started Thursday in Arlington Heights and continues through Saturday. Edwardsville players have an opportunity to shine and Alton freshman Patrick Logan is somebody to watch. His future seems bright.

Girls state track finished last week and Carlinville’s Kelsey Card won two more titles. Card, just a sophomore, already has captured four gold medals in two years. By the time Card graduates, she could surpass the exploits of former Cavalier Tunde Ridley. He snared 10 medals, including six gold ones, in three years.

The guys are competing at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston this weekend and tracksters from Edwardsville to Jersey to Southwestern to Mount Olive and Greenfield — among others — hope to excel.

We’re not forgetting baseball and softball. Teams are already in postseason play. Carrollton and Metro East Lutheran both have sent baseball and softball squads into Class 1A Sectionals. Edwardsville could go deep in Class 4A baseball and softball, while Southwestern is a contender for the Class 2A softball title.

Please stay tuned. This state show runs through June 13 and there are bound to be more winners — perhaps somebody you know.

Mississippi Valley Conference championships are within reach this week for both the Civic Memorial baseball and softball programs.
Both can claim outright titles this week. Or both could be left out.
CM softball is 7-1, trailing Triad by one-half game. Highland is also in the hunt at 7-2. CM plays host to Highland today before closing the Valley schedule Wednesday at Triad. Win both and the title is CM’s. A CM loss to Highland and win over Triad results in a three-way tie for the title. A Triad win over CM gives the Knights the title.
But CM coach Mike Eddy, whose team is 18-8 and seeking its first 20-win season since 2003, likes his team’s chances because of its sophomore ace.
“Kayla Kirkpatrick, with her pitching, is going to keep us in ballgames,” Eddy said. “She’s getting the job done. We’ve just got to rally around her and play better defense.”
Kirkpatrick owns a 0.88 ERA from 104 innings, allowing 51 hits and 28 walks with 137 strikeouts.
CM baseball also has Highland and Triad standing in its path for the Valley title. The key matchup is Monday with CM at Highland. A CM win would clinch at least a share of the championship.
The Eagles are 7-0 in the league and 21-4 overall. Highland is 6-1 in the league, with Triad clinging to hope at 5-3. Triad visits Bethalto on Wednesday. CM also has a league makeup date left at Mascoutah.
CM’s last conference title in baseball came in 2004.
– by GREG SHASHACK

Alton girls soccer coach Greg Nasello calls it, “absolutely insane.” Of four teams assigned to a Class 3A regional, three are clustered together in the metro east and another is 130-plus miles away in Quincy.

And the IHSA places the regional in Quincy, requiring three teams take long bus rides rather than one.

“If you can’t figure out a better way to align it, then how can you possibly send – in a day when every dollar counts – three teams two-and-a-half hours to go up there,” Nasello said. “That makes no sense whatsoever.”

Seeds released Thursday have Alton at No. 1, Granite City at No. 2, Edwardsville at No. 3, and Quincy at No. 4.
Making the No. 1 seed travel that distance to play on the home field of the four seed is bad enough.

What is insane is making Edwardsville and Granite make that trip for their semifinal rather than putting that game on a neutral field closer to home. Also ridiculous, if not insane, will be returning to Quincy for a regional championship game if the seeds hold true and Alton plays the Warriors or Tigers for a regional championship.

There is hope that the IHSA will allow a change of venue in those matches not involving Quincy. It has made similar adjustments in four-class sports, conducting what amounts to a Southwestern Conference tournament with the survivor getting a berth in a sectional championship game.

The bracket buster in soccer – a three-class sport – is East St. Louis’ inability to field a girls soccer team, leaving the SWC with seven entries rather than eight. So while Belleville’s East and West, O’Fallon and Collinsville make up the league’s southern regional, the north needed a fourth and Quincy is it.

The IHSA is still trying to work through the many flaws of class expansion in all sports – at least we’re hoping it’s trying to work through them. Hopefully, returning to a sectional complex for large schools and seeding the complex with the higher seed getting a home game is an option under consideration.

Some teams are already getting home-venue advantage in postseason, so shouldn’t it be a No. 1 seed rather a No. 4? There must be a better way, an easier way to reduce the travel and the insanity.

– by GREG SHASHACK

Wednesday, April 29, 2009
By STEVE PORTER
It’s never too early or late to talk about high school basketball. It spans the seasons.

That’s why we are talking about it in late April, more than a month since the boys state tournament ended. The Alton Redbirds are making some news.

The Redbirds have adjusted both their boys and girls basketball schedules for next year. They have tinkered with their tournaments.

The guys are leaving the Meijer Mid-Winter Classic at Chatham Glenwood High for one closer to home. They’ll play in the new Jersey High Tournament next January.

And the AHS girls are departing from the St. Dominic High Holiday Tournament in O’Fallon, Mo. They’ll also be taking the trail to Jerseyville to compete in the Panthers’ Christmas Tournament.

Alton didn’t make these moves on the spur of the moment. Both are about cutting mileage costs since Jerseyville is closer to home than Chatham (near Springfield) or O’Fallon, Mo. (near St. Charles).

They also didn’t drop out because they weren’t successful at either place. The Redbirds won the Meijer Classic multiple times, including 2008. They were the only Southwestern Conference school in the weeklong, round-robin affair.

The AHS girls also had their share of success at St. Dominic, including a second-place finish the past December.

Yet times change and the Redbirds are changing with them. They’ll both be at Jersey High for tournaments within a month of each other.

Alton’s boys still will hold their season-opening tournament and go to Centralia for the Christmas one. The AHS girls also will continue their Tip-Off Classic and then go to Carrollton for a January one.

So while some things change, others stay the same. Hey, that’s life.

Edwardsville’s 6-4 baseball victory over O’Fallon on Thursday sends the Tigers into the second half of its Southwestern Conference schedule with at least a two-game lead over the 12-7 Panthers, who have a makeup date with Alton remaining before beginning its second trip through the league.
The Tigers, 15-0 overall, are 7-0 in the SWC. O’Fallon is 4-2 in the league, with Alton at 3-2 and Granite City and Belleville West each at 3-3.
Catching the Tigers will be difficult, but O’Fallon coach Jason Portz expects teams like Belleville East and Belleville West to step up and challenge Edwardsville and lend aid to the Panthers’ comeback bid in the SWC race.
“We can string some wins together, there’s no question about that,” Portz said. “There’s some teams in our league that are going to improve. … I’ll put our league up with any league in the state. There’s not very many years when you go through this league and the winner doesn’t have two, three, maybe even sometimes four losses.”
O’Fallon won the SWC title last season at 11-3. West won in 2007 at 12-2. O’Fallon, West and Edwardsville forged a three-way tie in 2006 at 10-4. The Tigers won three straight titles outright from 2002-04 at 13-1 after sharing the title in 2001.
And while a SWC championship is a goal, but the No. 1 priority of Panthers, Tigers and rest of the conference’s contenders is titles in postseason.
“Let’s just play as well as we can and try to win every Tuesday and Thursday, play our best and wherever it finishes, it finishes,” Portz said. “Our goal is to play our best at the end of the season.
“Obviously, we have a goal of winning our conference. But we want to be a team that advances in the postseason. … Wins-losses, it is what it is. These guys are going to be intense,” Portz said of his team, “they’re going to play well. A lot of teams aren’t going to want to see us come playoff time.”

– by GREG SHASHACK

Friday, April 17

By STEVE PORTER

Pat Keith has a new job and it seems a difficult one. He’s trying to revive the Roxana High football program.

Keith, 33, was named the Shells new football coach Thursday night. He served as an assistant for them last season and has been an assistant the past 12 seasons, whether at Alton, Marquette Catholic, Greenfield or Roxana.

Obviously, he’s excited about the opportunity to become a a head coach for the first time, but the Marquette High graduate inherits a program that has lost 45 of its last 46 games. Roxana has won just one game the past five seasons.

That doesn’t faze Keith, who sees some younger players capable of lifting the Shells toward respectability and perhans a legitimate player in the South Central Conference chase.

The Shells once were among the elite teams in Southwestern Illinois, specifically the Mississippi Valley Conference.

When Charlie Raich coached them, they didn’t have a losing season from 1970-90, posting an impressive 175-72-2 record in that stretch. Roxana also experienced 16 season of at least seven wins during that era. The Shells were Class 4A state runners-up in 1988.

There’s a long way to go to get to that point again, but Keith senses the Shells can begin to turn things around as early as next season. If he can get players to buy into what he’s advocating, that’d be a good first step and certainly an encouraging sign.

The Shells decided to change coaches in hopes of making a fresh start. The ball is in Keith’s hands and he intends to run with it. We hope he passes the test.

Tuesday, March 18, 2009

By STEVE PORTER

When Josh Bennett of East Alton-Wood River High won the IHSA Class 1A 103-pound wrestling championship last month, it stirred hopes for more River Bend athletes to succeed at state.

Now that the spring season is under way, I’ll make a friendly wager — for amusement only, of course — that Bennett’s Illinois championship will spur additional local excellence within the next three months.

The smart money would be placed on track, where Southwestern Illinois has had its share of state champions. East St. Louis is striving for repeat performances in boys and girls (now 3A) competition, while Cahokia’s guys should contend for a (2A) championship. The Flyers and Comanches won’t have to run against each other in this year’s three-class finals at Eastern Illinois University.

If you are wondering about individuals, start with Carlinville sophomore Kelsey Card, last year’s Class 1A state champion in the discus and shot. Card has three more years to add to her feats and her initial work during the indoor season indicates it could be more of the same for her.

The Cavaliers are 1A again this season and playing host to a girls sectional. EA-WR is serving as a site for a 1A boys sectional.

Sprinter Jessica Lenoir of Alton is another threat to finish first. She wound up fourth in the 400-meters at last year’s state finals and figures to battle Belleville West’s Yolanda Suggs, among others, for the IHSA title. AHS has never had a female competitor snare a state track championship, so Lenoir has plenty of motivation to do well.

The 3A girls will run at the O’Fallon Sectional, while the guys go all the way to Moline. Why? I don’t know. Only the IHSA has that answer.

But I do know that it’s going to be a spring to remember. The weather’s starting out great and the competition will be keen. Come time for the state finals — now three days — we will witness more champions.

And I’m confident some of them will be people you know, even if you have only have read about them.That makes them your neighbors.