We don't write papers, we build scrapbooks
We don't write papers, we build scrapbooks
Sorted by date Results 51 - 75 of 1155
With the Regional seeds being voted on February 1st by 4:00 pm, and the Stockton Blackhawks and East Dubuque Warriors not scheduled to meet again until February 8th, their meeting in Stockton Thursday night was ... big. "Oh, this was huge," said East Dubuque head coach Deann Petitgout. "The girls knew coming in here that this one was a must." And it's possible that the pressure was too much for both teams as the first quarter was, well, flat out ugly. Both teams had more turnovers than shots,...
"We've been working for this all week, all season," said Stockton senior Colby Tucker following the Blackhawks 50-39 win on the road in Warren. "Every time we'd be in this position, we got rattled and let things get away from us," said head coach John Hammann. "Tonight, it was like it all clicked. Our seniors led the way, Tucker wanted the ball down the stretch ... yeah, I think this was definitely a signature win." When the game opened, both teams struggled to get going on offense. When Bennett...
While most High School sports are allowed to compete against schools their size – the lone exception (And yes, I beat this dead horse a lot) is competitive speech. Schools as small as Stockton, River Ridge and Galena will be going straight up against Freeport, Sterling and Byron at this Saturday's Speech Regional. Each school can only pick one student (or team of two) to represent them in each of the 14 speech events, and only the top four will advance on to the Sectional competition to be h...
Growing up in Indiana, it was almost a requirement that you loved basketball. Now, I’ve never gotten into the pros. Our artist Thomas is a huge Bulls fan and knows the NBA like I know the NFL, but that was never my cup of tea. For me, I always preferred the college hoops. You could play zone defense, the stall used to be a part of the game, and there was just a lot more strategy involved and players weren’t going through the motions for a paycheck. Anyway, back in 1976, when I was only 13, I c...
It wasn't expected to be that controversial – after agreeing to allow Aquin and Orangeville to co-op Football, Boys Basketball, Baseball and several years ago approving Softball – the NUIC was scheduled to vote on whether or not to allow the two schools to co-op Girls Basketball next year. A 75% approval rate was needed, and while four schools – Eastland, Forreston, Galena and Lena-Winslow were going to vote "No" – the vote was still expected to pass ... until it didn't. "Yeah, that was more th...
The Stockton Lady Blackhawks are young – very young. So young in fact, that whenever they sub their starters out (like in a blow out win over West Carroll) the five remaining girls on the floor are all freshmen. So, it was understandable that the Blackhawks would struggle when they faced the full court pressure of the RR/SM Wildcats on their home floor. They did ... repeatedly. In fact, of the 48 times the Blackhawks faced the full court pressure of the Wildcats, they ended up turning the ball o...
The stands were packed, the fans were into the contest and the atmosphere would convince you that you were watching a Sectional final. But the best part of all – both the Aquin Bulldogs and Orangeville Broncos brought their 'A' games to put on one exciting game of basketball. With 1:10 to play in the game, Bronco guard Nadalee Doyle drained what everyone thought was a dagger three point bomb to put the Broncos up 57-46. "She's been hot lately," said Whitney Sullivan. "She puts up the shot and y...
Bob Peters Jr., the owner of the Railside Bar in Lena, and his sister Becky Peters, might come across as loving people, but few people know the nightmare that continues to haunt them both. On November 12, 1992, their father, Bob Peters, was brutally murdered during a robbery at his store in downtown Freeport, Bob's Gun Shop. The three men who committed the crime were caught, William Keene, Michael Hoover and Anthony Ehlers, were convicted in court and sentenced to the death penalty. But when...
Ever have something pop up that immediately brings back memories? We got a press release in regarding the upcoming 4H Summer Camp, and while at first the headline “Change Your Child’s Life” hit me as a bit of an overstatement, the more memories of my childhood, and trips to summer camp each year, flooded my brain – the headline is spot on. When I was a kid, my parents would send my older brother, sister and I off for a week at Camp Tecumseh in Brookston, Indiana. They would separate everyon...
Sitting in on the Freeport City Council Meeting Tuesday night was a chore. In fact, roughly an hour into the meeting, the famous quote from the movie Billy Madison refused to leave my brain. "At no point in your rambling, incoherent response, were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul." I've been to thousands of council or board meetings,...
The Pecatonica MLK Tournament last weekend brought the top four teams in our power ranking all together to compete for the title – and while there were several strong 2A and even 3A teams also competing – when all was said and done, the top three places were all claimed by 1A schools from our region. Eastland 42 Galena 39 The best opening round contest featured the Cougars and Pirates. Early on, it was the Pirates in control as Connor Glasgow and Kaden Hauber both hitting big three point bom...
The Galena Pirates are on a roll. With point guard, Kaden Hauber, back from his injury that kept him out the first month of the season, the Pirates are beginning to click. But they faced a tough challenge having to go to Scales Mound to take on the Hornets who had lost two of their last three. Lucky for them, they caught Scales Mound in the midst of a terrible shooting slump. In the first quarter, the Pirates played man-to-man defense against the Hornets, and Scales Mound tore it apart. Thomas...
Lena-Winslow Girls basketball coach, Dennis Huttenlocher, can always be heard calling out instructions to his team from the coach's box. But those are always in the form of either compliments, or warnings – "Watch the back side!" "Ball Pressure!" "Good job White!" Thursday night in Lena, the Panthers had a tall task when going up against a tough Aquin Bulldog squad – even one that was depleted as Ava Theisen was sick, and Ainsley Stovall was still sidelined with a bad knee. Aquin used their impr...
It used to be that the entire season seemed like a countdown to 'THE' match – when Dakota and Lena-Winslow/Stockton would square off on the mat against each other. The two most powerful 1A programs in northwest Illinois, quite often the winner of their battle had the inside track on who was going to win the state title. But times, they are a changin'. After both teams had to deliver the obligatory pounding to West Carroll – the epic match wrestling fans used to live for was far from being cli...
When I was a junior in High school, we always did the traditional Madrigal Dinner – complete with a full meal where the Concert Choir made up the serving staff, the Orchestra provided the musical accompaniment, and the Swing Choir dressed up in medieval garb and performed classic carols throughout the dinner and afterwards. It was a huge fundraiser for the music department, and we had packed houses every night of the six or seven nights before Christmas that were performed. Anyway, the whole p...
Several different topics were discussed at Monday's Freeport City Council meeting of the whole, but the argument could be made that the most pertinent one revolved around the City's goal to fix all of the roads in desperate need of repair. It is important to point out that the entire road repair issue is not the fault of the current council or administration – years of neglect, and putting it off until later – by previous boards and administrations are finally getting to the point where tim...
We've seen the games get stopped, and special recognition given whenever a high school player reaches the 1000 point mark for their career. It is an incredible honor when you think about it. And means that not only was the player a strong scorer – but was strong for multiple years, because typically a player might score 300-350 points a year (Which would average to double digit scoring in every game). So, to make it to 1000, you're quite often talking about a kid who was a star for three y...
Just ask anybody on the Stockton Basketball team and they'll tell you ... size matters. Throughout the first half, the Stockton Blackhawks and Warren Warriors battled to a 20-20 tie as neither team was able to gain a serious edge over the other. But in the third quarter, Warren decided to turn up the heat. "When we pressed them at the Forreston Tournament it worked," said new Warren head coach Troy Pafford who took over following the resignation of Brandon Behlke who accepted a new position up...
The long awaited match up between the Aquin Lady Bulldogs and the Pecatonica Indians finally took place Wednesday night at Aquin. And while both teams brought a strong effort, the game turned into a rugby match as the officials let ... basically everything – go. And while some Pecatonica players were visibly upset by the physical play that was allowed, Aquin simply played through it – using a huge third quarter run to pull away for the 58-40 conference win. "I think we've all played so many spo...
The River Ridge Wildcats are a solid basketball team. Yes, they are still without George Winter, but in spite of that they claimed third place at the Forreston Tournament over a very good Oregon squad. But one lesson that sports always teaches, is that you can rarely win a game just by showing up ... you need to perform. Maybe it was a left over sugar rush from holiday sweets. Maybe the lack of good snow on the ground didn't have them in basketball mode yet. Or maybe they were given some spiked...
Both Stockton and Warren are seeing the upward side of rebuilding programs as they hover around the 500 mark on the season. So, the opening conference match up between the two schools that co-op in softball had the makings of a good one ... and they didn't disappoint. For Warren, Addy Bohnsack is where the conversation starts. The senior guard was a major force Friday night – scoring 26 points from all over the floor. She could hit threes, score off the dribble, but got a lot of points inside w...
Fans who spent all day Saturday at the Eastland Shoot Out were supposed to see four games, but as it turned out – they ended up seeing five as two different games took place in the night-cap contest between the host Cougars and the Aquin Lady Bulldogs. Throughout the first half, Eastland had their way with the Bulldogs as they were executing their inside-out offense almost to perfection. It began by getting the ball to Olivia Klinefelter in the paint – where Aquin had no answer for the jun...
If you know nothing about fantasy football, you might want to skip this week’s column. But for those who do … I got a good one. First, some background. I play in a fantasy league with my wife in a family league made up primarily of members of my daughter, Caitlin’s husband’s (Jake) and his family. Jake is the commissioner, and I took great pride in beating him in week one because he is a “loud” Packer fan, while I bleed purple. Anyway, the way Yahoo sports runs the leagues, whoever you pick fi...
As the calendar turned over to 2024, we once again look back at the stories that stood out from the year that was – 2023. #10 – Queen Of Hearts For years, the biggest possible life changing windfall people thought about was the Power Ball or Mega Millions, but the new fund raiser that made a lucky few a whole lot of money – not to mention a ton of money for the non-profits who sponsored them – was the Queen of Hearts raffle. How big has it gotten? Well, the one at Little John's Tap surpass...
Prior to their non-conference basketball game against the Eastland Cougars, Whitney Sullivan could be seen with her head down, hanging over. Garbage can near the end of the Bronco bench. "Yeah, Whitney was sick, Laney was sick, I think everyone on the team had a bit of the flu bug in one way or another," said head coach Jay Doyle. "I told Whitney if she was going to be sick to do it in the locker room. Not out in front of everybody." And while Whitney did admit to losing her lunch twice back in...
