Sports

EAST PRAIRIE — The Dexter Bearcats showcased a stingy defense, overcoming the absence of their top two running backs, to beat East Prairie 45-0 Friday night at East Prairie High School. The Bearcats, who won for the first time in four tries this season, were without leading rusher Kaeden Kennedy and Logan Josupait. ...

POPLAR BLUFF — Neither team could hold onto the football early Friday night but Poplar Bluff held on in the second half to earn a homecoming victory. Six different players scored for the Mules, who overcame three early fumbles and beat Sikeston 47-22 at Mules Stadium...

SCOTT CITY, Mo. — It wasn’t a pretty game by any stretch of the imagination for Scott City on Friday night, but Rams coach Jim May will take a win any way he can get it. Especially with three of his starters on the mend from injuries sustained in previous games...

BENTON – In its near decade of existence Kelly had never started the season with four straight wins. That all changed Friday night when the Hawks took advantage of several Charleston turnovers to hold off the Bluejays for a 27-20 homecoming win, leaving Kelly 4-0 for the first time in school history...

The Advance Hornets swept district rival Leopold 25-14, 25-20, 25-14 Thursday night at Leopold. The Hornets and Leopold are members of MSHSAA Class 1 District 3. Advance will host the tournament in late October. No individual statistics were reported...

SIKESTON — The Kennett tennis team swept past Sikeston 9-0 on Thursday afternoon in Sikeston. As a team, Kennett only lost nine games in the match. Despite the lopsided scores, Sikeston coach Derek James wasn’t discouraged. “The score doesn’t reflect it but we actually battled in several of the matches,” James said. “There were a lot of deuce matches...

CARBONDALE, Ill. — The second meeting of the Sikeston Bulldogs and Carbondale Terriers was a thriller to the final seconds of the match with the home side Terriers coming out on top 1-0.  Sikeston won the first meeting 1-0 in the opening round of the Greg Kline Invitational held in Carbondale...

The Dexter Bearcats swept the doubles round to take command in a 7-2 victory over Arcadia Valley on Thursday at T.S. Hill Middle School in Dexter. Top-ranked singles player Julianna Rivera did not play in the singles round although she and Maci Comfort teamed up to Alyssa Glanzer and Elena Lara 8-4 in No. 1 doubles...

Behind goals from Sam Cairns, Timothy Kirby and Jonathan Brandtner, the Cape Central boys soccer team blanked Poplar Bluff 3-0 on Thursday. The Tigers outshot the Mules, 8-0, as the trio slipped goals past the Mules' goalkeeper. Cape Central starting goalkeeper Tad Couch went relatively unscathed, as the Tigers defense didn't allow a shot on goal during the entire match...

BENTON – The Cape Central softball team played its third game in as many days on Wednesday and has another one (vs. North County) today, and that mental and physical grind showed against a good Kelly team, as the host Hawks lit up the Tigers for eight runs in their final at-bat and won 15-4.

SIKESTON AT POPLAR BLUFF Records: Sikeston 2-1; Poplar Bluff 2-1 Last week: Sikeston lost to Farmington 31-14; Poplar Bluff lost to Jackson 50-32 Series history: Sikeston leads 56-38-4 Last meeting: 2020, Poplar Bluff won 30-9 Notes:Sikeston will look to rebound from their first lost of the year against a Mules squad they last defeated in 2018. ...

Cape Central third baseman Haley Wolfe’s two-RBI triple in the fourth inning of the Tigers’ contest against Sikeston gave her team a boost of energy. The freshman broke a 1-1 tie on the hit and helped the Tigers roll to a 5-4 victory over the Bulldogs on Tuesday at Cape Central High School...

The Cape Central soccer team honored its seniors before Tuesday night’s game against the Sikeston Bulldogs. It was only fitting the Tigers would get their first goal on senior night from senior Logan Mizicko with 6:14 remaining in the first half en route to a 2-1 victory at Tiger Stadium...

SIKESTON — Despite a match that was forced to be split over two days due to rain Tuesday afternoon, the Sikeston tennis team held off Charleston 6-3 for their second win of the season. After rain halted Tuesday’s singles matches, Sikeston held a slim 2-1 lead but the Lady Bulldogs won several close singles matches on Wednesday afternoon to pull out the win...

SIKESTON — The shorthanded Sikeston volleyball team found it tough to get in a groove early against visiting Ellington Tuesday night, falling to the Whippets in four sets 25-10, 25-10, 22-25, 25-16. “We were missing 5 varsity girls last night due to illness and injury,” said Sikeston coach Chelsie Holifield. ...

Cape Central tennis coach Kevin Francis saw his team dominate the opposition on Tuesday, beating Charleston in all matches but one, 8-1. Taking single match wins were Emily Ford, Cammy Soto, Jalee Spain, Mackenzie Ramdial, and Sydnee Williams while the doubles teams of Ford and Soto, Spain and Ramdial and Rileigh Stevens and Zoe Mayfield were all victorious...

The Notre Dame girls golf team finished second in a quad match held at Dalhousie Golf Club while Cape Central finished fourth out of the four teams that competed. Massac County won the event, shooting an overall score of 172 while Notre Dame shot 189...

SIKESTON — All season long the Sikeston volleyball team has had to deal with missing players. The trend continued Monday but the Lady Bulldogs had little trouble adjusting, taking out Campbell in three sets, 25-22, 25-9, 25-15. “We still have three out right now,” said Sikeston coach Chelsie Holifield. “More and more keep going out and some come back. We’ve definitely had to be flexible.”...

The Saxony Lutheran boys soccer team performed well in the Hannibal Tournament — held on Friday and Saturday in Hannibal, Mo. — taking home third place in the two-day tournament. The Crusaders pounded Macomb on Friday, winning 8-0. Saxony Lutheran came back on Saturday and split two games. The Crusaders lost to Hickman 3-1 early in the day, but came back to defeat Southern Boone 4-1...

Christian Hartlein pitched a four-hit shutout, and the Bloomfield Wildcats beat Neelyville 1-0 Monday at Neelyville. Hartlein struck out eight and didn’t issue a walk in seven innings. Ryley Cage-Armes was assessed the loss, giving up one run on two hits with six strikeouts and seven walks in 5 2/3 innings...

Behind some stout pitching by starter Samantha Waller, the North County Raiders took it to Chaffee, beating the visiting Red Devils 11.2 on Monday. Waller gave up two runs right off the bat in the first inning but put up zeroes the rest of the way, and the North County offense outhit Chaffee in the contest, 14-5...

Behind Grace Ozark’s nine kills and nine digs and Anna Thomason’s eight kills and six blocks, the Saxony Lutheran volleyball team pulled out a huge home victory over a talented Park Hills Central team on Monday, beating the Rebels in three sets, 25-21, 25-21, 25-18...

Notre Dame senior Megan Gullette was victorious again in No. 1 singles competition, defeating Jackson's Delaney Pipkin 8-4 on Monday in Jackson, Mo. Gullette picked up a second win, as she and No. 1 doubles partner Amina Hussein defeated Jackson's duo of Pipkin and Taylor Fehr 8-3...

SIKESTON — The Sikeston offense exploded Monday afternoon to rally past Twin Rivers for a 19-10 win. Sikeston trailed 5-0 heading into the bottom of the third, but the Lady Bulldogs didn’t flinch, scoring four runs in both the third and fourth before exploding for eight runs in the fifth inning. Sikeston topped their scoring off with three runs in the bottom of the sixth to earn the 19-10 win...

SIKESTON — The Sikeston girls tennis team dropped a hard fought match to visiting Potosi on Monday afternoon. Sikeston earned two singles wins and doubles win but fell to Potosi 6-3 Monday. Zoie McDonald earned a win in singles for the Lady Bulldogs, defeating Grace Laramore 8-4 and teamed with Mackenzie Conway to claim a doubles win 8-5...

--- CLASS 5 DISTRICT 1 CLASS 4 DISTRICT 1 CLASS 3 DISTRICT 1 CLASS 2 DISTRICT 1 CLASS 1 DISTRICT 1 --- A look at rankings from a 10-member panel of media members from around the state with current record, points based on votes with first place votes in parentheses and last week’s ranking...

When the Poplar Bluff Sports Hall of Fame inducted Three Rivers College basketball coach Gene Bess in 1983, he had 370 wins. As decades passed and Bess kept setting records, the irony of the outdated bronze tribute was not lost on the Poplar Bluff community...

HANNIBAL, Mo. — The Sikeston Bulldogs soccer team had scrapped their way to the championship match of the Hannibal Pirates Soccer Shoot-Out by winning two overtime thrillers which saw the team play almost 200 minutes of soccer before the whistle would begin for the 80 minute championship final...

An over-flowing parking lot, RV’s, grills, lawn chairs, televisions and hundreds of fans would make one think Dexter High School was being taken over by a college football game Saturday. In reality Charles Bland Stadium was invaded by the Heartland Youth Football League. The eight team league was initially scheduled to be playing the jamboree at Kelly High School, but a late scheduling conflict forced the move to Dexter...

As Southeast Missouri State kicker Kenny Doak lined up for a 47-yard field goal late in the second quarter Saturday, top-ranked Sam Houston was on its heels. The Redhawks -- playing a cleaner, more assertive brand of football than they did in a season-opening blowout loss to rival Southern Ilinois -- were moving the football on a defense chalked with All-Americans...

Julie Yankus doesn't tally career wins, but the 11th-year Southeast Missouri State volleyball coach is aware of some of the markers in her career. When the Redhawks take down Memphis, she remembers. It's been a trend in recent years, including Friday's five-set win over the Tigers at the SEMO Invitational...

The new Southeast Missouri Preparatory school — formed by former Portageville basketball standout and SEMO basketball star Roy Booker — announced the release of its men’s basketball schedule and the rosters for “both” teams the school will utilize during the 2021-22 basketball season...

Quarterbacks and linebackers zipping across Southeast Missouri high school football fields on Friday weren’t yet born. Most of Southeast Missouri State’s players were infants and toddlers. They’re aware of the magnitude of Sept. 11, 2001, the most somber day in American history, but didn’t experience the real-time shock and heartbreak of millions as smoke billowed from the Twin Towers...

DEXTER — Big plays were the recipe for success for the Dexter Bearcats and New Madrid County Central Eagles on Friday. In the end NMCC made more of them and recorded a 56-41 victory at Charles Bland Stadium. The Eagles made most of their noise on offense with the passing game...

SIKESTON, Mo – For the sixth straight year the Farmington Knight had Sikeston’s number. After playing even with Farmington going into the half mistakes started to mount for the Bulldogs, leading to 17-unanswered points that allowed the Knights to hold on for a 31-14 win...

HANNIBAL, Mo. — Sikeston Bulldog soccer's first visit to the boyhood hometown of the famous Missourian Mark Twain proved to be a successful Friday night adventure that could not have been scripted better by Twain himself. The host team Hannibal Pirates got the first score on the board midway into the first half to send them up 1-0. Despite the early goal, Sikeston coach Gabe Dement praised his defense’s effort to keep them in the game...

PORTAGEVILLE, Mo. — The Portageville Bulldogs rallied from a 10-point halftime deficit to defeat East Prairie for their first win of the season Friday night. Trailing 24-14 at halftime, Portageville took over the line of scrimmage in the second half, scoring 16-straight points to earn the 30-24 win...

MALDEN — Malden quarterback Rylan Bell left the season-opener against Kennett in the second quarter with a rib injury and threw three interceptions with no touchdowns against Kelly in Week 2. Friday went better. Bell was 16 for 31 passing for 300 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions to lead Malden to a 49-14 win over Charleston in the Green Wave's home opener...

SIKESTON – In the final game of a recent match against Cape Central’s top singles tennis player, junior Megan Maxton, Sikeston senior Mackenzie Conway trailed 7-0, yet continually played her way to deuce, and even ad-in on several occasions. However, she could never seem to string together three consecutive points to secure the game.

If there's an asterisk near Sam Houston State's recent national championship, it conveys circumstance more than the legitimacy of the Football Championship Subdivision power. The Bearkats - annually among the top FCS programs in the country - concluded a strange, truncated and pandemic-delayed 2020 season in May when they clipped South Dakota State 23-21 for the subdivision's crown...

Despite losing seven of the nine matches the Saxony Lutheran girls tennis team played in on Friday, head coach Amy Birk was pleasantly surprised on how her younger girls played in the tournament, "I am very proud of our freshman girls for holding their own against some good, experienced players," Birk said...

SIKESTON – Connie Spears no longer stands in the third-base coaching box at high school softball games, but her heart – and even her mind – can be found there during Sikeston High School softball games.

SIKESTON – The theme so far this season for the Sikeston High School softball team has been solid play for six innings, though in a seven-inning game.

The Advance Hornets recorded their fourth sweep in four tries this season with a 25-18, 25-13, 25-21 victory over Arcadia Valley on Thursday at Ironton. No individual statistics were reported. The Hornets (4-0) will host Bell City in an SCAA match at 6 p.m. Monday at Advance High School...

The Oran baseball team took care of business on Wednesday, scoring multiple runs in four of the first five innings, beating Leopold at home, 11-5. The Wildcats put up a fight albeit in loss, scoring three runs right off the bat in the top of the first inning, as Caleb Schaab scored from second base on an error by Eagles infielder Connor Kern to make the game interesting in the beginning...

FARMINGTON AT SIKESTON Records: Farmington 1-1; Sikeston 2-0 Series History: Sikeston leads 23-20-1 Last Meeting: 2020, Farmington won 25-7 Last Week: Sikeston beat Dexter 11-9; Farmington beat Potosi 23-18 Notes: Sikeston is off to a 2-0 start for the second consecutive season but is looking to avoid the 8-straight losses that followed last season. ...

While the Cape Central Tigers tennis team may have lost to Sikeston 5-4, junior Sydney Britt's day will be one to remember. Britt picked up her first-career singles victory Wednesday, defeating her opponent 8-3. Teammate Megan Maxton picked up a singles win as well with an 8-0 shutout...

The Eagle Ridge volleyball team improved its record to 5-0 on the season with a three-set home win over the Providence Classical Christian Academy (St. Louis) on Tuesday, winning 25-6, 26-7, 27-10. Coach Kristen Martin’s Eagles, led by outside hitter Rachel Margrabe, stormed out to a quick lead in the first set. Margrabe recorded a game-high 10 kills to go along with five aces in the contest...

Cooper Callis (Jackson HS) was 30 for 44 passing and threw for 289 yards with one touchdown and one interception for Southwest Baptist University on Saturday against Texas Permian Basin in a 24-16 loss. Callis was also the Bearcats’ leading rusher with 10 carries for 55 yards and a touchdown...

Playing video games is steadily becoming an accepted afterschool activity and a pathway to earn college scholarships. Sixty high schools are currently members of the Missouri Scholastic esports Federation (MOSEF), including Clearwater, East Carter, Richland-Essex, Advance, Farmington, Ste. Genevieve and Cape Central...