Sports

After two years of post-shutdown rebuilding, Beardstown Christian Academy (BCA) has once again put a high school volleyball team on the court. The focus on building up a new team over the last couple years have come to fruit. The BCA team will be traveling to and hosting several area schools, both public and private, to play a busy schedule. BCA Administrator, Jim Bormann stated, “This effort is all about the kids. Every child deserves to enjoy the extras in life.” Pictured from left to right, front row: Ajok Dahl, Abby Sisti, Cloe Campbell, Mila Capps and Jaci Shepherd. Back row: Emma Elliott, Katie Bucy, Samantha Surratt, Molly Hager, Alayna Capps and Rosario Sanchez.

Beardstown Christian Academy has a high school volleyball team again!

After two years of post-shutdown rebuilding, Beardstown Christian Academy (BCA) has once again put a high school volleyball team on the court. The focus on building up a new team over the last couple years have come to fruit. The BCA team will be traveling to and hosting several area schools, both public and private, to play a busy schedule. BCA Administrator, Jim Bormann stated, “This effort is all about the kids. Every child deserves to enjoy the extras in life.” Pictured from left to right, front row: Ajok Dahl, Abby Sisti, Cloe Campbell, Mila Capps and Jaci Shepherd. Back row: Emma Elliott, Katie Bucy, Samantha Surratt, Molly Hager, Alayna Capps and Rosario Sanchez.

The Beardstown Junior Varsity volleyball team and coaches are pictured with the Consolation Trophy from the Mendon JV Tournament.

BHS Volleyball JV Consolation Champs at Mendon Tournament

The Beardstown Lady Tiger Varsity Volleyball team split a pair of games last week while the Junior Varsity squad traveled to the Mendon JV Tournament last Saturday and came home as Consolation Champs.  The JV Lady Tigers lost to Augusta 7-25 and 15-25 to open the tournament but bounced back to beat Rushville-Industry 25-21 and 25-17 and then beat Brown County 25-19, 14-25, and 15-12.  Lauren Coats led the Tiger offense with nine kills on the day.  Alora Logan ran the offense and handed out 18 assists while Autumn Bowman and Mia Playan led the way defensively with 13 digs and 10 digs respectively.  Coach Emily Riddle summed up the day succinctly stating, “Great team effort on the day for the Lady Tigers!”

Illinois Special Olympics State Softball Tournament Bronze Medal winning Beardstown Area Special Athletes Black Attack team.

BASA wins bronze at state tourney

In a somewhat controversial finish, the Beardstown Area Special Athletes (BASA) softball team came home with Bronze Medals at the 2023 Illinois Special Olympics State Softball Tournament held in Springfield.  

The girls' High School Cross Country team is pictured with their second place plaque from the Rushville-Industry Invite.

Beardstown Middle School and High School Cross Country

The BHS Cross Country teams continue to rack up medals and personal bests on both the high school and junior high level.   On August 28 the Middle School team traveled to Havana to run at Veterans Park.  On a great night of running, all the athletes set new personal bests.  The boys took 2nd place as a team and the girls finished 4th.  Liam Hymes and Elsa DeWitt both earned medals.  

Soccer

Good Start for BHS Tiger Soccer

As expected, the new regime of the Beardstown High School Soccer team under Head Coach Francisco Hernandez and Assistant Coach Saul Munoz is off to a good start.  Although the season started with a defeat, the 3 to 1 loss to defending State Champion Quincy Notre Dame was nothing to be disappointed in.

Softball

Young Tigers in Regional Championship

The Beardstown Middle School softball team was not about to let what happened to them last year happen again.  A year ago, the number one seeded Tigers were upset in their opening game of Regional play.  This year the top seeded Tigers will take a 16-1 record into the Regional Championship game against Pittsfield Pikeland.  The title tilt was scheduled for Tuesday September 12.  Beardstown reached the championship game by virtue of a 3 to 1 win over Quincy Catholic last Saturday.

Trojans Volleyball

Lady Trojans continue winning ways

The entire Triopia-Virginia Lady Trojan volleyball program remained unbeaten  A  JV tie is the only blemish on the program’s record as the varsity ended last week with a 9-0 mark and the JV is 11-0-1.  A nice win over WIVC rival Brown County started things for the varsity Trojans as they won 25-23; 15-25; 25-18.  Chelsea Bell had one service point, one ace, 11 kills, four blocks and one dig, Lucie Dion had three points, two kills, two blocks, 12 assists, and 14 digs, Lindy Parlier had nine points, two aces, one kill, seven assists, and five digs, and Mylee Tracy had 19 points, five aces, five kills, one assist, and seven digs.

Baseball

Virginia-Triopia-Meredosia baseball

The Virginia-Triopia-Meredosia Middle School baseball team went 1-3 last week as the regular season winds to a close. The Redbirds started the week with a home loss to Athens 7 to 4.  Virginia scored a run in each of the first four innings despite getting only three hits on the day.  Athens scored four in the third, one in the fourth and one each in the sixth and seventh for the win.  Graycen Embley, Hunter Ballinger, and Charlie Roegge all had a hit for the Birds with Roegge slugging a triple.

A-C Central Knights Baseball

A-C/PORTA Knights baseball action

Three wins and two losses last week moved the AC-Central/PORTA junior high baseball team’s record to 11-4 on the season as post season play quickly approaches. The Knights started the week by pounding out nineteen hits in a 13 to 3 win over St. Agnes. AC-Central scored in every frame of the six-inning win. Will Kerrigan and Colton Nelson each had three hits, Calob Cass, and Tate Karrick each had two, including a home run and Max King, Braxton Stice, Wyatt Hays, and Trenton Bushnell all added two hits. Wesley Sampson had a single for the winners.

football

BHS, Triopia, PORTA/A-C lose big

It was a week that is best quickly forgotten for area football fans as the three Cass County teams were beaten by a combined score of 156 to 6.  Beardstown traveled to Camp Point and were held to zero yards of offense in a 60 to 0 shellacking.  Central meanwhile racked up 343 yards of total offense.  It was 26 to 0 after one quarter and 46 to 0 at the half with Panther coach Brad Dixon taking a knee to end the half rather than run up the score.  Both teams played their JV squads almost exclusively in the second half with things not getting much better for the Tigers other than the swift ending due to the running clock.  The lone bright spot for BHS was the play of freshman Shadrach Mahfina who played good minutes in both halves and led the Tigers with seven solo tackles and six assists to serve notice that he will be a good varsity player sooner rather than later.  Beardstown, now 1-2 on the season, will look to get back on track at home this Friday night against 2-1 Routt Catholic.  The Rockets lost to Hardin Calhoun to open the season then beat North Greene and Triopia.