A young Triopia-Meredosia-Virginia girls basketball teams’ season ended at the hands of top seeded Hardin-Calhoun in a regional semifinal game last Tuesday. The Lady Trojans, who lose just one senior, finished the season with a record of 14-15 in Coach Kelley Wessler’s second year at the helm.
A season to remember came to a disappointing end for the PORTA-AC Central Lady Bluejays in the Regional Championship game last Thursday at Riverton. Just a week after getting pounded by the Bluejays 45 to 27, the Pleasant Plains Cardinals sprang the upset sending PORTA-AC to just their second loss of the year to end their season at 30-2.
Add undefeated Sangamo Conference Champions to the ever-growing list of accomplishments for the 2023-2024 PORTA-AC Central Lady Bluejays.
A whipping of rival Pleasant Plains last week gave the Lady Jays a perfect 8-0 mark in the conference and the championship. Wins over Athens and Canton pushed their record to 29-1 overall entering postseason play.
The best season in twenty years for the BHS girls’ basketball team came to an end in the first round of regional play on the road at West Hancock.
The Lady Tigers finished the year with a record of 12-19 which is the most wins in a season since they won 17 in 2003-2004. After winning a maximum of seven games for six years running, Beardstown has won twelve, nine and eleven the last three and Coach Jimmy Maltby will return a very solid core of players for next year. Having joined the West Central Conference, BHS was obligated to make up a snowed-out game against West Hancock, meaning they would face the Titans twice in the final week of the season. A loss to West Central in the middle meant a three-game skid to end the season.
Beardstown’s Daisy Gil is headed to the IHSA Girls Wrestling Sectionals. She qualified by going 4-1 and by placing third at 120 pounds in the first ever girls wrestling Regional Tournament. For the last two years, the IHSA hosted separate sectionals and a state tournament for girls, but numbers have grown so dramatically that they had to put in regionals across the state this year.
The beat goes on for the PORTA/A-C Central Lady Bluejays as they won their only game last week to improve to 23-1 on the year. The boys’ team meanwhile split a pair of home games to remain over .500 on the season at 11-9.
The Triopia-Meredosia-Virginia basketball programs picked up some much-needed rest following the Lady Tiger Classic and the Waverly Holiday Tournament as the girls played just one game last week and the boys played two, waiting until Thursday to get back into action. The girls suffered a disappointing loss on the road at Rushville/Industry on Tuesday. The boys squeezed in a WIVC win over Pleasant Hill before an opening round win over Carlinville in the Winchester Invitational Tournament on Saturday.
Following an overly busy holiday, the BHS boys’ and girls’ basketball squads each played just one game last week. The boys’ game originally scheduled for January 2 at West Hancock has been moved to January 18.
The Tigers traveled to Clinton for a New Year’s shootout on Saturday and knocked off Cornerstone Christian out of Bloomington 67 to 49.
Following their only loss of the season over the Christmas holiday, the PORTA-AC Central Lady Bluejays are right back on track with a four-game winning streak including three last week. All four of the wins were by over twenty points. Coach Eric Kesler has the Jays at 18-1 on the season.
The Beardstown Middle School Wrestling Team hosted their first home meet of the season last Thursday and swept the contest. They slipped past Auburn 47 to 33 and crushed the Havana Ducks 72 to 24 to move to 8-2 on the season. On Saturday the young Tigers finished in 9th place out of 18 teams at the Jacksonville Middle School Wrestling Tournament. Individually, Jude Dawson