Congratulations to Kickapoo for not only pulling off the 19th annual Shootout, put doing it extremely well when it would have been very easy to cancel the event in the face of the major storms and flooding that occurred in the area. The mix of local and visiting teams was well balanced, bringing large crowds and good games. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Well done to Coaches Hodge & Hines, the Booster Club AND the players who were out repairing fields on Friday or working the sidelines all weekend in the case of the JV squad. By the way, the photo is of the helicopter the Booster’s hired to help dry out the fields!

The games offered some new views of area squads as they prepare for the final 3 weeks of the regular season. I don’t think it answered the question of who the best team in the region is (GHS has beaten KHS, Catholic beat GHS and KHS beat Catholic this weekend) but it definitely turned up the heat on the conversation. I hope those Club teammates remember that they are teammates as well as opponents on occasion. Overall, quality of play is up, you need to create your own luck and there is no slacking off if you want to move on. Let’s look at some games that will offer similar lessons this week:

Monday: Parkview hosts Joplin at 4pm with the Vikings coming off of their 2-1 run in the Shootout including the win over Waynesville Saturday, against a Tiger’s team that knocked off Rolla 3-0 last Thursday. Joplin is coming off a 1-2 loss to Carthage in the title game of their tournament over the weekend meaning District 12 is still wide open.
Monday: Bolivar hosts Nixa at 6pm and these two Central Ozark Conference teams both are looking for wins. Bolivar needs to continue their strong play if they hope to get farther then last year’s Quarterfinal loss while Nixa is stinging from the unlucky results at the Shootout.
Monday: Willard heads to Monett to make up the Monett Tournament Championship game that was rained out in the previous flood September 19th. Game time is 4:30 pm.

Tuesday: The Class 1 teams in Springfield all have home games this evening. New Covenant hosts Central at 4pm, Greenwood has Cassville at 4:30 pm and Catholic hosts Bolivar at 6pm. Any one of these games would be a good choice.
Tuesday: Ozark Conference has a full slate of games, all of them with holding late season implications. Locally (meaning to me, thus Springfield) Kickapoo hosts Waynesville, who make the trip back following the weekend. Camdenton looks to continue their unbeaten run when they host Parkview at 6pm, while Rolla will host Glendale at 6pm and their desire to stay #2. Lebanon and Hillcrest offers a team their first win in the Conference.

Thursday: New Covenant Warriors host Catholic, 4pm at NCA. ’nuff said!
Thursday: There are a pair of games with Class 3 District 9 for those looking past Districts to Sectionals. Camdenton hosts Jefferson City at 6pm while Waynesville travels to Columbia Rock Bridge. The Laker’s vs Jay’s game could be a preview of the Sectional match up while Waynesville is looking to move up in the seeding (corrected).

Friday/Saturday: Kickapoo and Glendale travel to Jefferson City to participate in the Art Firley Shootout hosted by the Jeff City Jays. The reward? Glendale faces #1 ranked Chaminade at 3pm Friday while Kickapoo will play defending state champions Rockhurst at 3:30 pm on Saturday. There will also be games Hickman and Rock Bridge in Columbia for both teams.

With the new website layout, I’m trying to segregate information so that you can find it more easily and don’t have to work as hard to get what you are looking for. So the traditional information on College, Club or International games you might have found here in the past can now be found in their respective categories. For the old school types who liked the ‘river of information’ style, go to the top right hand corner and click on blog. That will give you the old format back and you can enjoy all of the same info, in smaller chunks now.