"We're just going to keep working hard", SJO suffers another loss

Ashlyn Lannert battles for a loose ball with Morton's Courtney Jones in the Spartans home game on Saturday. Lannert led SJO in scoring with ten points in the 62-27 loss. The Potters have won three out of the last four Class 3A state titles. "Games like this you know you just have to have fun with it," said Lannert, a sophomore guard. "We're just going to keep working hard and beat PBL on Monday hopefully." (Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks)

Izard leads Spartans in loss to Tri-Valley

Despite drilling five treys and 6-for-7 shooting from the free throw line by St. Joseph-Ogden's Chance Izard, the Spartans drop their first game of the season in a non-conference dual against Tri-Valley, 66-64.

SJO (7-1) used three shots by Izard to take the lead with 1:44 left in the third quarter. The senior was fouled on a fade away jumper tying the game at 37-all. After sinking his free throw, the Spartans seized the momentum to end the period with a four-point lead at 44-39.

Two and half minutes in the fourth quarter, Ty Pence swished a long ball for three to SJO their largest lead in the last half of the game with seven points.

"We were getting beat to spots," said Izard, who led all scorers with 27 points. "It seemed like every other play they were shooting free throws and I think they really benefited from that."

Then, with less than three minutes on the clock the Spartans could not buy a basket in a cold streak that lasted nearly a minute and half while the Vikings took advantage of 17 trips to the charity stripe.

Prior to the last quarter, Tri-Valley shot just seven free throws.

"We were lacking energy today," said Pence. The freshman dropped four first half three-pointers on his way to 17 points today. "We go up five or six points and then have a let down. We'd get down on ourselves and then start fouling."

He added: "We really need to push through that and focus on our game."

Drew Coursey grabbed a season-high 11 boards and finished game seven of the season with eight points. The senior hit all four of his free throws in the final quarter of the game.

Tri-Valley was led by starting forward Jack Moore with 24 points. Braden Zenor, who made six of his nine free throws in the final quarter, finished with 14 points. Both of the Vikings' leading scorers finished with seven of their team's 25 rebounds.

Scoring

St. Joseph-Ogden: Payton Cain 2, Jordan Kelly 2, Drew Coursey 8, Payton Grimsley 5, Chance Izard 27 and Ty Pence 17.

Tri-Valley: Connor 8, Moore 24, Zenor 14, Norman 6, Butler 6, Anderson 3 and Williams 5.

It's been a year now

After months of careful planning, The Sentinel published its first story one year ago today.

Initially I wanted to publish a weekly paper on newsprint delivered to every home just as The Leader had done in the first 30 some years of its existence. After weeks of research, pouring over financial models and talking to business owners I hoped would advertise, it be came clear that the print model would not be viable. Developing an online version, I moved forward.

It all started with this story: New name, holiday basketball tradition continues at St. Joseph-Ogden High School last December. Since then, The Sentinel has published 213 more pieces, 214 if you count this one.

Honestly, I started The Sentinel because I didn't have much choice. There are not a lot a career options for guys with my first name. You are either a mild-mannered reporter (or photographer in my case) or an actor with a name like Clark. No way could I compete with Idris Elba, Denzel, Brad or Daniel Craig for a leading roll on the silver screen. I'll gladly stay out of their lane.

I started The Sentinel and happily will blame long time resident Scott Hunter for it.

He was the founder and publisher of The Leader until it was purchased by The News-Gazette, who later ran it aground and shuddered it a year ago this past August. Mr. Hunter was, and still is though retired, in my humble opinion a Jedi master of the newspaper publishing industry.

While he may be the antithesis of Yoda in stature, his more than abundant experience from more than 40 years in the business, knowledge and analytical acumen of every facet of the newspaper business has been both invaluable and illuminating in helping me converge today's technology to build oursentinel.com, your hometown online news source. Thanks to his enthusiastic encouragement and sharp, light sabre like wit, I threw caution to the stars last year and don't regret it for millennium.

Now 12 months into the uncharted regions of digital publishing, seemingly the final frontier of news media, I look forward to my new found mission: To share stories, record history and boldly build The Sentinel, taking it where no online newspaper has gone before (yes, crossfade Star Trek theme here). Whoooosh!

What were The Sentinel's top stories in the first year of our journey? Here's the short list, the top five, most-read articles on oursentinel.com:

1. Seventeen named Illinois state scholars at SJO
2. 12 area students earn UofI degrees
3. Volleyball goes out with a victory, SJO finishes #3 in the state
4. SJO sets State Farm Classic record
5. 173 students earn High Honor Roll honors at SJO

Any time you have news to share about an upcoming event, a recent accomplishment, job promotion or running for public office, please don't hesitate to contact me at editor@oursentinel.com or send a direct message on the Sentinel Facebook. If you have a story to tell I'll happily listen.

Thank you for visiting oursentinel.com regularly. I look forward to another year of watching over the people The Sentinel cares about.

Clark Brooks
Publisher

Pence has career night, SJO improves to 6-0

Behind four treys from Ty Pence, the St. Joseph-Ogden basketball team cruised past Rantoul Township for their first conference win last night, 60-37. SJO remains undefeated improving to 6-0.

Pence commanded the floor with a season-high 22 points and was 4-for-5 from the free throw line. He, along with senior Conner Hodge with eight points, led the team on the boards with eight apiece.

In fact, the Spartans ruled the paint out-rebounding the visiting Eagles, 39-14.

In addition to the 16 from Pence and Hodge, Payton Cain (6 points, 7 rebounds) and Drew Coursey (2 points, 6 rebounds) posted season-high totals from their participation in the paint.

The Eagles were paced by 5-11 guard Kamrynnn Rome with 11 points and junior Jaxson Freeman with nine.

The Spartans hosts Tri-Valley this afternoon at 3:30p to finish a back-to-back game series this weekend. On Tuesday, SJO travel to Champaign to face the Maroons of Central in another non-conference contest before their State Farm Holiday Classic opener on December 26.

The JV boys’ basketball team also won their season opener crushing Rantoul in similar fashion, 75-38.

Box Score

Scoring

St. Joseph-Ogden: Conner Hodge 8, Payton Cain 6, Jordan Kelly 4, Drew Coursey 2, Payton Grimsley 7, Chance Izard 7, Ty Pence 22 and Luke Renfrew 4.

Rantoul: Buford 2, Freeman 9, Lee 3, Rome 11, Shaw 4, Space 3, Wilkerson 3 and Winston 2.