The Big Picture Archive

Tayton Gerdes watches the ball sails away after holding for Lucas Smith during a second-half kick-off in St. Joseph-Ogden's home game against Carterville. The Spartans, who went 5-0 after the 26-20 home victory over the Lions, travel to Bloomington to take on a 3-win, 2-loss Central Catholic team this Friday.

Photo: Sentinel/Clark Brooks

St. Joseph-Ogden's Alex Acosta and Logan Mills celebrate Mills' second-half score on their way to 9-0 shutout over Illini Prairie Conference foe Central Catholic. Acosta led all scorers with four goals and one assist. Mills record four assists during SJO's home match on Tuesday, October 1.

Photo: Sentinel/Clark Brooks

Photo-of-the-Day: December 20, 2021

St. Joseph-Ogden's Justyn Frisby uses his legs to settle a high ball around Unity's Peter Manrique during the Spartan's home game on September 26, 2017. After two scoreless halves, SJO fell 3-2 in a shoot-out to end the contest.

Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Big Picture: Spartans topple Sabers, 8-0

Closing our Big Picture series featuring players from St. Joseph-Ogden's class of 2020 are six intense photos from the Spartans' road game against St. Thomas More back on April 24, 2019. On that windy day on the prairie, SJO blanked the host Sabers, 8-0.

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Big Picture: McCarty strikes out 12, Spartans hammer Panthers in home game

Back on April 12 in 2019, the Spartans rolled to overwhelming 9-1 victory over visiting Paxton-Buckley-Loda in a non-conference meet up in the 'Joe'. The St. Joseph-Ogden baseball team collected six hits with juniors Drew Coursey and Jaden Miller pounding a couple RBIs apiece.

Despite giving up a fifth-inning home run by Keyn Humes, SJO hurler Keegan McCarty picked up the win striking out 12 batters in five innings.

Adam Frerichs, Sam Wesley, Kaden Jacobs, Nick Boggs also recorded hits against PBL.

Here are the editor's top picks from the 170 action photos from the game.

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Big Picture: Spartan baseball team shuts out GCMS in road win

Today, the St. Joseph-Ogden baseball team would have been playing for a regional title. Against who, it didn't matter. They would have won it. Though they never swung at a pitch this season, the Spartans will always be winners in the 2020 season.

On a windy, heavy overcast day on April 23 last spring, SJO tallied five runs in the final frame to blank Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley on the road, 11-0. The Spartans opened up firing on almost all cylinders taking an early 3-0 lead in the first inning. The Falcons could not muster enough bat to position themselves to challenge the Spartans in the remaining six innings.

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Big Picture: SJO baseball picks up 10th win in six innings

The St. Joseph-Ogden baseball team scored ten runs in the first two innings of their league contest against Prairie Central last year on April 9. What made this game special was head coach Josh Haley picked up his 300th win of his coaching career with the six-inning, 13-3 victory.

It was also a special day for Nick Boggs tagged a two-run homer, the first in his career, over the fence in the 13-3 shellacking at the SJO Sports Complex. The senior, having a career day, plated seven SJO runs against the Hawks. Shortstop Crayton Burnett contributed another five RBI.

Then junior Joey Action pitched the first four innings and struck out four batters before retiring to book the win. Zach Martini closed the session striking out three Prairie Central hitters after an inning and some change.

Here's moments from the game last spring that should bring back memories for last year's players.

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The Big Picture: SJO baseball bounces back with 9-4 win over Westville

After dropping a non-conference game against Centennial at home 24 hours earlier, the St. Joseph-Ogden baseball team hosted the Tigers from Westville in Illini Prairie vs Vermilion Valley Conference showdown. The Spartans rolled to a 9-4 win with juniors Joey Acton and Drew Coursey taking turns on the hill.

As we said in our first Big Picture photo page, we were lucky to captured a number of really nice action and feature photos of juniors and a few sophomores that were on the varsity roster last year. The Sentinel is happy to present this page feature members from this year's Class of 2020. This page is sponsored by an anonymous donor.

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