Prep Sports Notebook: Spartan teams open season with victories

---

SJO volleyball tops Trojans

There is nothing better than starting a new season with a victory. The St. Joseph-Ogden volleyball team return to action this month with Kennedi Burnett leading the Spartans' offensive effort with 13 kills. Becca Steinbach tallied 32 assists, nine digs and a couple of blocks in the non-conference match on Monday. After dropping the first set 23-25, the Spartans roared back to take the next two, 25-20, 25-18 for the road win.

Addie Roesch served up three aces while senior Hannah Fox led the team's defensive effort with 16 digs. Junior Shayne Immke contributed another nine kills and six digs.

The Spartans, who will host their first home match of the season on August 31, will play their next three contests on the road starting with Georgetown-Ridge Farm on Wednesday followed by another Vermilion Valley foe, Bismarck-Henning, 24 hours later on Thursday. SJO's road campaign ends on Monday after a trip to Decatur for a showdown with St. Teresa.

---

Soccer avenges last season loss

Will Page settles the ball while playing in last Friday's Spartan Kickoff against teammates. Page scored one of two goals against the Comets on Monday.

Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Back in March, the Oakwood-Catlin soccer coop crushed the SJO soccer team on their home turf, 6-2. On Monday, the Spartans invaded the Comets' home field, scoring a goal in each half for a 2-1 season-opening win.

Aiden Cromwell notched the program's first goal of the season in the first half to put St. Joseph-Ogden up 1-0. Senior Brennan Haake was credited with the assist on the play. Later, in the second half, junior Will Page nailed a penalty kick to give SJO a 2-0 lead before an Oakwood-Catlin kick from Saul Carillo found net.

Starting keeper Hunter Ketchum fended off 15 attacks on his goal.

---

Coaches, please send us your game scores

The 2021 fall athletic season is here and we want to make sure all Sentinel high school coaches know where to send box scores and other sports information this year. The Sentinel needs your game scores and stat leaders after each game. Our goal is to keep fans, college recruiters and area readers well-informed.

The Sentinel is looking forward to the days, hopefully soon, when we will have enough business advertising with us to help expand our coverage to more teams at each school as well as outstanding individual athletes and their accomplishments. Until then, we'll do what we can with the limited resources at our disposal. We really rely on coaches, managers, ADs, parents and even players emailing or calling us to let us know the stories, final scores and interesting features we are missing. If you don't see it on The Sentinel, it is probably because no one took the time to tell us about it.

If the team you would like us to cover has a team website, Facebook page or Twitter feed, do us a favor and email the link to us. If your team is posting scores, stats, and achievements it will give us a place to check. Send us a link so we can bookmark it. Let us know who is getting what honors from All-League and All-Conference, who is going to sign their NLI, and so on. The best way to send box scores and other info is via email to sports@oursentinel.com or editor@oursentinel.com. Do you have a player on the verge of breaking a school record, got a story idea or hot news tip? Don't hesitate to send an email to either address.

The Sentinel looks forward to covering your 2021-2022 season.

---

Memory Monday: St. Joseph-Ogden wins state semifinal over Althoff Catholic

With this year's SJO volleyball team heading to Redbird Arena later this week to once again compete for the Illinois High School Association's state champion trophy, today's Memory Monday looks back to the volleyball program's final four opener three years ago.

Parker Francisco (left) and Bree Trimble celebrates a point for the Spartans during game one of their state semifinal contest against Althoff Catholic back on November 11 in 2016. The Crusaders jumped out a 5-0 lead and never looked back in the set to spanking SJO, 25-10. However, Francisco, who would finish the first day's battle with 10 kills and 5 digs, and the St. Joseph-Ogden volleyball team let loose and rallied back to take the next two sets advancing to the Class 2A title game against Eureka. (Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks)

Oh, yeah! Jannah Mullen celebrates a point for the Spartans in the final set against the Crusaders. After dropping an ugly first set to Althoff, the Spartans take the final two 25-18, 25-8. Mullen served the team's only ace of the game and finished the Friday semifinal credited with three digs. (Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks)

Resilient, relentless Bree Trimble passes the ball to the front row in game one. The sophomore contributed nine digs and two assists in the Friday afternoon victory three years ago today. The Spartans shook off the first set loss and won the next two to take the match and improve their season record to 31-3. (Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks)

Members of St. Joseph-Ogden's Maroon Platoon cheer for the volleyball team during second set action. With only four kills in the first set, the student cheering section didn't have much to cheer about. However, their team stormed back to pound 32 bombs in the last two sets to punch their ticket into Saturday's title match against the Eureka Hornets. (Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks)

Left: SJO head coach Abby McDonald realigns her players on the floor during set one of SJO's match against Althoff. Right: Senior Kylie Michael leaps with excitement after another point for SJO. Michael led the Spartan offense with at match-high 18 kills and 12 digs. A redshirt freshman during the 2018 season at Eastern Illinois University, she played 68 sets to finish the season with 132 kills along with 115 digs and 26 blocks. (Photos: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks)

Jannah Mullen lunges to make a dig and keep the ball in play during second set action. She was one of six seniors on the 2016 squad that would go on to place second in Class 2A. Mullen continued her volleyball career at Lakeland College where as a sophomore last year she was named second-team All-Region. She led the team with 520 digs, 19th in NJCAA Division I last November. Check the gallery, online for a limited time only, for more than 100 other photos from this match here: PhotoNews RAW Collection (Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks)

St. Joseph-Ogden parents and fans cheer for their team during a timeout in the second set. (Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks)

Reaching for greatness Parker Francisco leaps above the net to block a Eureka kill attempt. The two-sport athlete's leadership was key in the Spartans advancing to the Class 2A title match on Saturday at Redbird Arena. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks)

Spartans Bree Trimble and Kylie Michael share a hug after the conclusion of their third set against the Hornets and with the realization that in 24 hours SJO will be playing for the program's first-ever volleyball state championship title on Saturday. For a limited time only, see more than 100 photos from this match and the championship game later this week at PhotoNews RAW Collection. (Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks)

Spartans of the Week: Bigger and Ketchum

Week 4
Lady Spartan of the Week:
Emily Bigger

Emily Bigger booked 38 assists in the Spartans' last two volleyball victories. Thanks to her precision passing ability and quickness, SJO boasts an impressive 14-3 record heading into tonight's homecoming game against Illini Prairie Conference rival St. Thomas More.

Honorable Mentions: Jenna Albrecht (volleyball), Katelyn Berry (volleyball), Kennedi Burnett (volleyball), Hanna Eastin (cross country), Ally Monk (cross country), Jillian Plotner (cross country) and Stephanie Trame (volleyball).

Week 4 Spartan of the Week: Hunter Ketchum

The freshman goal tender has logged 483 minutes of playing time in his rookie season with the Spartans. With 57 saves so far at the keeper position, he is becoming more fearless by the week. From the start of the season until the Monticello match at the Cornjerker Classic, Ketchum was averaging 6.3 saves per game. Look for Ketchum to be one of the area's best in the box over the next three seasons with the St. Joseph-Ogden soccer program.

Honorable Mentions: Crayton Burnett (football), Braden Clampitt (cross country), Zach Martinie (football), Brandon Mattsey (cross country), Eric Poe (cross country), Jarrett Stevenson (football), Brayden Wearver and Sam Wesley (football).

Previous Spartans of the Week

Week 1: Jarrett Stevenson / Katelyn Berry
Week 2: Emily Elsbernd / Jaden Weaver
Week 2: Drew Coursey / Hannah Rajlich

* * * * *
Attention high school coaches: Help us recognize our area prep athletes each week. Please send game scores and stats to us for freshman and junior varsity as well as varsity games. Send game, race and match results and weekly stats to sports@oursentinel.com.

Varsity soccer falls 2-0, Berry leads volleyball in loss to Maroons

Sports Book: September 10

SJO falls at home to Central

The St. Joseph-Ogden volleyball team picked up their second loss of the season after a 2-0 loss to visiting Champaign Central.

Katelyn Berry led the Spartans with seven kills and four digs in the non-conference match up. Jenna Albrecht contributed another five as the program's record moves to 4-2 on the season. Lacey Kaiser buoyed the team at the net with three blocks.

The Spartans host the Oakwood Comets tonight for another non-conference match before heading to the Mahomet-Seymour tournament this weekend.

Second half slide nips soccer team

Freshman keeper Hunter Ketchum had six saves in the Spartans' 2-0 loss to Fisher-GCMS at home last night. Bunnies Ethan Kasper scored the only two goals in the non-conference contest. His second came on a penalty kick less than ten yards from the posts.

SJO had a plethora of runs that could have resulted in scores, but could not put the ball in the net on their new field at the Sports Complex.

"I feel like we just lacking one part," said senior Kolton Batty. He is optimistic about the rest of the season and the current record is part of the process of maturing as a team. "Its just mental. I know we are a better team than we are."

The Spartans drop to 1-5-1 and play Oakwood at the Cornjerker Classic in Hoopeston on Friday. Match time is set for 4pm.

Blackburn first at Oakwood Invite

Ethan Blackburn ran a 12:53.66 at Kickapoo to finish first in the Oakwood-Salt Fork triangle meet. Tad Pettit finished the two-mile course, shorten from three-miles due to the extreme heat on Tuesday, at 12:56.66. Brandon Mattsey and Eric Poe cross the line six-seven to round out the top four SJO runners.




UPDATE: This article was updated 9/12/19 with boys cross country team results.