The Sentinel

St. Joseph-Ogden announces 2024 Christie Clinic Shootout teams

St. Joseph-Ogden's Tanner Siems dribbles around Nashville's Parker Renken during the 2023 Christie Clinic Shootout. The Spartans are scheduled to take on Pinckneyville in the 2024 installment of the annual all-day basketball event at the high school.

Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

ST. JOSEPH - The line-up for the 2024 Christie Clinic Shootout at St. Joseph-Ogden High School was announced this week. The one-day event on January 6 will feature seven varsity basketball games between several top-tier programs around the state starting at 11 am in the Main Gym. SJO will also host a JV side of the shootout, with the contests decided in the school's practice gym starting at 9am.

SJO, Unity, and Monticello will represent the Illini Praire Conference at the annual shootout. SJO, Unity, Normal University and Mount Zion are the four teams returning from last January.

This year's teams include top programs from downstate Illinois. Belleville West, Bradley-Bourbonnais, Carterville, New Berlin, Normal West, Quincy Notre Dame, Pickneyville, Streator, and Washington.

Five teams - SJO, QND, U-High, Carterville, and Pinckneyville - made deep postseason runs into winter's state series. The Panthers from P'ville were only three points away from state appearance, falling to Teutopolis in the supersectional, 42-40 .

Admission for adults is $8.00 for the day, and $5.00 for students with their student ID.

Last year's winners included host St. Joseph-Ogden, Normal University High, Mount Zion, Centennial, and Beecher.

Above: St. Joseph-Ogden's Logan Smith dribbles around Nashville senior Connor Cameron during first hald action of their 2023 Christie Clinic Shootout game. SJO defeated the previous season's Class 2A champions, 59-35.

Bottom Left: Dalton O'Neill tries to dribble around Normal University's Jonah Harms. Both the Rockets and Pioneers will return to St. Joseph-Ogden's Main Gym as part of the shootout's line-up on January 6. Bottom Middle: Nashville's Carter Schoenherr boxes out SJO's Coy Taylor during a first-half free throw attempt by the Spartans. Bottom Right: Surrounded by Pioneer players, Unity's Henry Thomas is fouled while trying to take a shot during second-half action.

Photos: PhotoNews MediaClark Brooks

Varsity Schedule

11:00 AM: Streator vs. Normal West
12:30 PM: Carterville vs. Normal University
2:00 PM: New Berlin vs. Monticello
3:30 PM: Belleville West vs. Bradley-Bourbonnais
5:00 PM: Quincy Notre Dame vs. Unity
6:30 PM: Pinckneyville vs. St. Joseph-Ogden
8:00 PM: Washington vs. Mt. Zion

Junior Varsity Schedule

9:00 AM: Streator vs. Normal West
10:30 AM:Carterville vs. Normal University
12:00 PM: New Berlin vs. Monticello
1:30 PM: Belleville West vs. Bradley-Bourbonnais
3:00 PM: Quincy Notre Dame vs. Unity
4:30 PM: Pinckneyville vs. St. Joseph-Ogden
6:00 PM: Washington vs. Mt. Zion

Avoiding holiday acid reflux is a cinch; Dr. Greg Ward explains how

Eating before bed, especially foods like ice cream is a no-no for people who suffer from acid reflux.

Abhishek Hajare/Unsplash

by Tim Ditman
OSF Healthcare

URBANA - No eating after 6 p.m.

The advice from Greg Ward, MD, is sure to raise some eyebrows.

But he’s serious. It’s one way to prevent reflux, an ailment that’s painful and annoying in mild cases and can necessitate surgery in advanced instances. And it's something to be aware of during holiday eating.

Terminology

Dr. Ward, an OSF HealthCare surgeon, says you may hear many terms in this area of medicine: reflux, acid reflux, heartburn, indigestion and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). They all describe the same thing: acidic contents of your stomach coming up into your esophagus and burning it.

Key takeaways:

• Reflux is when acidic contents of your stomach come up into your esophagus and burn it.

• Prevention includes not eating late; avoiding junk food, nicotine and alcohol; exercising; and sleeping with your head above your body.

• Treatments include medicine and, for tricky cases, surgery where the stomach is wrapped a bit around the esophagus.

“People lose sleep over it. They wake up in the middle of the night coughing. They have other discomfort,” Dr. Ward says.

One outlier term: Barrett’s esophagus. That’s when your esophagus (also called the food pipe) is damaged from chronic reflux, and abnormal cells grow. It’s named for Australian-born surgeon Norman Rupert Barrett, according to the National Institutes of Health. Barrett’s esophagus comes with an increased risk of esophageal cancer, and Dr. Ward says typical reflux treatments won’t work to lower the cancer risk. Instead, a doctor can use heat energy to destroy the abnormal cells.

Reflux treatment and prevention

Dr. Ward says changing your lifestyle is the best way to prevent reflux. Here’s a checklist to know:

• Don’t eat after 6 p.m. This can upset your stomach.

• “People love to have things like ice cream right before bed. That’s a killer for reflux,” Dr. Ward says.

• Avoid excess fatty food, nicotine, caffeine and alcohol.

• Exercise regularly.

• Sleep on an incline with your head above the rest of your body. This keeps the stomach fluid in place, Dr. Ward says. Don’t just do this with pillows, he warns. That can actually pinch the stomach. Instead, put the head of your bed frame on six-inch blocks.

Advanced cases

Dr. Ward says if simple lifestyle changes aren’t helping, the next step is likely medication. Protonix, Prevacid and Tagamet are common ones.

But some people won’t respond well to medication, or they don’t want to take it for the rest of their life, perhaps due to side effects like bone weakening and increased pneumonia risk. Dr. Ward says those people are candidates for minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery.

The person will do some pre-surgery tests to see how well their esophagus is working. The muscle needs to be working well for surgery to be an option.

On surgery day: “We wrap the stomach a bit around the esophagus to keep food from going back up into the esophagus when it shouldn’t,” Dr. Ward explains.

Dr. Ward adds that the procedure is usually a one-night stay in the hospital, but people usually report feeling better quickly.

“Very satisfying,” he says.

Another eyebrow raiser, but important guideline post-reflux surgery: no more carbonated beverages like soda. For life.

“You’re unable to burp,” Dr. Ward says plainly.

“You’ll really get uncomfortable if you drink a carbonated beverage. And if you force yourself to burp, it loosens the work we’ve done in surgery. All of a sudden, you’re having heartburn again.”

A small price to pay for a lifetime of minimal or no reflux.

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