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

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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.

Wayback Wednesday: Walsh leads team to victory over Momence

Spartans' Connor Janes finds plenty of running room through the Redskin's defense during their Sangamon Valley Conference game on September 8 back in 2012. A year later, Janes and the Spartans would play in program's most recent state championship game appearance in a controversial Class 3A overtime thriller game against Stillman Valley. Want to see more? Follow this link to the gallery with 45 more photos.

Left: Spartans' Dalton Walsh rolls out while calmly looking for an open receiver. After giving up an early first quarter touchdown on Friday night, St. Joseph-Ogden rolled to a 34-6 win on Saturday. The game was postponed on Friday evening as lightning kept the game from restarting at a reasonable hour. Walsh threw two touchdown passes and tallied 201 yards in the air on 11 receptions. Right: Louis Acklin prepares to take a hit by Redskins' Austin Saindon after catching one of his four passes in the game.

St. Joseph-Ogden football fans watch the first half of the game while enjoying perfect fall temperatures on Saturday afternoon. The home game against Momence, originally scheduled for Friday night, was postponed due to inclement and resumed less than 24 hours later. See more photos from this game here: St. Joseph-Ogden vs Momence.

Mattsey, Poe lead SJO cross country at invite

The SJO boys cross country squad finished 54th out of 63 teams at the Peoria Notre Dame Richard Spring Invitational on Saturday. This was a single division race with St. Joseph-Ogden competing against 2A and 3A large high school programs like St. Charles East, who won the meet, Loyola Academy, York and Carl Sandburg.

The Spartans were led to the finish line of the 3-mile race by Brandon Mattsey. The junior finished his run at Detweiller Park in 16 minutes and 42.7 seconds, just 18 seconds off his career best time of 16:42 and 12 seconds slower than his time a week earlier at the First to the Finish on the same course.

Senior Eric Poe, was the second SJO finisher crossing the circumventing the course four seconds behind Poe good for 198th place with a time of 16:46.

The next three scoring runners were Logan Wolfersburger (340th) at 17:56, Lukas Hutcherson (358th) at 18.05 and Taddy Pettit clocking in at 19:26, 409th out of the 446 runners on Saturday.

Meanwhile in the Freshman/Sophomore division, the young harriers turned a 27th place team finish. There were 53 teams made up of 359 runners.

The top five runners included Charlie Mabry and Elijah Mock, who ran sub-18 minute times, Braden Clampitt, Ethan Blackburn and Zach Dahman. Mabry, who finished at 17:10, nearly matched his career best to pace the underclassmen and Stegall concluded his effort at the 17:59 mark.