Winter sports season on the table at IHSA meeting today

The Illinois High School Association Board of Directors will meet in a special session today at 1pm today to discuss the upcoming winter sports season.

On October 28 the IHSA agreed to go forward with the 2020-21 basketball season starting on November 26 as originally planned in August of this year. They told their member schools and the public it was up to the individual school to allow their basketball teams to participate during the pandemic as long as programs followed the guidelines developed by the IHSA Sport Medicine Advisory Committee (SMAC).

One day later, Governor JB Pritzker put the breaks on the 2020-21 basketball season as well all other planned prep winter sports, including wrestling, dance and cheer competition. Anticipating a rise in the state's Coronavirus metrics, Governor Pritzker said those sports would have to be moved to the spring season.

"It is difficult to forecast if it will produce any official action, or (if it) will just be (a) discussion," Matt Troha, Assistant Executive Director at the IHSA wrote in an email to the media this morning. "Regardless, it is my hope to email a recap out by around 3pm."

Former Unity player earns 6th volleyball conference award

Abby Maxwell smiles after a point for the Rockets — Rockets' Abby Maxwell flashes a huge smile during the Unity volleyball team's home match against Rantoul on September 29, 2016. Now a setter at Truett McConnell University in Cleveland, GA, the collegiate standout earned her sixth conference recognition award this week. (Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks)

2017 Unity graduate Abby Maxwell was named Appalachian Athletic Conference Setter of the Week for the sixth time this season.

Now a senior at Truett McConnell University, she is the first TMU athlete has received an AAC weekly award six times in a single season.

Maxwell ranks first in total assists (485), which ranks 15th nationally, and second in most assists per set (9.9), which ranks 12th nationally. She also ranks ninth in total digs in the AAC with 197 and now holds the AAC single game high for most assists and digs in a match, 57 and 40, respectively. She has made over 1,000 digs during her collegiate career. Of the 14 matches played this season, Maxwell has recorded a double-double in all but three.

She also is 32 assists shy of reaching the 3,000th career assists mark.

In high school, Maxwell earned all-conference honors in both volleyball and basketball.

All this is crazy; let's vote earlier

By Glenn Mollette, Guest Commentator

2020 will be remembered for more than we what to remember including the painful November 3 election. Our country was already suffering from the pandemic and all its spin-off problems.

Unemployment, business closings, demise of the travel industry, struggling houses of worship, massive national depression to name a few of the problems. However, great news Pfizer has come up with a vaccine that has been 90% effective in preliminary trials. At this writing this is great news with the stock market on the verge of setting an all-time high. This vaccine has the potential to bring this country out of the house and back to work, school, church, and more.

We also need a vaccine to get us over this election. Most Americans would gladly take a shot in the butt to relieve this pain in the neck election we have just endured or, enduring?

Whoever heard of an election going on for days? Some of the states are still counting. The media has called the election for the states but some states have not verified the vote totals. This is insane.

Most of the states got it right on November 3. They counted the votes that made it to the post office on November 3. No one knows when a letter will show up when mailed on November 3. The letter could show up November 4 or November 10 or later.

Regardless of how you feel about the outcome of the election states like Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona did our country a disservice. Even if you are happy about Joe Biden being elected, surely you aren't happy about the long delay in counting the votes.

For many weeks we have been hearing about swing states that would be allowed more days in getting their mail ballots back to count. But the changes did what everyone knew would happen and that was delay the reporting of election results with the possibility of court fights later.

In North Carolina, the State Board of Elections said ballots postmarked by Election Day would count as long as officials received them within nine days after the election. Nine days!

In Wisconsin, a federal judge similarly ruled that ballots postmarked by Election Day would count as long as officials had them in hand within six days after Nov. 3. A Michigan state judge ruled that absentee ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 would be counted if they arrived up to two weeks after Election Day.

All this is crazy.

Go to the courthouse to verify your voter registration. Receive your one ballot obtained only by showing your identification. Put your ballot in the mail in plenty of time to arrive by November 3. It only takes some planning.

Better yet go early and vote and forget the mail if at all possible. Between now and the next election we have to come up with a federal election policy that requires counting the votes received by election day and not ten days or two weeks later.

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Dr. Glenn Mollette is a syndicated American columnist and author of American Issues, Every American Has An Opinion and ten other books. He is read in all 50 states. The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily representative of any other group or organization.

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This article is the sole opinions of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of PhotoNews Media. We welcome comments and views from our readers.

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County records 4 Covid-19 deaths, state could see another stay-at-home order

While the state's positivity numbers continue to grow at a record pace for the fourth straight day, the number of active Coronavirus cases in our area have shrunk from a high of 53 on Sunday, November 1, to 27 as of today.

The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today reported 12,623 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 in Illinois, including 79 additional deaths. Four of the 79 individuals who passed away were from Champaign County.

The Champaign-Urbana Public Health District announced the four COVID-19 deaths included a female in her 70s, two males in their 80s and one 90-year-old male. The county death toll is now at 37.

Yesterday, Governor J.B. Pritzker hinted that a statewide stay-at-home order is back on the table after ruling it out four days earlier as the state wrestles with bringing the recent COVID-19 surge under control. While he did not specify a time or trigger during his press briefing, it is likely

"I'm not looking at the broader mitigation of stay-at-home as something I would do in the coming days or week, but I can't guarantee you what it looks like two weeks from now or three weeks from now - I just don't know," he said on November 6.

Yesterday, his message was more apprehensive saying that another stay-at-home order could be issued if the state's metrics continue to rise. He made it clear it was something he wants to avoid, but may be unavoidable given the rising tide of the infectious virus nationwide.

"As I've told you, for days, you know, we are looking at really all the possibilities - the possibility that we would have to go back a phase, the possibility that we would have to ultimately have a stay-at-home order - those are not things that I prefer to do. But those are things that these numbers are not sustainable."

Winners named in The Sentinel Halloween photo contest

There were cute ones, there were silly ones and scary ones. We received 42 entries for The Sentinel's first-ever Halloween photo contest.

First off, a special thank you to Blondies for their generous donation to help make this contest possible.

Second, The Sentinel would like to thank everyone who entered the contest. You made it a difficult challenge selecting our top three winners which is why it took so long to make today's announcement. It was so difficult that The Sentinel made a witching hour decision to add one new category!

With so many cute baby and toddler photos, we created a separate catergory for those entries. We selected two runner-up photos and winner, each will receive a $25 Sentinel gift certificate good toward the purchase of a Signature Announcement. The winner of the Best Picture award will receive a $50 Sentinel gift certificate.

Runner-up for the Toddler category