Photo Gallery | Photos from Urbana's 40-24 win over Danville

Urbana's Jasmine McCullough dribbles the ball around Danville Diamond Landfair in the first half. Three-for-four from the free throw line, McCullough finished the game with seven points to help the Tigers log their first home win since February 8, 2020. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Aziyaha Davis dribbles around senior Diamond Landfair during first half action of their Big 12 Conference game on December 8, 2022. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Tigers' Jasmine McCullough plays defense on Vikings' Jyah Parker. Urbana held Parker scoreless the entire game. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Urbana's Gabreille Mboyo-Meta fights to keep the ball away from Danville's Ajia Johnson in the second quarter. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

McKenzie Sprague is fouled going up for a shot between Danville's Diamond Landfair and Dajahnae Taylor. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Gabreille Mboyo-Meta goes up for a shot around Danville's Laila Johnson. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Urbana's McKenzie Sprague fires a jumper from the corner during the second half. The senior chipped in two points and four rebounds for the Tigers. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

McKenzie Sprague slides across the floor while try to get the ball away from Danville's Ajia Johnson. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Tiger freshman Elizabeth Lange reaches for a loose ball. Lange chipped in 2 points and collected one board for Urbana. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Urbana's Gabreille Mboyo-Meta goes for a second-half shot. Meta-Mboyo shared team-high scoring with eight points, three steals, and one rebound. The senior leads the team in steals (3.3), assists (7), and scoring (9.8) per game. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Freshman Mia Schroeder sees minutes in the Tigers' first home win in nearly three years. She collected five points and tallied a pair of rebounds in the rout. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Urbana fans cheer for their team in the fourth quarter. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Urbana's Aziyaha Davis is fouled as she goes up for a shot in the second half of the game by Danville's Diamond Landfair. Davis contributed eight rebounds and three steals with her three field goals in the Tigers' home win. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Tigers' Destiny Barber shares a funny story with teammates as the game clock with Danville passes the one minute to play mark. The senior forward finished the game with eight points, three steals, and five boards. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

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Prep Sports Notebook | Urbana drops home opener

URBANA - The Urbana girls' basketball team opened their 2023-24 campaign with a loss at home on Tuesday. While playing a defensively solid game, the Tigers' offensive effort fell short in the 35-14 loss.

Aziyaha Davis led UHS' scoring effort with six points, four produced in the final quarter of the game. Zion Reid and Janae Hall came off the bench to hit a field goal and sink one free throw to finish with three points apiece.

The Tiger varsity squad is back in action tonight, hosting McArthur at 7pm.

Aziyaha Davis dribbles around senior Diamond Landfair during first half action of their Big 12 Conference game on December 8, 2022. The senior started the season as the Tigers' leading scorer. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Rockets open season with win over PBL
Back again at the Lady Falcon/Bunnie Tip Off, the Unity girls' basketball team notched tipped off the season with a 51-27 win over Paxton-Buckley-Loda.

Raegen Stringer led the Rockets with 18 points and six steals. Addison Ray contributed another 13 points in the rout. Ray and Meredith Reed had six rebounds apiece in Unity's total haul of 32.

UHS was up 24-9 at the half and kept the foot of the gas, adding another 27 points in the second half.

Two area players earn All-State recognition
Brock Suding after the Unity's homecoming game against Rantoul in 2022.
St. Joseph-Ogden's Logan Smith and Unity's Brock Suding were named All-State players by the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association earlier this week.

Suding, a 6-foot, 195-pound linebacker was key in Rockets' postseason run. Averaging 13 tackles per game, he led Unity to 9-3 and was the anchor on a defense that allowed opponents just 259 points in 12 games. The senior also saw playing time as a running back, carrying the ball 13 times for 72 yards.

Smith, the Illini Praire Conference's most explosive signal caller, threw the ball 269 time for 2,686 yards, topping his 2022-23 stat of 2,582 yards. In addition to the two-year starter's 5,268 total passing yards, he also amassed 796 rushing yards in his 22 varsity appearances. The senior ran in 20 touchdowns and passed for 29 this season.

Attention Coaches: Help us keep area fans informed! Email us your team's game and match results for the Prep Sports Notebook. Please send us a clear photo of the scorebook and other stats or information to us at sports@oursentinel.com.

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Barber and Mboyo-Meta lead Tigers in conference win over visiting Danville

URBANA - It took 34 months, to the day, for the Urbana girls' basketball program to finally post a win on their home court at Oscar Adams Gym. A week ago Thursday, after holding visiting Danville to just eight first-half points, the Tigers (2-4) posted a 40-24 win over the Vikings.


Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks
Destiny Barber goes up for one of three first-quarter scores during Urbana's home game against Danville on December 8. Barber finished with eight points in the Tiger's first home win since 2020.

The last time the girls' program celebrated a victory on their hardwood dates back to a 64-47 win over visiting Bloomington High School when most of the squad were playing freshman ball back on February 8, 2020.

"It's been almost two and half years since we had a home win. They earned this one," Head coach Bobby Boykin said after the game. Despite their current record, he is pleased with the strides his team is making this season. "They have really grown and are starting to come together."

The Tigers return eight players who saw significant playing time from the previous season. Many of last season's familiar faces contributed to last week's win.

Destiny Barber and Gabreille Mboyo-Meta led the Urbana offensive effort with a game-high eight points a piece. Junior guard Aziyaha Davis finished with seven points, and Jasmine McCullough rounded out the top four scorers for the Tigers with six points.

Barber, a senior, scored six of her eight points in the first quarter with assists from Davis, who forced turnovers to create an abundance of scoring opportunites for UHS in the first half. With the help Mboyo-Meta and McCollough, the Tigers put up an 11-point lead on scoreboard.

Urbana continued to stretch the gap on the scoreboard all the way to the end of the third quarter boasting a 22-point advantage.

"Danville is definitely a hardworking team," Boykin said, acknowledging Danville's attempt to dig themselves out of an impossible situation. "We tried our best to be the same tonight."

Layla Johnson paced the Vikings with seven points.

Box Score

Urbana 40 - Danville 25

  1 2 3 4 F
Urbana 14 6 14 6 40
Danville 3 5 4 13 25

Urbana --
Barber 4(0)-2-0--8, Davis 3(0)-3-1--7, Mboyo-Meta 2(1)-4-1--8, Schroeder 1(1)-0-0--5, McCullough 2(0)-4-2--6, Sprague 1(0)-3-0--2, Hall 1(0)-0-0--2, Blanden 0(0)-2-0--0, Lange 1(0)-0-0--2, Hall 0(0)-2-0--0.

Danville --
Johnson 3(0)-2-1--7, Blandeo 0(0)-0-0--0, Rudy 0(0)-6-1--1, Berryhill 2(0)-4-2--6, Longfair 1(0)-0-0--2, Walls 1(0)-3-1--3, McFarland 0(0)-0-0--0, Brown 0(0)-0-0--0, Parker 0(0)-0-0--0, Johnson 0(0)-0-0--0, Taylor 1(0)-0-0--2, Foley 2(0)-0-0--4, Winston 0(0)-0-0--0.

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Photo Gallery |
Urbana picks up home win over Danville
McKenzie Sprague is fouled

URBANA - McKenzie Sprague is fouled going up for a shot between Danville's Diamond Landfair and Dajahnae Taylor. See 13 more photos and a recap of the Tiger's first home win since 2020. Destiny Barber and Gabreille Mboyo-Meta led the Urbana offensive effort with a game-high eight points a piece. Junior guard Aziyaha Davis finished with seven points, and Jasmine McCullough rounded out the top four scorers for the Tigers with six points.

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Prep Sports Notebook | Area basketball teams post losses

  • Urbana 20, Normal Community 57: The Tigers didn't hit a shot from the field in the second quarter of their road game against the Lady Ironmen on Saturday. Junior Aziyaha Davis led all Urbana scorers with six points. Jasmine McCullough and Destiny Barber rounded out the top three scorers with five and four points, respectively.

  • Hoopeston Area 69, Horizon Science Academy Southwest 48: Trenton Montez and Anthony Zamora led the Cornjerkers with 16 points apiece in pool play against the Huskies. Montez snagged four steals, while Zamora collected four of his own out of the team's total of 11. Preston VandeVeer added another eight points while Owen Root provided seven at the Watseka Christmas Tournament.

    Kendrick Sigerill, who finished with six points, led the team on the boards with six rebounds. Root and fellow junior Wyatt Eisenmann hauled in four rebounds apiece. The Hoopeston boys will face VVC foe Westville in the 5th-place game at the tournament on Tuesday.

  • St. Joseph-Ogden 26, Pleasant Plains 55: Addisyn Martinie scored a team-high 10 points in the Spartans' road loss against the Cardinals in non-conference girls action on Saturday. Addie Brooks came off the bench to post two third-quarter treys for six points. Senior Taylor Hug was held to just five points for SJO. The St. Joseph-Ogden (4-7) varsity squad hosts the one-loss Cissna Park Timberwolves (10-1) tomorrow at 6pm.

    • Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks
    6-foot-3 senior Austin Langendorf gets a hand slap from a young Unity basketball fan after his team's tough 45-43 overtime loss to Pleasant Plains on Saturday.

  • Unity 43, Pleasant Plains 45: Unity snagged 21 rebounds and tallied eight assists in the 2-point overtime loss to Pleasant Plains. Head coach Matt Reed said his 5-3 team will learn from the loss and improve, especially with a tough conference schedule in front of them. "The effort [and] the desire, that was definitely there. It was just a great high school basketball game. A really good basketball game."

    The Rockets will attempt to shake the loss off and prep for an upcoming non-conference game against Paris at the Rocket Center on Tuesday.

  • Unity 36, Mt. Zion 51: Addison Ray led the Rockets with a team-high 14 points and had five boards in the program's third loss this season. Senior Abbie Piecaynski knocked down six fourth-quarter points, but it wasn't enough to close the gap with the generous Lady Braves' lead. Frosh Claire Meharry also produced her offense contribution in the final quarter with four points and grabbed eight rebounds for the now 9-4 Rockets. Lauren Miller contributed three points, three rebounds and four steals during the home stand.
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    A summary of our stories from December 18 through 19. Subscribe to get your daily notification of The Sentinel's latest news and photos here. It's free and unsubscribe any time.

    Prep Sports Notebook | Area basketball teams post losses
    Unity's Austin Langendorf

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  • Owen Root and fellow junior Wyatt Eisenmann hauled in four rebounds apiece in win over Horizon Science Academy Southwest.
  • Addie Brooks came off the bench to post two third-quarter treys for six points for SJO at Pleasant Plains.
  • Unity snagged 21 rebounds and tallied eight assists in the 2-point overtime loss to Pleasant Plains.
  • Senior Abbie Piecaynski knocked down six fourth-quarter points, but it wasn't enough to close the gap with the generous Lady Braves' lead.
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