To subscribe, please click here
Want a copy of today’s edition? Here is a map of single-copy locations
Sports Editor Matt Daniels with a look at what’s going on around the area:
St. Joseph-Ogden senior Asher Pruemer admires the Class 2A state championship trophy he and his teammates won after beating Harvest-Westminster 15-1 in five innings on Saturday night at Illinois Field in Champaign.
Three reasons we love sports today
➜ 1. ‘The News-Gazette Sports Page,’ radio show will hit the road later this month, stopping by Roch’s Bar in downtown St. Joseph on Monday, June 29.
➜ 2. The radio show that airs from 5:10-6 p.m. on WDWS 1400-AM and 93.9-FM will feature the St. Joseph-Ogden baseball team, coached by Josh Haley and led by nine seniors, that won a Class 2A state championship last Saturday night at Illinois Field. Hope to see a good crowd there to recognize the Spartans, who went 40-2 and won their first baseball state title.
➜ 3. We’ll have four pages in Tuesday’s paper looking back on the Spartans’ historic accomplishment, with insight from Haley, the players and their families on the season.
Unity quarterback Dane Eisenmenger heads to the front of the gym at the Rocket Center in Tolono as team captains were introduced at a pep rally three days before the Rockets played in the 2025 Class 3A state championship game.
Numbers game: $99.99
is how much it’ll cost to buy, either in-person or online through Gameday Spirit, an official No. 12 Illinois football jersey with a familiar local name on the back: former Unity standout quarterback Dane Eisenmenger. The 2025 News-Gazette All-Area football player of the year and The News-Gazette’s high school Male Athlete of the Year for the 2025-26 school year signed with the Illini last week.
Bismarck-Henning graduate Dylan Dodd is pitching well out of the bullpen for the Atlanta Braves.
Crowd control
Three events I’m paying attention to
➜ 1. Milwaukee Brewers at Atlanta Braves. Bismarck-Henning graduate Dylan Dodd and the rest of his Braves teammates opened a three-game series against the NL Central leaders on Friday night. The series continues at 3:10 p.m. on Saturday and 12:35 p.m. on Sunday from Truist Park.
➜ 2. St. Louis Cardinals at Kansas City Royals. The three-game series concludes at 1:10 p.m. on Sunday after no game on Saturday because of the World Cup taking place at nearby Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo.
➜ 3. Chicago White Sox at Detroit Tigers. Can the White Sox maintain first place in the AL Central? Find out when the series resumes at 12:10 p.m. Saturday.
St. Thomas More’s Hunter Madigan was named The News-Gazette’s All-Area boys’ tennis player of the year.
Ask an athlete
Three questions with St. Thomas More senior Hunter Madigan, The News-Gazette’s 2026 All-Area boys’ tennis Player of the Year:
➜ 1. Three athletes I’d like to have dinner with are … Roger Federer, Kyle Fan and Jannik Sinner.
➜ 2. The TV show I most like to binge-watch is … “Friends.”
➜ 3. My biggest pet peeve is … people that group together in hallways and walk really slow.
