To subscribe, please click here
Want a copy of today’s edition? Here’s a map of single-copy locations
Sports Editor Matt Daniels with a look at what’s going on around the area:
The 2008 Unity volleyball team placed second in state. One of its standouts, Ana Deters Reinhart, will be inducted into the Rockets’ athletic Hall of Fame on Friday.
Three reasons we love sports today
➜ 1. Congrats to Andrew Todd of the Fisher football team and Jillian Schlittler of the Unity volleyball team. The duo is our latest high school Athletes of the Week, powered by Copper Creek Contractors. Read more about them in Tuesday’s paper.
➜ 2. Unity will add four individuals — Jim Curry, Ana Deters Reinhart, Dike Stirrett and Heath Wilson — to the school’s athletic Hall of Fame on Friday.
➜ 3. Curry, a 1958 graduate, earned 12 letters in football, basketball, baseball and track and field. Reinhart helped Unity volleyball to a 2008 state runner-up finish and also excelled in basketball and softball. Stirrett coached the Unity boys’ cross-country team to a 2015 state title and Wilson, a 1999 graduate, rushed for 4,614 yards with the Unity football team.
Champaign Central graduate Tanner Gordon went 6-8 with a 6.33 earned run average in 15 starts this season for the Colorado Rockies.
Numbers game: 15
starts Champaign Central graduate Tanner Gordon made this season with the Colorado Rockies. The 27-year-old right-hander likely had his last one on Wednesday night, but the Mariners hit him hard as Gordon threw 3 1/3 innings and gave up seven runs on eight hits in taking the loss. Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh hit his 59th home run of the season off Gordon (Rockies reliever Angel Chivilli gave up Raleight’s 60th home run later in the game). All told, Gordon went 6-8 with a 6.33 ERA in 75 1/3 innings this season, while striking out 62 and walking 17.
The Champaign Central volleyball team gets their photo taken with Illini volleyball players Averie Hernandez and Kayla Burbage during ‘The News-Gazette Sports Page,’ radio show on Sept. 15 at the Esquire in Champaign.
Crowd control
Three events I’m paying attention to
➜ 1. SETtember Fest. Champaign Central volleyball will host a 15-team tournament starting Friday and concluding Saturday. Besides the Maroons, area teams in the field are Centennial, Cissna Park, St. Thomas More and Urbana.
➜ 2. Spartan Classic. The annual boys’ and girls’ cross-country races will start in downtown St. Joseph at 9 a.m. Saturday, continue through the streets of the village and conclude on the track surrounding Dick Duval Field.
➜ 3. Danville Jamboree. Four girls’ flag football teams — Danville, Edwardsville, Kankaee and Mahomet-Seymour — take to Whitesell Field on Saturday as the regular season starts to wind down.
St. Joseph-Ogden Nate Farney runs cross-country and track for the Spartans.
Ask an athlete
Three questions with St. Joseph-Ogden junior Nate Farney, who runs cross-country and track and field with the Spartans:
➜ 1. Three athletes I’d like to have dinner with are … Kobe Bryant, Brian Cardinal and Eddie Hall.
➜ 2. The TV show I most like to binge-watch is … “Family Guy,” or “The Simpsons.”
➜ 3. My biggest pet peeve is … people talking with a full mouth while eating.
