Sports

CAPE GIRARDEAU — Brayden Eftink changed the momentum with one swing of the bat. The Notre Dame catcher pulled a Garrett Henson pitch over the right-field wall to lead the Notre Dame-New Madrid County Central team to a 7-2 victory over Jackson-Dexter in the third game of the SEMO Conference Baseball Showcase on Monday at Capaha Field...

Krysten Garrison announced Thursday she is transferring from New Mexico State University to Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, where she will continue her volleyball career. Garrison, a three-time all-stater for Dexter High School before graduating in 2018, gave three reasons for transferring from the NCAA Division I university to the D-II college...

CHARLESTON, Mo. — Rain covered the field at Hillhouse Park on Tuesday, forcing the Fighting Squirrels game to end prematurely. Despite Mother Nature, Charleston still managed to put up runs in three innings of play, before the contest ended. The Fighting Squirrels defeated Festus 9-0, scoring five runs in the first and four in the third...

Recently-hired Southeast Missouri State men’s basketball coach Brad Korn sat in a conference room with one of his recently-hired assistants, Sam McMahon, Wednesday and hovering over the two was a dry-erase board covered end-to-end with information on how to build the Redhawks into a formidable Ohio Valley Conference program.

Southeast Missouri State athletic director Brady Barke is figuratively driving a car down a road – at night – and with no headlights as he tries to navigate a sporting world that has never existed.

Twins Kaley and Nicole Roper took high school volleyball by storm, and both were key contributors right away at East Central College in Union. With the sisters playing major roles as high school freshmen, Bloomfield made a run to the final four in Class 2...

Brad Korn has been a college basketball coach for 15 years. You can multiply that number by several hundred and tally the number of times his mind has wandered in terms of the tasks he would like to accomplish when – if – he ever received an opportunity to be a head coach.

SIKESTON — After a week off, the Southeast Missouri Challenger Tournament concluded Monday at VFW Stadium in Sikeston. Featuring the 18-and-under Charleston Fighting Squirrels and 17-and-under Perfectos, the Squirrels prevailed in six innings — as the game ended due to time limit — 4-3...

Dexter High School spring sports coaches expect up to 11 athletes to compete in various events the SEMO Conference is holding for recently graduated seniors. Senior-only events in baseball, boys golf, boys tennis and track and field are set for next week. They were scheduled after the spring sports seasons were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic...

Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor was somewhat prophetic when he recently told the Wichita Eagle “I am still confident that we are going to play football, but I am less confident that we are going to play 12 games.”

CHARLESTON, Mo. — Scoring came in droves in the Charleston Fighting Squirrels doubleheader sweep of the Mineral Area Orioles on Sunday at Hillhouse Park in Charleston, Mo. In the first game, the Fighting Squirrels defeated the Orioles 15-6 and then turned around and won 13-1 in the second game to improve its perfect resume to 21-0...

Retired St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith, during a 24-hour visit to Cape Girardeau late this week, demonstrated by his actions he understands that the coronavirus pandemic is not over. Smith, 65, arrived in town Thursday for a local hotel promotion and got in a round of golf on a cloudy Friday afternoon at Cape Girardeau Country Club...

SIKESTON — Basketball season doesn’t start for another four months, but that isn’t stopping multiple area girls players from improving. In June, a summer league started at the Cape Girardeau SportsPlex and continues every Thursday night at the venue until July 9. Sikeston’s Karris Allen and Oran’s Katie Webb and Grace Davis, among others, all play on select teams and have bettered themselves as a result...

JACKSON, Mo. — Runs came at a premium to start the first game of the doubleheader for the Southeast Tropics on Wednesday evening. Leading 1-0 after the first inning, the Tropics did not push another run across the plate until the fourth and, from there, managed to score 10 more runs in the final four frames. ...

HOLLISTER, Mo. — Brevin Giebler advanced to the second round of match play at the 113th Missouri Amateur. The Cape Girardeau golfer earned a 2 and 1 victory over Jake Mikesch of St. Joseph on Thursday at the Ozarks National Golf Course. Jackson’s Case Englehart survived a 10-player playoff for the final seven spots to earn the 63rd seed in the 64-player field after climbing from 139th place with a 2-under 68 round Wednesday...

HOLLISTER, Mo. — Brad Thielemier started his round Wednesday with an eagle as the Poplar Bluff golfer clawed his way back at the 113th Missouri Amateur. Thielemier, who started the day tied for 94th, made the cut for match play with an even-par 71 at the Ozarks National Golf Course...

CHARLESTON, Mo. — Fifteen games into the 2020 summer season and the Charleston Fighting Squirrels have won every one of those games. A loaded group, this season’s Charleston team can beat you in more ways than one. At the plate, on the mound, or running the bases, this team continues to show how cohesive a unit they are...

POPLAR BLUFF — Dexter seniors Peyton Driskill and Andrew Ellinghouse, among other players from Stoddard County, are keeping their basketball skills sharp during the COVID-19 pandemic by playing the sport at the club level. Driskill is playing for the SEMO Select, of Greenville, and Ellinghouse is competing with the Bullets, of Ellington...

HOLLISTER, Mo. — Area golfers will be need to be on the move Wednesday during the final round of stroke play at the 113th Missouri Amateur. None of the players from Southeast Missouri are in the top 64 following Tuesday’s opening round at the Ozarks National Golf Course...

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. — There are four games — made up of seniors from all eight SEMO Conference baseball programs — scheduled for July 6 at Capaha Park in Cape Girardeau. Seniors from Cape Central and Sikeston play seniors from Notre Dame and New Madrid County Central at 1 p.m...

Good Sports is a column featured weekly in the Southeast Missourian and on semoball.com. It is primarily designed to showcase people who have impacted the sporting life of Southeast Missouri, so that readers may get to know them more fully. Responses have been edited for clarity and brevity...

SIKESTON — For the second-straight year, a belt is up for grabs, as pool play started for the Southeast Missouri Challenger Tournament Thursday afternoon at VFW Stadium. Six teams make up the tournament and after the first night of pool play, Sikeston Silver Sox general manager Craig Templeton is looking forward to the weekend...

DEXTER, Mo. — It was a promising start for the Sikeston Silver Sox on Thursday night against the SEMO Spartans. Sikeston led 1-0 after the first inning after an RBI single by Kadin Wilburn plated Hayden Alcorn, but that would be the only offense that the Silver Sox would muster for the game...

The Dexter Statesman is counting down the 10 best high school games from the previous school year. We will feature a game each week. The criteria for a game to make the list include competitiveness and meaning of the game. A game must involve a team(s) from Stoddard County and must have been covered first-hand by the Statesman or Semoball...

Jeremy Walker has received ample opportunities to work with the players in the Gideon boys basketball program over the last three years. “Our returning seniors are the first group of freshman I coached when I became the junior varsity coach in 2017,” Walker said. ...