The primary ballhandler and one of the top players overall for the Lutheran South girls basketball team is a freshman, but you wouldn't necessarily know it by watching her play.
Jessica Daube has made the transition to varsity look very smooth with a fine first season on the varsity hardwood.
Daube is averaging 10 points and two assists for a Lancers team that is hovering right around the .500 mark.
For more on Daube, check out Scott Fitzgerald's feature story.
BLADE OF GLORY
Usually, when someone coaches more than one varsity sport, they excel at one, but maybe aren't quite as successful at the other one.
That's not the case with Lori Blade.
Blade has enjoyed a tremendous amount of success with the Edwardsville girls basketball team and picked up her 500th career coaching victory on the hardwood in Thursday's rout of Alton.
But Blade is equally productive on the softball diamond, where she will also pick up career win No. 500 with the third win of this coming spring season.
Click here to find out more about Thursday's win. And click here to for a more in-depth look at Blade.
DOWN TO THE NITTY GRITTY
It's crunch time for area wrestlers.
Sectional tournaments in Illinois and district tournaments in Missouri are on tap this weekend. In both states, the top four finishers in each weight class will advance to the state tournament, which is Feb. 16-18. The Illinois meet is in Champaign, while the Missouri tourney is in Columbia.
For a closer look at everything wrestling, check out the latest notebook from Joe Lyons and Dennis Barnidge.
THURSDAY REWIND
• Parkway North had never won the Suburban South girls swimming and diving title before. But the Vikings can check that off their to-do list after toppling the field at Summit.
• Winning conference, however, has become old hat for Fort Zumwalt West and the Jaguars did it again with a whopping victory at the GAC Championships.
• First, the Parkway South boys won off the court when they earned the No. 1 seed in the upcoming district tournament. Then, the Patriots went ahead and won on the court as well with a big win over fellow Suburban West Conference unbeaten Lindbergh.
• Since they play in the same conference, the Breese Central girls basketball team knew Carlyle would be no pushover in the teams' Class 2A Carlyle Regional final and they were right, as the Cougars were pushed to the brink before surviving for a victory.
• To say the Incarnate Word shooters were on would be a gross understatement. The Red Knights nailed 12 of 17 3-pointers on their way to a 76-34 throttling of Nerinx Hall to win their sixth Metro Women's Athletic Association title in seven years.
• Festus had been pounded in its previous two boys hoops outings, but it was the Tigers doing the pounding this time as they went to rival Hillsboro and grabbed an emphatic 72-48 win.
• The St. Dominic girls are back to playing superior basketball and they did so again with a 45-38 victory at Rosati-Kain to make it 10 wins in a row.
• Two weeks ago, the Alton Marquette girls picked up a last-second win over Metro-East Lutheran. But this time around, in the Class 1A Metro-East Lutheran Sectional, the Explorers gave themselves some breathing room with a 43-29 win.
ON THE TOWN, FRIDAY STYLE
Tonight brings with out quite a few juicy matchups on the hardwood. Readers can come back to the site late Friday to catch up on all the game action. Here's what we're covering.
• No matter what the records are, it's always fun when rivals Kirkwood and Webster Groves get together and we'll have a sizzling boys/girls doubleheader tonight from Roberts Gym with two first-place berths in the Suburban South Conference on the line. First, the No. 10 Stateswomen (16-7, 5-0) will host the No. 6 Pioneers (19-4, 4-0) in an STLhighschoolsports.com large-schools top-10 battle at 6 and then the Statesmen (19-4, 5-0, No. 6 LS) will look for conference win No. 80 in a row when they take on the Pioneers (14-9, 4-0) at 7:30.
• A similar type of rivalry matchup will take place on the Illinois side when Breese Central (25-1, No. 2 SS) crosses town to visit Mater Dei (18-5) in a dandy small-schools contest. Tip-off is 7:45.
• It'll be another top-10 large-schools battle in the Metro Catholic Conference when league-leading Vianney (21-1, 5-0, No. 2 LS) plays host to De Smet (17-6, 6-1, No. 8 LS) at 7.
• The top spot in the GAC South boys standings will be on the line when Duchesne (14-8, 5-0) visits Fort Zumwalt South (12-10, 5-0) at 7:30.
• John Burroughs (15-3) is tied atop the ABC League boys standings and Westminster (19-4, No. 5 SS) would likely be right there if this weren't the last year of independence before they join the ABC teams in the new Metro League next season. For now, the two small-school powers will square off at Westminster at 7.
• Another doubleheader takes shape in St. Peters, as the Fort Zumwalt West girls (19-4, 4-0, No. 4 LS) will play at Francis Howell Central (16-7, 2-1) at 6, followed by the Jaguars (8-13, 2-1) and Spartans (7-15, 1-3) on the boys side at 7:30.
• Collinsville (20-3, 8-1, No. 4 LS) will look to stay on top of the Southwestern Conference boys race when it travels to Alton (7-16, 1-9) to take on a Redbirds team that ousted the Kahoks from last season's regionals. Tip-off is 7:30.
• The Parkway South girls (11-10, 5-0) are tied atop the Suburban West Conference and will play host to Lindbergh (10-12, 2-3) at 7.
THE VIEW FROM ELSEWHERE
• It seems as though it's been a while since we've been able to say Glendale is among the boys basketball elite in Springfield. But as Matt Schoch of the Springfield News-Leader reports, the Falcons can wrap up at least a share of the Ozark Conference title tonight with a home win against Parkview.
• Blue Springs is once again one of the top girls hoops teams in Class 5 and a name to remember is Lizzy Wendell. As Shawn Garrison of the Independence Examiner shows us, the sharpshooting junior sank 6 3-pointers on her way to a career-high 27 points, as the Wildcats drop-kicked Raymore-Peculiar 74-33.
