It's hard to believe, but the high school wrestling season will be over in two days in Missouri and almost over in Illinois (the Feb. 25 dual team state tourney will still remain in the Land of Lincoln).
Today through Saturday, Missouri will hold its overall championships, while Illinois will contest the individual portion of its state meet.
STLhighschoolsports.com will have staff members in both Columbia and Champaign to bring you all the latest happenings from both state tourneys, so check back often all three days.
For a preview feature story on the Missouri meet, click here. For a preview feature story on the Illinois meet, click here.
And for a list of area qualifiers, click here for Missouri and here for Illinois.
WHO'S GOT NEXT?
If you didn't already know it, remember the name Ezekiel Elliott.
The John Burroughs standout running back is in position to be the area's top senior football player next season and, as such, he's been getting a slew of offers (seven in the last two weeks) from some top Division I programs.
And he's not alone.
Now that National Signing Day has come and gone, it's time for the juniors to start garnering the attention and watching the offers roll in.
For more news and notes on area recruiting, check out Nate Latsch's latest notebook.
A WELL-DESERVED NOD
The latest crop of STLhighschoolsports.com Athletes of the Week has hit the site and this week's standouts include a pair of boys basketball players that each went over the 30-point mark in recent action, two girls basketball players that also had big scoring weeks, a pair of wrestlers who head to state on the heels of big wins and perhaps the area's top girls swimmer, who is poised to have a big state meet this weekend.
WEDNESDAY REWIND
• It was Senior Night, so it was only appropriate one of the school's best players ever would deliver in the clutch, as Mizzou-bound Ryan Rosburg nailed one of two free throws with 0.3 seconds left to give the Mustangs a 40-39 win over Parkway Central.
• Brittany Woodson had 14 points and 11 rebounds to lead Brentwood to a 46-31 victory over archrival Maplewood-Richmond Heights to win the season series 2-1 and gain the upper-hand come district seeding time.
• The Fort Zumwalt West boys basketball team bounced back from a loss Tuesday to rout Francis Howell North 56-37.
• Erin Emerson made herself right at home at DuBourg with a game-high 15 points to lead Rosati-Kain to a slim 41-37 victory.
ON THE TOWN, THURSDAY STYLE
As mentioned above, we will be all over both the Missouri and Illinois wrestling championships today, but we will also have other coverage as well. Readers can come back to the site late Thursday to catch up on all the game action. Here's what we're covering.
• Girls basketball bragging rights in the city of Belleville will be decided once and for all for this season when East (19-10) and West (14-13) square off for the Class 4A Belleville West Sectional championship. Tip-off is 7:30.
• Hazelwood Central (14-8 overall, 6-0 league) owns an impressive 37-game Suburban North Conference girls basketball winning streak, but that could be in serious jeopardy against Pattonville (20-3, 6-0, No. 8 in the STLhighschoolsports.com large-schools rankings), a senior-laden team that has been top-10 caliber all season long. The teams will square off at 6 at Pattonville.
• Two Mississippi Valley Club Hockey Association championship round tickets will be punched at U.S. Ice Sports Complex in Fairview Heights with decisive Game 3s in semifinal series between O'Fallon and Althoff (Class 2A South Division) at 6:50 and Collinsville and Columbia (Class 1A East Division) at 8:15.
• Principia (20-3, 5-0, No. 5 SS) is on the verge of winning the inaugural Metro League title and will pay a visit to Villa Duchesne (15-7, 4-2) for a conference game at 6.
• Duchesne (14-10, 4-2) will travel to Fort Zumwalt East (2-22, 0-6) for a GAC North girls hoops contest at 7.
THE VIEW FROM ELSEWHERE
• Since the Fort Osage boys basketball team beat Kearney earlier this season, the Indians felt they should have been seeded higher than the Bulldogs for the upcoming tournament, which they were not. So as the Independence Examiner's Shawn Roney shows us, Fort Osage tried to make their point again by beating Kearney a second time.
• Ross Martin of the St. Joseph News-Press reports about a scary moment during a basketball game when Osborn coach Harry Elder collapsed to the floor during a timeout and had to leave via ambulance.
