Sports

The best qualities of a football team could be described with word like speedy, intelligent or powerful, but Cassville Football Coach Clay Weldy used another word to describe his Wildcats this season — Gritty.

Southwest High School will celebrate Tipoff to the basketball season on Tuesday, Nov. 22 against Pierce City. The candidates are: senior Feanne Damen, junior Julika Petermann, sophomore Ashlin Batts, cheer candidate junior Kayla Hendrix and freshman Lilian Sanders. The queen will be crowned between the junior varsity and varsity boys’ basketball games. Contributed photo

The Wheaton volleyball team nearly met its goal of a district title, falling to Galena in the championships, but the Lady Bulldogs still achieved a winning record and immense growth with a revamped offense. Robert Creekmore, Wheaton volleyball coach, said overall, it was a successful year.

The Exeter boys basketball team is looking to three athletes to lead the Tigers this season — its glue, it’s guard and its big. Tremayne Williams, Exeter boys basketball coach, enters the season at 12-34 and in his third year, saying success has been hard to come by, but Exeter is no longer a team opponents can overlook.

According to a recent NPR article, pickleball is one of America’s fastest growing sports with nearly 5 million people now playing. Erin Flehmer and Caleb Reynolds, Cassville High School coaches and physical education instructors, have started a CHS Pickleball Club that encourages students to meet after school in the winter months and before school this spring to learn more about this rapidly growing sport.

It was a steady pace for Jolie Evans and a half-mile gallop for Caleb Leach that helped the pair place in the top 25 at the Class 3 MSHSAA State XC Championships on Saturday. Leach finished in 12th place with a time of 16:56.90, and Evans took 19th in the race with a time of 20:14.30.

A momentum swing Cassville’s way at the restart of the rain-postponed district semifinal on Saturday gave the Wildcats a steady boost for three quarters of play, but the turnover bug bit hard and ended the team’s season with a 14-7 loss to Reeds Spring.

The Cassville football team was giving Reeds Spring all it could handle on Friday amid turbulent weather and, ultimately, a delay and postponement just as the Wildcats nearly scored.

It was one of the most backand- forth district quarterfinal games in recent memory, and the Cassville football team wrestled its way to a 24-21 win over Aurora on Friday, setting up a district semifinal contest this week at No. 1 Reeds Spring.