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Five of our area prep varsity basketball teams played Monday night, right before the next winter storm rolls into the area.

It was a stellar night.

Ansonia nipped MV 54-53 in boys hoops, while FM and Greenville won on the girls side.

The Lady Jets blasted Dixie 78-34, while the Lady Wave had a big win over Sidney on Senior Night, 62-53.

Bradford played a close game at Lima Perry, but fell 45-38.

Good show!

Let’s hope the Tuesday prep sports schedule goes off as planned, although I’m not optimistic.

Be safe!

I’m sure virtually all area residents have had their fill of the white stuff by now, but more appears to be on the way.

Apparently, a lot more.

The Monday midday forecasts have set the quantity at eight or more for Darke County, jeopardizing school, sports, and everything else, for Tuesday and Wednesday.

At least.

Latest word is that school or no school, the Monday varsity sports schedule is on, with the only question mark the Minster at Versailles boys hoop play, postponed Friday, and set for junior varsity play at 6 p.m. tonight.

Everything else is a go, before the overnight snowstorm moves in.

Be safe and stay positive. We will all get through this.

There's a new tiger on the wall at Ansonia!

I would like to congratulate Jack Hatert on being inducted into the Ansonia Athletic Wall of Fame.  His athletic accomplishments are definitely deserving of recognition, and it’s good to see him get it.

I graduated from Ansonia a year after Jack did, and in addition to being a great athlete, he was a great person as well.  As we all know, high school kids can sometime be arrogant, especially if they are gifted athletically or academically.  Jack was gifted in both areas and was also one of the nicest people you could ever meet.  He was also involved in many extra-curricular activities in addition to sports, making what he did as an athlete that much more impressive.

So congrats Jack on your newest accomplishment!  It is definitely well deserved!

(The induction ceremony was supposed to take place on Friday, but due to the weather, has been postponed until Monday evening)

Here comes the snow, as predicted, on this Friday morning, and prep sports this weekend are at risk.

Don’t worry, we can all now just turn on our TVs, and watch the frolicking in south Florida for Super Bowl weekend!

Will be updating the postponements as they happen, and are learned today., as

Greenville’s varsity boys basketball foe Tuesday night was a solid team, the state’s seventh-ranked Division IV team, Fort Recovery.

The Green Wave competed well, again, but fell 52-32 to a good opponent.

Next up, a road game at Piqua, then home games with Arcanum and St. Henry.

Come out and support your local prep boys team, they are still working for victories!

One of the great shots I got on Saturday... Check out the photo gallery at advocate360.org for more!

Up until this past Saturday, I had never been to a swim meet in my life.  I went to school in Ansonia, and we didn’t have swimming, so it wasn’t something that I’d been exposed to.

But now that I have been, I realize that I’ve been missing some great athletes competing in an extremely exciting sport!

Greenville, Versailles and Arcanum, Darke County’s only swim teams, competed at the YMCA in Greenville.  I had my camera with me (of course!) and I got some really great photos, which I was extremely pumped about since I was a rookie in the swimming department.  But I must say that of the photos I took there, they are by far the photos that I am most proud of.

Swimming is now officially my favorite sport to take pictures of!

Swimmers, like all other athletes, train hard and it shows in their performance.  So if you’ve never been to a swim meet, check one out if you get the chance.  I promise you won’t be disappointed.  I sure wasn’t!

In just under six hours Saturday, four different Versailles high school basketball teams won games over nearby rivals.

The first, and last, came in very dramatic fashion.

Victories began with a 47-46 varsity girls basketball win, on a bucket from Bethany Ahrens, as the 11-5 varsity Lady V-Tigers prevailed over 13-4 Fort Loramie on the Versailles home floor.

Then moving down the road to Russia High School, the V-Tigers freshman team rolled to a 37-13 win.

Then the junior varsity Versailles team topped the Raiders 44-41.

Finally, sophomore Zach Niekamp buried a trey with 7.1 seconds left as the 7-8 varsity boys basketball V-Tigers nipped 11-4, state-ranked Russia 63-62.

Quite a day for Versailles basketball!

Only six of the area teams were in action in Friday varsity boys basketball, and five played away from home.

Four of the six lost, including MV at home in the CCC.

The winners were Ansonia and Arcanum, while Bradford, FM and Versailles also lost. Ansonia won by a estimated 69-56 score.

Greenville and T-V were idle Friday night, both play at home on Saturday.

An interesting Saturday dead ahead, with four girls games during the day, four boys games at night.

I was informed this afternoon by head varsity girls basketball coach Rachel Kerns that Greenville’s scheduled game at Northmont for Monday night has been postponed due to a tragedy in the Northmont girls basketball community.

There has been no date set to reschedule the game, and with tournament play about two weeks away, it may not be rescheduled.

Also, Greenville head varsity fastpitch softball coach Jerrod Newland reports that the Lady Wave team has learned its tournament path for the Champions Challenge at Loudonville in late April.

Competing in the event for the third straight season, Greenville will meet Crestline at 5:30 p.m. on Fri., April 23, then as the winner/loser in that game, will play the winner/loser of the North Canton Hoover-Tallmedge game in the second round.

It is the sixth year for the invitation-only event for past Ohio state fastpitch softball champions.

The softball season starts eight weeks from Monday, on Mon., March 29!

When Ansonia and FM were event after three quarters of girls basketball Thursday night, history might suggest that FM would pull away to win.

But that didn’t happen Thursday night, as Ansonia made it eight CCC girls basketball wins in a row.

With TV’s win over MV, that leaves TV and Ansonia at two losses in the conference, and still in the hunt for a top finish.

A great showing for those two teams, especially in light of the slower starts that both endured.

Great job!o

Arcanum, Greenville and Versailles swimmers will all compete in the same pool, in the Greenville branch of the Darke County YMCA, this Saturday on Greenville’s Senior Day high school swimming meet.

It is the unofficial Darke County Meet, although there will other schools from up north (MAC country) competing as well.

Come out and enjoy the action, it’s the one time all season, here in Darke County, that all of the area swimmers compete versus one another.

All in!

As for this Tuesday, it was six boys games, and a girls contest thrown in for good measure.

Taking the wins were the Greenville girls, and Tri-Village, Bradford and Arcanum on the boys side.

Falling on the night was the TV girls team, Ansonia, Greenville, MV and in the biggest loss of the night, Franklin Monroe.

The Jets suffered a first loss in the CCC, and goes to Covington Friday night, no easy task!

Progress is definitely happening for Bradford basketball.

After an impressive boys win at TCN last Friday, the Lady Roaders took a 50-42 win at Fairlawn Monday night, the team’s second win this season.

Things are looking up for Roader basketball!

After your done whiping those tears...better throw in that towel!

My ex-favorite QB, Brett Favre lost his hope for a Super Bowl appearance with a loss in New Orleans. I am a huge Packer fan, so seeing Brett sign with a rival team was hard to swallow. When he said, “I finally feel at home in Minnesota”, that was a stab in the back! The Packer fans were loyal to him, good or bad seasons. Too bad he didn’t have that same sense of family.

Seeing him loss to the Saints and limping off the field brought a smile to my face. Not because he was hurting, but because now I don’t have to watch him talk about how awesome the Vikings are for a few more weeks.

Will he retire now and stay retired? Who knows! All I know is, I will never look at him like a true professional and genuine person like I used to. Thanks for crushing his dream year Saints!

TV has a BIG win Friday night at home against Bethel, and stayed in the CCC hunt in the process.

It was gut check time, and the Pats passed!

FM and Bradford won conference games in Preble County, the Jets now lead the CCC, and the Roaders have five wins already this season.

A tip of the cap to the Roaders.

Arcanum lost at TVS, while MV played a strong game at Miami East, but lost by five.

And finally, the problems continued for Versailles in the MAC, as the Tigers got handled at Coldwater.

Greenville gets the Cavaliers next, on Saturday night, in what will be a challenging game for the Green Wave.

Ansonia had a Friday night off.

Friday night area varsity boys basketball, it’s never dull!

My reaction to Friday’s one-game suspension of Greenville head boys basketball coach Travis McAvene was one of dismay, then sadness as the day unfolded.

There was obvious anger and strife near the end of the Greenville varsity boys basket ball game this past Tuesday, and I missed most of what happened.

For me, it was a confusing and volatile situation, and the war of words between McAvene and at least one fan up in the stands behind the team’s bench was alarming and upsetting.

I don’t know all the details, but it all just casts a negative shadow over what should be happiness over the Green Wave team’s improved results, three wins in the last five games.

Let’s hope that this passes quickly, and all can get back to the most important thing at stake here-allowing the student-athletes to enjoy the last few games of the regular season, then tournament play, without the specter of who the coach is going to be, and what the atmosphere around the team is going to be.

Let’s all just try to get along, and finish the season with as positive an atmosphere as possible.

As the popular saying goes, the kids deserve that.

Because they are the ones most negatively affected when controversy surrounds a high school sports team.

I know because I lived through it as a player myself.

That’s my biggest hope now.

Ansonia, FM and TV continued winning runs in CCC girls hoops Thursday night, but Arcanum, Bradford, Greenville and Versailles were on the other side of that winning equation. MV was idle.

The results leave FM with one CCC loss, TV and surging Ansonia with two.

And all play in Saturday CCC matinees, with TV at FM the obvious headliner.

This is getting fun!

Greenville’s high school wrestling team put its excellence on display for the home folks Wednesday night, dominating first Dixie, then Miami East in a triangular match.

Both of the foes are highly-regarded programs, but were no match for the Wave, at least this time around.

See photo and video coverage at advocate360.org, plus stories, as the streaking Green Wave wrestling program heads through the homestretch of another very successful season.

Greenville’s varsity boys basketball team won it Tuesday night over Miamisburg, posting a 74-63 win.

For junior Tyler Holzapfel, it was the highest-scoring game of his Wave career, scoring 26.

With Graham Luce (23) and Zac Guillozet (13) combining for 36 more, the Wave offense overcame a spirited Viking comeback.

On the girls side, the results were not so good, as FM, Arcanum and Bradford all lost non-conference games.

Another spirited night of winter prep basketball!

On paper, it looks like a good opportunity for a victory for Greenville’s varsity boys basketball Wave tonight as 1-8 Miamisburg visits 2-10 Greenville.

If the Wave team wins, it will be two wins in the last three games, and three out of the last five.

That will mean a lot, as the team attempts to build some positive momentum down the stretch, and into the Division II postseason.

By the way, four weeks from Sunday, Feb. 14, the pairings are set for the tournament.

Good mojo the rest of the way could make a significant difference.

When Patrick Mescher of Versailles arranged the time and place to sign his national letter of intent to attend, and play baseball, at West Point, you knew it would be a special, unique time.

I had no idea just how special.

It was a pleasure to meet the Mescher family, and speak to Patrick, a VHS senior, who showed, in a quiet and unassuming way, just what kind of person he is.
The story on the actual signing is scheduled for the Wednesday print edition of the Daily Advocate sports section.

All college signings for athletics are special, unique and emotional, happy moments.

But a lot of background led to the Mescher signing, and I encourage all, even those not necessarily interested in sports, per se, to look for our followup on this unique story.

New marketing campaigns are looking to connect their products to favorable emotions.

Will enough tears and stories make you pay more attention?

Visa certainly hopes so…

Matthew Monroe of Arcanum is faring well on the motocross racing circuit and will be doing some dirt bike riding at Treaty City this summer. It sounds like he is a pretty good race car driver.

I would be absolutely leery of my child getting on one of these vehicles and racing  for fear of accidents, but Matthew’s parents, Kim and Kevin, are very supportive and I’m sure trust that he can handle whatever comes his way. Besides, he’s been around it for quite a few years as his father rides, too.

I wish the best for Matthew in the upcoming season and beyond. If that’s what he likes to do, go for it! Maybe one of these days he will be racing bigger vehicles and we can all see him on television.

Congratulations to the young man and his wins, and may he be successful here on out.

Ever been to a powerlifting meet?

Well neither have I.

But that’s likely to change on Saturday morning when Tri-Village hosts a high school powerlifting meet, and Bradford is one of the planned participants in the 10 a.m. meet.

In both boys and girls divisions, there are weight classes just like wrestling, and athletes are divided into ninth and 10th-grade lifters, then a separate competition for junior and seniors, in each class.

Really intrigued to see this.

I’ll probably blog here about it, and look for more powerlifting results in upcoming print editions of the paper.

And online.

Different strokes for different folks, as the saying goes!

Ohio’s prep basketball polls come out for the first time this week, and the boys came out Monday night (no area teams), the girls come out tonight.

While all normal-thinking people understand that polls are just opinions, and sometimes opinions without much objective information, polls are fun, nonetheless.

What better way to start an argument among fans than to debate sports polls!

So, let the poll fun begin again.

Just understand that the real poll comes out in March, on the court at OSU in the prep basketball state finals.

Unlike the BCS, this title is always settled in competition, and every team has a chance.