Warren’s Bogard fearless, will bounce back

April 16, 2019

VINCENT -- With a bag of ice in her right hand, Erin Bogard was nursing a broken nose and sitting "Native American style" on the ground not far from the pole vault pit at Warren High field. It was late Saturday afternoon, and the annual Warrior Track&Field Invitational was in the process of wrapping up. (Both the Warren boys and girls won.) The Youngstown University recruit had a big smile on her face as she observed Waterford High's George "Doc" Pantelidis and Belpre High's Hunter Gilbert battling it out in the boys' PV competition. (Pantelidis cleared the bar at 12 feet to win the ...

Pioneers couldn’t turn off scoring machine

March 12, 2019

Marietta College got beat by one player. That shouldn't happen. I mean, basketball is a team game. But after the Pioneers dropped a 91-87 decision to Wheaton (Ill.) College in front of 359 spectators Saturday night in an NCAA Division III men's basketball sectional final at the Carver PT Center in Rock Island, Ill., it was as plain as day that Thunder senior sharpshooter Aston Francis - who tallied a record-setting 62 points and also grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds -was a one-man wrecking crew on the hardwood. The 6-foot-1, 195-pound Francis was literally a scoring machine that the ...

‘Doink’ and other things at the BanJo

March 5, 2019

Marietta College fan Barry Taylor, who was sitting with Cathy Binegar behind press row, yelled out to yours truly during second-half action at Fenton Court Saturday night. He had to holler, because the BanJo was so alive, so noisy. “Do you know what the record is for fouls in a game?” Taylor inquired. I turned around and replied, “I don’t know.” But after the Pioneers defeated Arcadia University, 88-76, I looked it up on the Internet. While the refs may have been a little on the whistle-happy side in the MC-AU second-round NCAA Division III men’s basketball game, the D3 ...

Pioneers shot the lights out but still 2 points shy of 100

February 15, 2019

Marietta College could’ve hit the century mark for the third time this season Wednesday night at Ban Johnson Arena. The Pioneers — who are No. 19-ranked in the D3hoops.com Top 25 poll with a 19-5 overall record (13-4 Ohio Athletic Conference) — were leading rival Muskingum University 98-73 with about 20-25 seconds left in the contest, but elected to run the clock out. “We had our chances,” said MC men’s head coach Jon VanderWal of the 100-point mark. “You know, we like to beat people up as bad as we can. But at the same time, we’ve got to have some class. And I have a ...

Catching up with French and some other good people

January 31, 2019

A few years ago, Warren High boys’ basketball standout Evan French wrote and mailed a thank-you card to me for covering the Blane Maddox-coached Warriors. What was special about it is that he took the time to do this in his own hand-writing. Honestly, I felt like French had just passed the ball to me for an easy layup. If he’d been there when I read the card, I probably would’ve given him a high five. Little things, like thank-you cards, really do mean a lot. Fast-forward to today, and French is a fifth-year senior on the Ben Howlett-coached West Liberty University men’s ...

Jon VanderWal’s look was amusing, priceless

January 25, 2019

Early in the second half of Wednesday night’s men’s basketball game at the BanJo, Marietta College sophomore Tim Kreeger made a highlight film shot in the paint. The 6-foot-7 pivot player — who is right-handed — left-handed about a 10-foot hook off the glass to give the Pioneers a 66-50 advantage over Otterbein University. The look on MC head coach Jon VanderWal’s face was priceless. It seemed to say, “No! No! Yes!” Curt Plummer, who was sitting to my left on press row, said, “I wonder if he (Kreeger) called it (the bank shot)?” I laughed and replied facetiously, ...