Photo furnished
Sullivan is Sectional Bound
Pictured left to right, coach Andy Wagner, Addison Darush, Brooke Tuttle, Alexis Britton, Tatum Ellis, coach Ben Richter and Irie Dulin.

•October 12, 2016•

Sullivan High School girls’ golf team competed in regionals at Oak Terrace Golf Course Wednesday. With breezy conditions, lots of rain and a tough back nine, the girls tied with Monticello with a score of 410. But in a tie-breaker of going to the fifth score, Sullivan earned second place, advancing them to the Lincoln Sectionals.

Brooke Tuttle shot an 89, earning fifth place and the low score for Sullivan. Addison Darush earned second lowest score with a 105. Alexis Britton had a 107, and Tatum Ellis and Irie Dulin both shot 109 for the girls.

This is the first time since 1986 Sullivan has advanced to sectionals as a team. Members of the 1986 team included Aimee (Wagner) Darush , Chantel Scherer, Caprice (Scherer) Light, Amy (Bishop) Greuel and Stacey (Anderson) Ward with Larry Wagner as the coach.
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Photo furnished
Okaw Valley Middle School Regional Champions front row l to r: Miaya Lehman, Grace Bunfill, Kalynn Teague, Bailey Bennett; second row l to r:  Stacey Orris, Avery Bruns, Mia Harris, Karson Park, Reiss Frye; third row l to r:  Reagan Reedy, Savannah Hagerman, Chloe Harris, Kayla Fleshner, Kailyn Walker, Evelyn Ashley; fourth row l to r:  Asst. coach Dave Benning, head coach Kurtis Bunfill, asst. coach Samantha Inman.

•September 28, 2016•

Okaw Valley’s Middle School softball team finished the postseason on a great run and brought home a Regional Championship.

“They had their ups and downs all season and things clicked during the postseason,” Brooks Inman, OV AD said of the middle school softball team. “It was an impressive run for sure, and we are beyond proud of the team’s accomplishments this fall.”

One of the big boosts to the Okaw Valley team was from pitcher Grace Bunfill. During the regional championship game against Beecher City Sept. 12 Bunfill threw a no-hitter in the 4-2 win.

She struck out 35 batters in two regional games.

“That 35 outs of 42 included a no-hitter in the regional championship vs. Beecher City...which is ridiculously impressive!” Inman emphasized.      Read More

Photo by Mike Brothers
It was tough making ground but Luke Bowman leaves Shelbyville’s defense plowing through for a modest gain.

•September 14, 2016•

Kirk Whitaker
NP Sports Reporter

Friday night Shelbyville honored 2013 graduate and former quarterback Tucker Schwengel, even painting a 15-yard line for the game in his memory.

Sophomore quarterback Turner Pullen put on his own impersonation of the former Shelbyville signal-caller.

Pullen torched the Redskins all night long--with the climax being his 85 yard touchdown scamper in the third where he started behind a wall of Rams in the middle of the field before bouncing out to his own sideline to go untouched, out-running Sullivan’s Luke Bowman-- with 168 yards passing and three scores through the air to go with 200 yards on just 14 carries and three more touchdowns. Read More

Photo by Darian Hays
Defense was a big part of keeping the South Fork team from scoring Friday in Sullivan. SOV senior Drew Hubbard stops this runner in his tracks.

•August 31, 2016•

By Kirk Whitaker
NP Sports Reporter

Things couldn’t have gone much better to start the season for the Redskins.

From start to finish the Redskins’ running attack featuring quarterback Brett Tuttle and running back Ty Nichols, made gash after gash in the South Fork defense with a 100 yard run touchdown and two 64 yard touchdowns respectively.

All the worries after Nichols slipped and fell for a five yard loss on the first play of scrimmage were long gone after the game.

“The way South Fork was playing their defensive ends throughout the game we felt like we would be able to get our option game going,” explained Redskins’ head coach Gerald Temples. “We felt like we needed to do that more in the second half and that worked out for us.”

Nichols’ first score came on a fourth and one from the one yard line, taking a handoff from Tuttle over the right side and over several Pony defenders with 5:31 to go in the first quarter.

Then the fireworks started. Read More

•August 10, 2016•

Kirk Whitaker
NP Sports Reporter

After a brief hiatus of the check-in on the area athletes at the collegiate level, we return to the recap with this week’s edition on Sullivan’s own Mollie Bowman.

The 2014 Redskin grad is currently a jumper and a sprinter at Division II McKendree University in Lebanon, Ill.

Bowman performs the long jump (personal records will follow each event 17’5”), triple jump (35’11”), 200 meter sprint (25.84 seconds) and the 4x100 and 4x400 meter relays (48.44 seconds, and 3:54.04 respectively).

Also, Bowman and the Bearcat coaches further plan on showcasing her versatility in the 400 meter hurdles.

Bowman has come, “extremely close”, in her own words, at bringing home conference hardware but has her sights set on achieving national honors her final two campaigns in Lebanon but not without working for them first.  Read More