What a day!

It’s a huge day in Ozarks sports.  Not only is it week 2 of the district playoffs with a number of big matchups, but we have state championships going on in softball & girls tennis.  Up in St. Joseph, the Republic Lady Tigers and Pleasant Hope Lady Pirates are getting ready for the semifinal games.  Pleasant Hope takes on Blair Oaks at 1 o’clock and Republic faces Kirksville at 1:30.  The weather in the St. Joe area today is supposed to be cloudy, a high of 43, and patchy drizzle possible so we’ll keep you updated on any weather related developments and finals.

Also subject to the weather is the state girls tennis competition going on at Cooper Tennis Complex.  A number of young ladies from the area are set to play for state titles in singles & doubles competition.  Joplin’s Rachel Lazenby leads the way in class 2 singles with her 29-0 record on the year.  Also going after singles titles are Maggie Givens of Branson in class 2; College Heights’ Taylor Little, Hannah Gant of West Plains, and Elle Prewitt of Greenwood in class 1.  Doubles competition has two schools with two teams playing today.  In class 1, Catholic sends Rachel Scott & Rebecca Mayus out as the top seed from their district, with Lauren Schoen and Megan Haller as the second seed.  Kickapoo has two strong teams going in class 2.  District champions Carlee and Mackenzie Rozell sport a 20-2 record on the year.  But runners-up Danielle Benson and Annie Armstrong are capable of making some noise also with their 26-4 record.

And finally, football.  With some family coming in from out of town, I will not be making it to any field tonight.  So instead, we’re gonna do some livebloggin’.  With my trusty assistant & part time photographer Bubba helping out, we’ll be manning the OS.Net command center and have a couple of radios going, be listening to some internet feeds, be monitoring some of the more active message boards & scoreboards, and be getting our requisite updates from our sources.  And anyone that wants to drop a comment or a message while it’s going on, I’ll respond to and maybe bring your comments into the post.  We’ll kick it off at about 6:30 for anyone that wants to talk smack pregame style, and keep it going until our live feeds are done.

It’s a big day folks.  Let’s get it on!