I’m not sure about you guys, but I’m getting a sense of deja vú this week.
Last year at this time, I vividly remember sweltering heat and humidity blanketing the area before the first week of the IHSA football season. I’m not sure if I’ve ever sweated more in my life than I did outside of Rochester High School on my trip to talk with the Rockets before our first WMBD Game of the Week of the season.
Fast forward a year and sure enough, the “Wet Bulb Globe Temperature” are the weekly buzzwords around many high schools in the state. It’s quite the innovation to help measure when the heat/humidity is too strenuous for extended outdoor activities. Many thanks to the IHSA, athletic directors and everyone involved with outdoor sports for helping student-athletes stay cool and safe this week.
This is the first of my soon-to-be weekly columns for CSM and along with the high school sports season starting, it’s something I’m very excited for.
We have a great staff at Clutch Sports Media full of talented and aspiring sports media personalities that work for us on a part-time basis. They and myself, CSM’s only full-time employee, will be hard at work providing some of the most comprehensive coverage of high school sports in the area.
But inevitably, we won’t be able to fully cover everything that happens in the area, especially when you multiply over 30 schools by 8-9 sports per season. That’s where this column comes into play.
Here, we’ll cover as much ground as possible regarding anything noteworthy, impressive or interesting in Central Illinois high school sports that we did not write about the week before.
If you’re interested in seeing what we do write about each week, get your subscription to CSM Overtime today to get access to all of our written content. We have plenty of football previews at the moment but will have news, feature stories and our daily roundups for all sports, weekly pick ‘ems and power rankings for football, and more including updated standings for select sports, schedules/results and photo galleries.
If there’s anything that should be included in this weekly column, something that we missed, or any story ideas for us in general, feel free to reach out to us at clutchsportsil@gmail.com.
Let’s get right to it though and kick things off!
McCoy gets the call
Washington and ICC’s own Mason McCoy finally got his first MLB at-bat and hit for the San Diego Padres on Wednesday against the Minnesota Twins. The former Panther singled in the bottom of the sixth against Twins pitcher Cole Sands and has since become a consistent presence in the lineup at shortstop following an injury to Ha-Seong Kim. Through Monday night, McCoy is batting .385 (5-for-13) with three runs, an RBI, seven strikeouts and three walks. He made his major league debut in late August of 2023 with the Toronto Blue Jays but did not record a hit in his only plate appearance and mainly was a defensive replacement or pinch runner in six games.
College commitments
Normal Community offensive lineman Bradyn Mazanowski committed to Indiana State football last Tuesday just ahead of his senior season. Mazanowski earned all-Big 12 honorable mention honors last season and will again help set the tone for an Ironmen offense that returns lots of weapons. The Sycamores are coming off a 1-10 season but lost three of those games by one possession.
Normal U-High had two student-athletes from different sports commit to play at the next level within the last week. Football defensive end Cole Matejka will take his skill and smarts to the Ivy League’s Columbia University next year. He leads a Pioneers team that has a very high ceiling in 2024. On the baseball diamond, Max Wille committed to play at South Suburban College, a junior college located in South Holland, Illinois. The lefty outfielder was a key contributor for U-High, who went 27-10 in the spring.
Limestone track star Ranaisha Howard-Dunigan will be keeping one color of her athletic wardrobe constant and that’s blue, as she committed to the University of Illinois last Wednesday. She’s the reigning Mid-Illini Conference and Class 2A Metamora Sectional champion in the 100 and 200 meters and finished runner-up at the Class 2A State Finals in both events in the spring. Her respective season-best times of 11.84 and 24.27 were the seventh and sixth-fastest times in the state this past year.
Bloomington Central Catholic's Meg Uhren is a two-sport star for the Saints but will be taking her soccer talents to North Central College. The senior forward led BCC to a 16-8 record and a sectional championship berth last season with 25 goals and eight assists in 24 games. Uhren has been a consistent presence on the basketball court as well for the Saints.
Schreurs’ hot start
Washington boys golfer Gavin Schreurs wasn’t messing around on the course last week as the Panthers’ junior won twice in two strong fields. He kicked off the season by medaling at Edwardsville’s Tiger Den Invitational on Aug. 15 with a four-under-par 68 that included seven birdies. Four days later, he shot a career-low 67 to win the PND Invite with five birdies and no bogies.
Eureka, BCC volleyball honored by IHSA
The IHSA announced before the season that it would be announcing the top 50 girls’ volleyball and football teams in state history to commemorate the 50th season with a state series for each sport. The rankings are decided on by a committee of coaches, administrators, officials and media members from the past and present and the countdown will run periodically throughout the season.
Bloomington Central Catholic took the No. 46 spot thanks to its 10 regional titles, five sectional championships and 2015 state championship in Class 2A. The Saints have had a longstanding tradition of sending players on to Division I schools throughout its history, which can be read more about here.
On Monday, the Eureka Hornets earned the No. 44 spot in the all-time volleyball rankings. As a program, they’ve won 12 regional titles, six sectional crowns, and a Class 2A state championship in 2016 under Tracy Heffren, now the volleyball coach at ICC. Read the full release on Eureka from the IHSA here.
Week 0 scrimmages
Week 1 of the upcoming IHSA football season starts a few days later in the calendar year than the 2023 season did, but that didn’t mean that some schools couldn’t face off against a different team last Friday. The day marked the inaugural “Week 0” scrimmages that the IHSA passed a by-law on over the offseason, which allow teams to schedule an opponent to play, if they so choose. The scrimmages were limited to 48 total plays and 24 for each team. Notable area scrimmages included Peoria High vs. Washington, East Peoria vs. IVC and Farmington vs. Eureka. With hot temperatures forcing teams off the field a bit more for practice this week, those scrimmages added even more benefits and full-speed reps to teams that partook.
Stat of the day
Washington holds the longest active streak of winning regular seasons in football among area schools with 17. Rounding out the top five are Normal West (14), Farmington (12), Knoxville (11) and Dunlap (9). If the COVID-shortened season is excluded, Normal Community holds the longest active streak at 27 straight winning campaigns.
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