School Sports

LEBANON — The Mulberry Grove High School softball team lost to Calhoun in the sectional championship game on Monday, 5-4.

The Lady Aces scored one run in the bottom of the seventh inning, and had two runners on when the final out was recorded.

For Calhoun, it was the school's first-ever sectional title.

A full story from the game will appear on Page 1B of the June 2 edition of The Leader-Union, and a photo gallery from both sectional tournament games will be posted on www.leaderunion.com later in the week.

Vandalia senior Daniel Bell and junior Quenten Austin did not make it out of the preliminaries at the IHSA state meet on Thursday.

Both, however, did finish in a higher place than they were seeded in each event.

Bell, who was seeded last in the 800-meter run, finished in 26th place (of 42) in a time of 2:04.22. In the discus throw, Bell was seeded 37th and placed 34th, with a throw of 115 feet, 3 inches.

NEWTON – It’s a good thing there are do-overs in life or Daniel Bell might not be going to the state meet to throw discus on Thursday.

“And in first place, Danielle … (pause) … Daniel Bell of Vandalia,” echoed from the public address system at Newton after the discus throw at last Friday’s sectional meet.

Bell, who at the time, with arms raised, was basking in the moment of hearing his name called as a state qualifier for the first time, cracked a smile when his name was botched.

MULBERRY GROVE – It wasn’t the desired approach, but the nine-person Mulberry Grove High School softball team scored in all but one inning to slowly pile up a lead against Ramsey to win its fourth regional championship in six years on Saturday.

Coach John Barnes said he wanted his team to score a lot of runs early in the game, but the Lady Aces instead used consistent hitting and stellar pitching through the middle innings to wear down Ramsey during a 9-4 victory.