School Sports

Bids from contractors interested in building the all-weather track at Vandalia Community High School were "a bit higher than expected," but Superintendent Rich Well said he doesn’t believe that will slow down the main construction.

Well said the school hoped to have bids below $500,000, which is how much it received in grant money for the project, so the leftover dollars could be used to purchase pole vault and high jump equipment.

Ruffner, Austin participate at indoor meet

Vandalia sophomore Sierah Ruffner and junior Quenten Austin participated in the Class A Illinois Prep Top Times indoor meet last Friday.

Ruffner cleared 5 feet in the high jump to finish ninth.

Austin had a time of 8.49 seconds in the 55-meter hurdles to finish 17th. He was .07 of a second from making the finals.

They qualified for that meet through their marks at the Eastern Illinois University indoor meets.

Effingham changed its pitcher in the top of the sixth inning twice against Vandalia on Tuesday.

The first time, at the start of the sixth inning, led to four straight Vandalia base runners and four runs.

The second time, when the Lady Hearts brought back starter Shelby Koenig seven batters later, led to two quick outs, which kept the Lady Vandals on the short side of a 5-4 loss.

The Mulberry Grove High School softball team used 14 hits in defeating South Central, 9-2, on Monday.

Nearly all of the Lady Aces' batters got on base during the game, and the team scored most of its runs in the second half of the game.

For South Central, it was the first time the team had been outside on a field. For the past three weeks, the Lady Cougars had only been able to practice in the gym, which meant its hitters had not seen any live pitching.