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Dexter, Missouri – It was senior night for the boys baseball team. Austin Aldridge picked up the win for the Bearcats as they defeated the Sikeston Bulldogs 6 – 3.
“It’s always good to get a win against Sikeston,” stated head baseball coach Brian Becker. “Especially with it being so close to the district seed meeting. I am so proud of all my players. They beat a very good team today.”
Dexter rallied in the 3rd inning to propel to a 4- 1 lead. Another run in the fourth and one in the fifth secured their victory over the dogs.
“Austin Aldridge got us going with a base hit to lead off the 3rd inning,” commented head baseball coach Brian Becker. “Any time we can get production from the lower part of the line-up it’s a bonus. D.J. came up with a huge hit to put us ahead. Once we got up, we never looked back.”
Sikeston’s first run came in the second inning and they were able to score only two more runs in the fifth inning. Gavin O’Brien took the loss.
D.J. Dowdy, Austin Aldridge, and Dalton Manuel each tallied two hits.
Five seniors are graduating from the Bearcats team this year. “I am proud of all of them. They all contributed to our win tonight,” continued Becker. “It’s been a rough year as far as injuries. Until recently there hasn’t been a game this season that the seniors have been healthy enough to be on the field all together at the same time. This is a great group of boys and they will be greatly missed.”
Final Score Sikeston 3 Dexter 6
Sikeston 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 - 3
Dexter 1 0 3 1 1 0 x - 6
WP-Austin Aldridge. LP-Gavin O'Brien. Multiple hitters: (Sikeston) Doug Still 2-3, Blake Wolferding 2-3; (Dexter) D.J. Dowdy 2-3, Dalton Manuel 2-4, Austin Aldridge. 2B - (S) Wolferding, Colton Hampton.
Dexter plays Portageville at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, afternoon, weather permitting in Portageville.
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Farmington, Missouri – The Class 3, District 1 Golf Tournament was held at Crown Pointe Golf Club in Farmington, Missouri on Monday. Four Dexter Bearcats finished in the Top 25.
Ethan Stevens finished 8th with a round of 12-over-par 84. Austin Chesser finished 18th at 16-over-par 88. Myles Urhahn finished 23rd with a 17-over-par 89 and Drake Mitchell finished 24th with 18-over-par 90.
Congratulations to the Dexter Bearcats as they qualified for the State Sectional Tournament that will be held on Monday, May 12th at Quail Creek Golf Club in St. Louis, Missouri.
Dexter finished forth in the team competition with a score of 351. Only the top two teams qualified for the state sectional team competition. They were Notre Dame and Farmington.
Photo provided by Ann Marie Mitchell. Thank you!
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Farmington, Missouri – The Class 3, District 1 Golf Tournament was held at Crown Pointe Golf Club in Farmington, Missouri on Monday. Four Dexter Bearcats finished in the Top 25.
Ethan Stevens finished 8th with a round of 12-over-par 84. Austin Chesser finished 18th at 16-over-par 88. Myles Urhahn finished 23rd with a 17-over-par 89 and Drake Mitchell finished 24th with 18-over-par 90.
Congratulations to the Dexter Bearcats as they qualified for the State Sectional Tournament that will be held on Monday, May 12th at Quail Creek Golf Club in St. Louis, Missouri.
Dexter finished forth in the team competition with a score of 351. Only the top two teams qualified for the state sectional team competition. They were Notre Dame and Farmington.
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Dexter, Missouri – The Dexter baseball team could be named the come-back kids as they have come from behind in several games this year to win. On Wednesday, Cape Central led in the first four innings scoring 4 runs.
It was Bearcat senior, Cody Neldon, who went to the plate with the winning run on third base. “Cape’s coach went out to the mound to talk to his pitcer,” commented head baseball coach Brian Becker. “That's when I had the opportunity to talk to Cody and said ‘squeeze or drive the ball?’ He said ‘drive the ball’ and I said ‘all right drive it’. I left it in his hands and he did a great job keeping his end of the bargain.”
Cody Neldon hit a two-run homer putting Dexter on top 7-5! Way to go Cody! He just recently came off the injury list due to a knee injury and has only played a couple of games this season. Over the weekend he was voted as the SEMO Conference Comeback Player of the Year.
“Having him healthy makes our team a different animal,” commented Becker. “He patrols centerfield as well as anybody in the state even after two surgeries. He gets a great read off the ball and goes and makes plays. I would have loved to have had him these past two seasons for a full season. Unfortunately, that’s the way it is with high school sports. You have to deal with injuries and adversities and I couldn’t be more happy for the kid to comeback and do what he has done.”
The Bearcats later added another run in the sixth. Jason Mattison #7 completed the game and earned the win. He allowed only seven hits and struck out six.
“We started out slow at the plate,” said Becker. “Their pitcher did a good job of mixing his pitches up and keeping us off-balance, but the later in the game we got the better we looked at home plate. That’s a positive sign and I am proud of my guys for coming back and winning the ballgame.”
Final Score Dexter 8 Cape Central 5
Cape Central 1 0 0 3 0 1 0 - 5
Dexter 0 0 0 0 4 4 x - 8
WP-Jason Mattison. LP-Josh Morse. HR - Cody Neldon (D). 2B - Colton Averett (D), Matt Chism (C), Trevor Propst (C). Multiple hits - Dexter: Averett 2-4.
Shown in the photo above is Cody Nelson hitting his two-run homer!
As leader of the Missouri Department of Conservation's turkey management program, Isabelle pays close attention to indicators of how the state's wild-turkey population is doing. The size of the spring turkey harvest is one such indicator.
Hunters checked 22,348 turkeys during the first week of the spring season. That is a 4-percent increase from 2013 and is 7 percent above the previous five-year average. It also is the largest first-week harvest since 2007. Isabelle is pleased with the early uptick in turkey harvest, but he also is a bit cautious about drawing conclusions just yet.
"It's encouraging to see that Missouri's spring turkey hunters got off to a good start," says Isabelle. "Weather conditions during much of the first week were great for hunting, with quite a few really nice mornings. But with only one week of the season and just one weekend, when hunters focus a lot of the effort, it's difficult to tell how much of the increase might be due to gains in turkey numbers versus weather conditions during that relatively short time period. The season total will paint a more accurate picture."
Top turkey-harvest counties in the first week of the season were Franklin with 504 birds checked, Texas with 451 and Callaway with 394. The season continues through May 11.Six of eight first-week regional harvest totals were up compared to last year. Those were Central 3,503 (up 6 percent), Kansas City 2,559 (up 4 percent), Northeast 2,725 (up 5 percent), Northwest 2,537 (up 12 percent), Ozark 2,990 (up 6 percent), and Southwest 3,774 (up 13 percent). Opening-week harvests were down in the Southeast 2,434 (down 8 percent) and St. Louis 1,831 (down 9 percent) regions.
The Conservation Department recorded three firearms-related turkey hunting incidents during the first week of the season. Two involved hunters who mistook other hunters for turkeys. The victim in the third incident was between the shooter and a turkey and was caught in the line of fire. The shooters' ages ranged from 42 to 64. In two of the incidents, the shooter and victim were hunting together but had separated.
Isabelle said these three incidents illustrate some of the most frequent causes of firearms related turkey-hunting injuries.
"We could drastically reduce the number of incidents if hunters would always positively identify their target, if they made sure of what was between and beyond them and their target, and if they would stay together when hunting in pairs or at least always know where their hunting partner was going to be," he said.
Shown in the photo is Bobby Shipman with his 23.6 pound gobbler with 9 1/2 inch beard and 1 inch spurs.
