Poplar Bluff

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. — Chris Barker recovered a pair of fumbles within a span of 70 seconds as the Poplar Bluff football team took advantage of miscues by Riverview Gardens for a 34-14 season-opening win Friday night. Barker set up a 10-yard touchdown run by Brett Barousse to give the Mules (1-0) the lead for good with 8:28 left in the first half...

As Adrienne Stucker and nearly every softball pitcher can attest, there have been some close calls in the circle. From the moment a fastball leaves the hands of a pitcher and comes off the bat, there's a lingering fear among the game's hurlers that a 60-mph heater can come screaming back as a 100-mph line drive. These sharp line drives, or comebackers, happen all too often in fastpitch softball and leave pitchers standing 43 feet from the batter with less than a second to react...

Two of the athletes in attendance Saturday night were no strangers to the Semoball Awards. Kennett's Hadley Hilburn and Poplar Bluff's Morgan McAtee became the first-ever four-time Semoball Awards finalists. Both athletes were recognized during the event's fourth installment, held at Southeast Missouri Sate's River Campus in Cape Girardeau...

From across Southeast Missouri, people descended upon Cape Girardeau on Saturday night for the region's premier sports awards show. More than 150 student-athletes from 57 area high schools were on hand for the Fourth Annual Semoball Awards presented by SoutheastHEALTH at the Donald C. Bedell Performance Hall on Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus, as awards were handed out in 25 sports categories...

With just days until the 2017 Semoball Awards, podcast host and Southeast Missourian/Semoball.com sports editor Josh Mlot (@semoballJosh) sits down with some friends of the podcast to talk about the annual event...

Jim Lohr, who coached football at his alma maters Poplar Bluff High School and Southeast Missouri State University, died Saturday. A member of the Poplar Bluff Sports Hall of Fame, Lohr was an all-state tackle for the Mules in 1951 before helping Southeast to an undefeated season four years later as a player. He went on to coach at both schools...

June has always been a busy month for Kirk Chronister. It's time to bale hay and tend cattle on his 130-acre ranch in northern Butler County. This, however, is the first June in some time in which Chronister isn't also in a gym coaching. It was at the beginning of the month when his retirement started to sink in...

Ten months after the high school sports calendar began, we now know all 148 of our on-field nominees for the 2017 Semoball Awards. On Friday, the spring sport finalists for baseball, softball, girls soccer, boys and girls track and field, golf and boys tennis for the event -- to be held Saturday, July 8, at the Bedell Performance Center at Southeast Missouri State's River Campus -- were announced as part of a live selection show on SEMO ESPN Radio...