That's most of the rest of the regular season.

Time to turn the ESPN+ back off.

The women are channeling this statement right now, with about half of the 3rd quarter gone.

USAT had an article last week about conference cancelling tourneys or teams that are locks for the NCAA tourney opting out of their conference tourney in order to cut down on the likelihood of getting covid. https://www.bobcatattack.com/messageboard/topic.asp?FromP...

Yep,most schools are playing mandated league games. Many are in quarantine right now. Any girls schools enter quarantine today they are out of the tournament. Boys are fast approaching that drop dead number as well.

From the OHSAA's January 14 board meeting release:

BASKETBALL: The regional and state tournament sites are all to be determined. It is not yet known which of the previously announced sites will permit events to be held at their venue, or which will allow spectators. The OHSAA intends to use neutral sites for the regional tournaments

Sorry. No games at the Convo. Looks like games will be played at the gym of the better-seeded team. https://www.ohsaa.org/Southeast-Sports-Tournaments/Basket...

Unlike the Rainbow Girls and State Legion, Dstrict and Regional Basketball will be back, that’s not in question. This year just not feasible. We will be back.

I agree, Alan, about the State Legion Baseball Tournament. It was big. I cut my teeth as a sports reporter during my Messenger internship reporting on this tournament in the summer of 1963. One of my fond keepsakes is a scorecard that lists Larry Hisle and Gene Tenace — two future major league standouts — in the same lineup. Tenace at 8 and Hisle at 1! Yes, Hisle was pitching, because this was a losers bracket game and all of the regular Portsmouth pitchers were not available because of either sore arms or tournament rules. I seem to remember that there might have been a rule limiting pitchers to a certain number of innings over a certain period of days, but I’m not totally sure about that. At any rate, Steubenville ousted Portsmouth 5-2, with Hisle giving up 6 BB and having 6 SO, Tenace went hitless with three at-bats. HIs times to the plate yielded a swinging strikeout, a BB, a liner to the first baseman, and fly out to right field. He did a little better agains the Cincinnati Reds in one World Series game that I remember! ;-). But, to get back on point, the number of fans and participants that this brought to town can’t be underestimated. It put Athens on the map during the summer for a number of high school and legion baseball fans. I also agree about Rainbow Girls. It was a big event over the summer months on campus and brought a lot of people to campus and I”m sure was helpful in recruiting female students. One summer I had a job taking the suitcases of arriving young ladies up to their rooms in Lindley Hall. That was a very pleasant job for a young lad — got to see a lot of good looking young ladies. Enjoyed seeing their chaperones a little less! ;-)

BTC: He wasn’t on that Legion team, or at least didn’t play in that game. I’m well aware of Oliver. He was on the same Portsmouth basketball team as Hisle and I remember seeing him play in the Convo in a tournament game. As I recall, they beat a very good Athens team in that game. He did have a stellar major league career. Amazing that all three were at Portsmouth High at the same time. That’s really something for Portsmouth fans to be proud of!

Thanks for the correction on Tenace. Unfortunately, I didn’t put a date on my scorebook entry, so I was going from my always fallible memory (as you never tire of pointing out). It couldn’t have been in 1965 because I was on the high-seas with the U.S. Navy at that time. It might have been 1964, though, rather than 1963, because I didn’t enter the service until October of 1964. Somewhere I have a scrape book of my stories on these games. That will tell me the exact date. (I didn’t enter dates for any of the six games I covered in that tournament. Not sure why I didn’t.)

BTC, thought you might be interested in the complete Portsmouth lineup and batting order for that game:
Gilliland, 5; M. Powell, 9; Hisle, 1; Tenace, 8; Ruley, 3; Bailey 7 (Vance sub in 4th); Novinger, 6; Parlin, 4; and Young 2.

Good stuff, thanks for sharing

I’ve always been amazed by the Portsmouth area putting out so many MLB players during that time. And, it wasn’t just Scioto County, in that general area along the Ohio River, that had players in the majors in that era. Dave Roberts, who had a nice pitching career, was born in Gallipolis before moving to Columbus in high school. Tommy Spencer, also from Gallipolis, had a significant minor league career although his time in the majors was short. And lastly, Billy Wilson, who was one of the top relievers for the Phillies for a couple of years, was from Pomeroy. Not the notoriety, as a group, as the Scioto County/Southshore crew, but still noteworthy.