As our colleague Rob Lafary writes in this week’s Versailles Republican, fall sports practices are gearing up pretty quickly. July’s winding down, and August begins a week from today. The day after that, next Friday, girls’ high school golf teams will be able to start practicing, and other sports get the green light on Monday the 5th. Batesville golf’s first event will be that day at the Richmond Invitational, Jac-Cen-Del has a meet at Belterra on the 8th, the South Ripley girls will play at Butler Falls of Hanover on the 9th, and Milan plays there on the 15th. The Oldenburg Academy girls don’t tee things up until the 22nd, at Hillcrest in Batesville.
Other fall sports that’ll be playing sooner than you might think include cross country, boys’ and girls’ soccer, volleyball, boys’ tennis, and of course football. It’s almost “that” time of year.
It’s been wet in Georgia this week, with the Reds getting rained out and shuffled around a couple times when they were just trying to play some baseball in Atlanta. Rain took Tuesday’s game out, and resulted in the scheduling of a split double-header Wednesday. Good idea you might think– they got the scheduled Wednesday game in, the Reds pouring it on the Braves from the start, eventually winning 9-4. Outfielder Spencer Steer drove in 3 runs with 3 extra-base hits, and Elly De La Cruz had a huge day including belting another home run, and stealing his 50th and 51st bases of the season, now on track to total Cincy’s most since 1988. The Reds led early, from the first inning, on the way to dominating the slumping Braves. Cincy took that lead in the first inning, and didn’t look back. After that game, however, more showers moved in, washing out the other game, that had been moved from Tuesday. It’s now been put off ‘til September 9th. No action for Cincinnati today or tonight, but they’ll be farther south in Tampa tomorrow, to face the Rays for 3 games. Join us for that first one, the Reds broadcast on tap for 6:20 Friday, on the Sports Voice, 103.9 WRBI.
Lots of folks are going to be focused on the Olympics starting tomorrow and running the next couple weeks in Paris. Best of luck to all the Indiana competitors taking part. They’re headlined for a lot of folks around here by Michigan Wolverine wrestler Mason Parris, from Lawrenceburg. He was Terrance & Leon’s guest on our “Overtime” show a couple weeks back. So was past local track star Chris Giesting, and you can listen to both their interviews right now if you missed them, on the Overtime Podcasts page here at WRBIRadio dot com.
Also, Indiana State swim team member Chloe Farro, from Aruba, will represent her home nation, carrying its flag in the opening ceremony. She’s the first Sycamore chosen to carry their national flag since Bruce Baumgartner did it for the USA, way back in 1988.
Big pro hoops news, with ESPN reporting that the Pacers have re-signed forward James Johnson to a new 1-year deal, for $3.3 million. Johnson’s 37, bringing a veteran presence to an otherwise-young Pacers squad. 2024-25 will be his 16th year in the NBA, a 3rd with Indiana.