Weather knocked back some tournament games through the early part of the week, but the rain couldn’t stop all of the action.

Anna and Edgewood each opened tournament play with walk-off thrillers on Thursday. Roman Smith drove in the winning run for Edgewood in a 6-5 win versus Kins in Division II. Anna’s Carson Pleiman scored the game-winning run on a passed ball to advance 4-3 versus Miami East in D-V action.

Butler cruised past Trotwood 29-0 in D-III on Wednesday. Hunter Richardson struck out nine and drove in three to lead the way.

In D-IV, No. 11 Springfield Shawnee upset No. 2 Bethel 4-1 on Wednesday. Braves senior Joey Ross struck out five and pitched out of a bases-loaded jam to earn the win and freshman Cayden Rodgers tossed three innings of scoreless relief.

In D-VII action, Louis Magoto threw a five-inning no-hitter with 11 strikeouts to help Minster advance.

This week the GWOC has a handful of familiar matchups lined up Tuesday. In D-I, top-seed Springboro will open tournament play versus Springfield, Fairmont and Wayne will face off, as well as Beavercreek and Centerville. In D-II Northmont will meet Miamisburg.

Lakota West, which won 20 games for the first time since 2017, will meet Middletown on Tuesday.

If the weather holds, Thursday and Friday will have a huge slate of district final games.

Softball Tournament

D-I: Fairmont, Centerville and Lebanon became district champions on Thursday, while Springboro finished as district runner-up.

Jaylin Turner tossed a no-hitter and Hannah Perdue and Carlee Netherton each homered to help Fairmont advance. The Firebirds will face Oak Hills on Wednesday.

Centerville defeated Lakota West 8-1 with Natalie Carr going 3-for-3 with a home run to lead the way. The Elks advance to face Mason on Wednesday.

Sophia Sheidler struck out 15, passing 500 career strikeouts, and drove in a run to lead Lebanon in a 2-1 win versus Lakota East. The Warriors will take on Marysville on Wednesday.

D-II: Northmont, Troy and Edgewood each opened tournament play with wins.

D-III: Audrey Bean doubled, homered and drove in three to help Piqua upset Tippecanoe on Wednesday.

D-IV: Ivee Rastatter hit her 16th home run on the season in an 18-2 win versus Brookville on Tuesday.

D-V: Northwestern, Springfield Shawnee and Miami East each advanced to regionals on Thursday. Anna was eliminated Monday but senior Liz Staudter finished her career in style, hitting a home run in her final at-bat.

D-VI: Emma Will blasted a pair of homers to help Fort Recovery get by Tri-County North 10-9 on Wednesday.

D-VII: Covington cruised into the Regional tournament with a 25-1 win versus Felicity-Franklin on Thursday. Jayda McClure tallied a double, two triples and a home run in the win.

Coaching News

Minster’s Larry Topp announced his retirement at the end of the track season after 40 years as the school’s track & field and cross country coach. Topp was voted into the Ohio Association of Track and Cross Country Coaches Hall of Fame in 2024. Previously Topp was named the OATCCC coach of the year and received honors as the National Federation of State High School Associations state coach of the year and national track & field coach of the year in 2021 after guiding the Minster boys track team to a Division III state championship.

Fort Loramie’s Brad Turner is also stepping away from coaching the softball team after 18 years. With 291 career victories, Turner leaves as the winningest coach in school history.

A few other coaches passed milestones last week. In softball, Northmont’s Kris Mangen recorded her 600th career victory on Wednesday and Lebanon’s Brian Kindell reached the 500 career win mark on Monday. Bellbrook baseball coach Jon Venter celebrated his 100th career victory last Friday.

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In their very first season as varsity baseball program, the Billings Central Rams have climbed the mountain and earned a state title to bring back to the Magic City.

Central narrowly defeated Belgrade 4-3 in the championship game on Saturday evening to wrap up the 2025 all-class state baseball tournament in Hamilton.

The Rams scored all four of their runs in the bottom of the first inning, which ended up being just enough to get the job done. Belgrade still trailed 4-0 entering their final at-bat in the seventh inning. The Panthers were able to scratch across three runs in the frame but the potential tying run was thrown out at third base to end the game.

Oliver Prill and Howie Martin combined on the mound to keep the Belgrade bats at bay. Prill threw four no-hit innings with three walks allowed, while Martin finished the job by tossing the final three innings and limiting the Panthers to three runs on two hits with four walks and three strikeouts.

Billings Central, the No. 3 seed from the East, wraps up a magical weekend of action which included an extra innings walk off homer by Oliver Prill on Friday, defeating their crosstown rivals Billings West.

“Those last two (games) were some of the funnest games I’ve played in my life, just coming down to the end,” said Martin. “And it’s a credit to our culture too. It’s our ninth state championship as a school this year and our culture’s second to none. And that’s a credit to our leadership as well.”

In every game they played at the tournament, Central was the underdog according to seeds: Defeating Columbia Falls (the No. 1 seed from the North) 6-2, knocking off Billings West (the No. 2 seed from the East) 4-2 in eight innings and finally clawing past Belgrade (the No. 1 seed from the Central division) 4-3.

“I actually have a Bible verse on my cleats, it says Proverbs 27:17, and it’s ‘as iron sharpens iron, so I shall sharpen you.’ And I think that’s just a big deal,” said sophomore Matteo Harris who was the winning pitcher of record against Columbia Falls and also drove in three runs in that opening game. “I mean, we played in arguably the toughest division, right? I mean, we got West and Skyview. They both came out here to state with us and we ended up beating West. That was kind of the iron sharpens iron, right? I mean, we played them all season lost to both of ’em twice. I think that’s a big deal because it just really brought us together as a team.”

The future for the Central Rams is as bright as they come, with zero seniors on this year’s roster.

“Having all juniors, sophomores, and great freshmen… great freshmen.” said Oliver Prill. “We can all play bottom, top to bottom of the lineup, bench two, everyone can play. And it’s just exciting to see what we can do next year and the years to come.”

Billings Central is now the third program to win a high school baseball state title since the sport just recently become a sanctioned activity. The Rams join the 2023 Polson Pirates and 2024 Florence Falcons as the first programs to bring home a state championship from the diamond.

WWE jumped back in to prime time last night (May 24) with their third installment of the relaunched Saturday Night’s Main Event, emanating from the Yuengling Center in Tampa, Florida. You can get the full results at our live blog here.

Let’s jump into it.

Ruining Wrestling

The main event title match between Jey Uso & Logan Paul, serving as Paul’s guaranteed yearly world title match, ended up playing into the larger story in WWE. That would be the John Cena story.

Cena’s earlier match with R-Truth was short and to the point. Ron Killing’s mission was to remind John who he really was. He felt short of his goal and Cena renewed his vows with heeldom by kicking Truth in the nuts to get the win.

He later ran into Jey Uso backstage and told him that a YouTuber like Logan Paul would really “ruin wrestling,” which happens to be The Last Real Champ’s mission statement.

That brings us to the world title main event between Uso & Paul. It was a solid title bout. I know lots of words are made on social media and wrestling corners of the web about how Uso can’t wrestle, which makes for a bad champion. My response to that would be to not ignore your ears. These crowds do not care. I was inside Allegiant Stadium when Jey Uso won the title. There was yeeting as far as the eye can see, with zero concerns how many thumbs downs Uso videos on YouTube have gotten.

Logan Paul, as much as the man outside the sport grates on me, continues to show flashes in the ring. And they did what they needed do, with the crowd into it (even got a “This is Awesome” chant, but I will say those are very easily handed out nowadays), until we got to the important part.

That would be John Cena pulling the referee out of the ring when Uso had secured the win. He really is all about this ruining wrestling thing. That led to the return of the American Nightmare Cody Rhodes to save the day, neutralize Cena, and allow the champ to get the win over Paul.

Immediately after, Cody made the challenge for a tag team match at Money in the Bank – John Cena & Logan Paul vs. Cody Rhodes & Jey Uso. (Thank all the Gods Travis Scott’s name was not muttered.) While Cena & Paul are going to make an interesting team, and I look forward them exploring that dynamic, Cody & Jey were tag team champions. Rhodes saving the day was as much about saving his friend as it was stopping his enemy.

Given I’m not ready to see Logan Paul win the title (though have resigned that one of these years, he will), I’m perfectly fine with this match being used to set up Money in the Bank in two weeks. It’s also smart to try to get folks who may be tuning in out of curiosity free on NBC to consider checking out the PLE in a couple weeks.

The Third Man

The opener to this event was the high profile tag match between the new duo of Seth Rollins & Bron Breakker against the more tenuous group of CM Punk & Sami Zayn.

The hot crowd helped this by the numbers tag match feel special. This degree of star power will do that. I did have the thought that Punk can still go when his number is called. Yeah, he sometimes looks like he’s 46 years old with those years of wear and tear, but when it’s time, he can still do it.

The true moment of the match was the somewhat shocking return of Bronson Reed to aid Seth & Bron.

I called this shocking for two reasons. 1) That ankle injury was gnarly, and I thought he’d be out much longer than he was. 2) Within the story, he has history with Rollins that you’d think would prevent an alliance. But they don’t call Seth the Architect for nothing, and right now, he’s Frank Lloyd Wright.

A little detail that I appreciated is that even though he took a Bronson crossbody through a barricade, Punk still tried to get his hands on Paul Heyman inside the ring. This is despite Heyman being surrounded by evil genius Seth and two big Brons. It’s a sign of true hatred for the man who betrayed him on the biggest stage.

It also allowed Reed to deliver a returning Tsunami to the Second City Saint (though no Wade on the call).

I love the addition to Reed to Seth’s team – a team that’s going to need a name soon. Bron & Bronson are a nasty duo. Good lucky to anyone who wants to step to these beefy dudes. Also, it’s much better than returning to Solo. Reed saw where the the trajectory of both teams were going and chose wisely.

A Definitive End (probably)

I give Drew McIntyre & Damian Priest a ton of credit. I was not into this feud when they booked it for WrestleMania. But they’ve brought a physicality to the feud that had me looking forward to this match the most.

They delivered with the physicality again tonight in their cage match. (Part of me wanted to old school blue cage to go with the old school theme, but I understand why they didn’t.) However, the ending left my surprised.

Damian Priest used a chair to the throat and then a con-chair-to to his nemesis before walking out of the cage and winning the match.

Between the two men, Drew is still the man with the higher ceiling. So I figured he’d win what I assumed was the blow off match. So it was surely surprising to see Damian not just beat McIntyre, but to do it with a period at the end of the sentence. This feud feels over and Priest definitively won it.

I don’t care he didn’t pin him. Leaving Drew for dead in the ring and leaving him behind is symbolic enough. And it saves McIntyre taking a pin while still losing convincingly. To give him a moment to save face, the Scotsman refused a stretcher and walked off on his own.

It’ll be interesting to see what’s next for these men. That type of win would put Damian back in the title picture, but I don’t imagine he’s facing John Cena. Drew will be fine after this, but could such a definitive beating be an impetus for a face turn? Is he getting time off since it sounds like he’s often working hurt? We’ll see what the coming weeks have in store.

And Still

Zelina Vega retained her United States championship despite interference from the Secret Her-vice.

It was a fine match that ended with a pretty cool Code Red from the top turnbuckle. Generally, I have no issue with Vega, but she’s a pretty bland babyface right now. That’s not a real big deal for someone holding a secondary title, but the contract with Chelsea is stark.

Green has been special when it comes to her characters and personalities dating back to when she was the Hot Mess Laurel Van Ness in TNA in 2017. (Damn, that was 8 years ago?) Chelsea’s work as her current iteration is always entertaining. Her type of cowardly heel is going to get hers like she did tonight, but it is noticeable that when someone so entertaining loses to someone who really needs to refreshen their character.

It feels like these new Saturday Night’s Main Event shows have been trying to find their place when it comes to importance. They have the vibe down. The retro set up has been fantastic and I really loved the no frills small entrance right into audiene they used here. It’s a true throwback – well outside Dude Wipes as a sponsor. No guy in the 1980s was using a product remotely similar to Dude Wipes during those Reagan years.

While they have the vibe down, the importance hasn’t been there. The first couple shows felt more like a glorified house shows. But tonight felt more like a very important Raw bordering on a B level PPV. The return of Bronson Reed was a great moment, moving that story forward. We had what felt like a definitive end to a feud, or at least the end of an important chapter, with Priest’s win inside the cage. And of course Rhode’s return to set up the Travis Scott free tag match at MITB.

The lone women’s match left something to be desired (it was the only match that wasn’t long enough to have a commercial break). But this was generally a fun two hours with more story implications than SNME past.

Grade: B+

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