Show-Me State Games begin

When Chelsea Whaley is preparing for a judo match, she’s only thinking, “Throw ‘em and kill ‘em.”

On Saturday, judo fighters came from across Missouri to compete in the Show-Me State Games.

Of the 50 fighters who showed up, only three were female. But gender, as it turned out, was not a determining factor in the day’s competition.

“(Men) underestimate you a lot,” Chelsea said. “Then you go out and beat them, and that’s why they feel so bad. Then you go out and beat them again.”

Chelsea, 13, weighs 108 pounds and is a student of the Kansas City Welcome Mat Judo Club. She beat Chance Proctor of the Jefferson City Judo Club in the finals, receiving a gold medal in the class.

Also fighting in a higher weight class, Chelsea was able to win a silver medal after a long, rough fight, skinning knees and bloodying noses. By picking up and dropping her competitor, who was 28 pounds heavier, onto his back, Chelsea scored an immediate victory.

“She’s tough,” said Collin Cook from Mid-Missouri Judo based in Columbia, dabbing a towel at his bloody nose. “I thought she was gonna go down pretty quick, because she weighed less and she was a little smaller. She proved me wrong.”

Judo is a Japanese martial arts tradition where fighters use leverage and balance to wrestle and throw their opponent into submission. In America, judo is a male-dominated sport, said Kamiar Tarighi, a 25-year judo practitioner and coach of the St. Louis University judo team.

“The reason judo is very attractive is because even a small person can beat a bigger one,” he said. “That’s the beauty of judo, when you see a smaller person can win.”

Fighting divisions are determined according to ability, age and weight. Points are scored based on various maneuvers, with hold downs and chokeholds lasting 25 seconds, and tossing onto the back or tapping out qualifying as immediate wins.

Tess Lovig, who is 8 years old and 3 feet 6 inches tall, defeated Evan Winder by choking him in a headlock while holding his body down with her own. She received the gold medal, and Evan walked from the wrestling mat crying.

The third female competitor, Ana Feygina, traveled to Columbia from St. Louis University where she has studied judo under Tarighi for six months. A Russian immigrant

and resident in the U.S. for five years, Feygina studies judo partly out of a sense of patriotism. Russian President Vladimir Putin practices judo.

“If the president is good enough, I can do it too,” said Feygina.

In past competitions, Tarighi said, Feygina has consistently won gold medals. At the Show-Me State Games, however, Feygina was not as successful. since there were no competitors in her weight group, she had the option of fighting at a much lighter level or a slightly heavier one. Wanting a challenge, Feygina chose the latter. The result was a fourth-place finish out of four competitors. It mattered little to Feygina as she finished her day with a smile.

— Justin Hienz

Wrestling

The opponents were lining up on the black and gold mat for a chance to take on Missouri wrestler Maxwell Askren, brother of national champion Ben Askren, when he took a break from his officiating duties. It did not matter that they were half his height and age.

Askren, a redshirt freshman, along with his Missouri teammates, volunteered their time at Saturday’s Missouri Show-Me State games and got to work with some of the state’s youngest wrestlers.

“It’s a blast,” Askren said. “Reffing little kids is awesome. Especially the little tykes who just roll around. They don’t know if they are on top or bottom, they just go.”

Missouri coach Brian Smith served as one of this year’s coordinators and asked his team to help out. Some members of the team competed in the games, others served as scorekeepers and referees.

Askren and the other volunteers are not the only ones to get something out of the experience. 11-year-old wrestler J’den Cox said he enjoys participating in the games, and he also likes spending time with the Missouri wrestlers.

“It is kind of cool because some of them you know, so you get to hang out with them,” Cox said. “You don’t often get a chance to see them a lot.”

“We do it as a community service for the state,” Smith said.

About 250 wrestlers competed at Hearnes Center for medals in six different age divisions, ranging from 8-and-under to 30-and-over. The bouts concluded late Saturday afternoon.

— Alycia Lewis

Soccer

After missing the end of the spring soccer season because of a broken collar bone and wrist, 8 year-old Brett Bales is back doing what he loves: scoring.

Bales returned from his stint on the bench for his team’s first apperance in the Show-Me State Games. Bales and the rest of the MAC United team took on Moberly’s Storm Elite on Friday afternoon under a turbulent, drizzling sky at Cosmopolitan Park. Clad in blue, both teams took to the pitch to kick off the weekend of games.

Shortly after the start of the second half, Bales kicked in the first go al of the game off an assist from teammate Matias Aura. Unfortunetly for MAC United, Storm Elite followed up with 4 unanswered goals. But MAC United went on to play in two games Saturday in which Brett scored 2 more goals.

Bales had to stop playing soccer in May after losing control of his neighbor’s red electric scooter while speeding downhill in his Columbia neighborhood. His broken bones caused him to miss the last three games of the season, a tournament in Jefferson City and Cougar Summer Camp. MAC United coach Chris Viers said that Brett’s absence from the competetive team was not all bad.

“I think it was actually good for us because we had to learn to score goals other ways,” Viers said.

Brett played his first two seasons in a recreational league before joining MAC United, which will start its fourth season this fall.

Viers, who is the director of soccer and events at the Missouri Athletic Center and coaches a number of the teams competing at the Games, said it was Bales’ eagerness to work outside of regular practice that led him to be one of the team’s strongest players.

“He really likes the game,” Viers said. “He is constantly working on his skills.”

Because the team only had one sub, all of players changed positions throughout the game. Brett said that his favorite spot on the field was forward, “cause I can score.”

MAC United will face Columbia’s Wild Things today in their last game of the tournament.

“He is our good shooter,” teammate Ben Goodfellow said following Friday’s game.

Brett said that missing the end of the season was tough.

“It stinks,” Brett said. “I love soccer and I didn’t get to play.”

— Ryan Gladstone

Kickball

Peering out from behind her sunglasses, Sheryl Perkins keeps her eyes glued on the Orange Field at Cosmopolitan Park. She smiles as she watches her daughter, 23-year-old Meredith Perkins, and soon to be son-in-law, Jeremy Craig, cheering one another on in their second kickball game of the day.

The two are members of a Columbia kickball team, the Stingers, competing in this year’s Show-Me State Games.

“I’m trying to spend as much time as I can with her this year,” Perkins said.

Between attending summer kickball tournaments in Jefferson City to cheer on her daughter and helping as much as she can with the wedding plans, the two have grown a lot closer. Perkins said she really appreciates the time she can spend with her daughter.

And she has a lot of other people to cheer from the sidelines. Along with her daughter and her daughter’s fiancee, Perkins also cheered her daughter’s best friend and maid of honor, Stefanie Proctor. The two girls are the same age and have been best friends since kindergarten. They grew up playing softball together.

Perkins and her fiancee plan to wed this November and say they will be back next year to compete in kickball at the Show-Me State Games.

“If you can play sports together, you can have a good marriage,” her mother said. “Marriage is like a sport and you have to practice.”

Stingers Kickball Coach Jonah Ganaway said the couple plays well together.

“They’re wonderful; the ideal couple,” Ganaway said. “They joke and have fun and play great together.”

Ganaway said most of the people on his team are couples and they enjoy playing together.

“They’re all really competitive athletes,” he said.

Perkins said most of the Stingers have some type of athletic background, like her daughter who played softball through college at Hannibal-LaGrange in Hannibal, MO., and just recently took up kickball with her fiancee and best friend. “It’s just so much fun because it’s like a kids game that adults can play now,” her daughter said.

Last year was the first time kickball became part of the Show-Me State Games. There were four teams that competed and this year, and the number of teams has doubled. The tournament goes until today’s championship game, scheduled for 12:20 at the Rainbow Softball Field at Cosmo Park.

— Megan Ham

Ultimate Frisbee

Team Kooth wears hot-pink.

On one end of the field, the thrower holds the Frisbee up On the other end, a hand waves and signals the go-ahead, the Frisbee is hurled down the field and the game begins. The Show-Me State Games Ultimate Frisbee Tournament reunited a group of high school juniors and seniors from across the state for the second time Saturday at Hinkson Creek Fields.

The team was amassed on accident at the annual state meeting of the Missouri Association Student Council on the William Woods campus in Fulton from June 12-18. When they weren’t concentrating on ways to improve their school’s government, 14 students stole a camp counselor’s Frisbee and began throwing it around.

“We weren’t working on leadership as much as Frisbee,” 16-year-old Dominic Box of Joplin said.

After a hard day of Ultimate at the camp, the team sat down for dinner and someone loudly burped. A comment was uttered from an Ultimate player’s lack of couth, leading to the team name.

Rui Xu, a 17-year-old from Rolla, was the only player familiar with the rules of the sport, many which are borrowed from soccer, football and basketball. Those playing the game in Fulton were so overwhelmed by the amount of fun they had, they didn’t want it to end, vowing to keep Kooth alive by playing in the Show-Me State Games.

“It’s really basic and fun, anyone can play,” Liz Harris, 17, of Farmington said.

When it came to participating in the games more than a month later, only eight original Kooth players could make it. Six boys and two girls arrived Saturday morning and signed on two other players who had registered individually and were looking for a team, providing Kooth with two extra subs.

Kooth had practiced only the week at the camp, but they came to Columbia equipped with a secret weapon, a play called “Totalis,” Latin for “paid in full.”

“It’s (totalis) where we just send someone out to go long, really long, and we just bomb it,” Jon Trueblood, 18, of Crestwood said.

Totalis was used for the win in the team’s first game of the Show-Me tournament against Jefferson City’s Cleveland Steamers.

Team Kooth plans on continuing its friendship and playing before the beginning of the school year. A tournament in Creve Coeur in early August will bring the team together again for more fun.

The final rounds of the Show-Me tournament wrap up today.

— Colin Webb

Baseball

The BoCoMo Bengals knew they had to have a quick sixth inning because the Johnny Mac Thunders were up by eight, and if the Thunders managed to score two more runs, then the game was over.

The Bengals also knew if they didn’t tie the game before the end of the inning, the game would be called because of time.

Despite these obstacles, the players sprang up from the bench, grabbed their gloves and ran out on the field excited to give it one more try. Moments before, when the team did not know if the game would be called because of time, the players were sitting on the bench asking each other in hushed tones, “The game’s over?”

The Bengals, made up of seven 8-year-olds and five 9-year-olds, were trailing the Thunders 15-7 after the fifth inning. According to the Show-Me State Games rules, if a team falls behind more then 10 runs after the fifth inning then the game is over. Also, there is a time-limit rule, which is what ended the game for the Bengals.

Relief pitcher Jack McNellis and catcher Jake Floyd warmed up quickly, and the coach yelled at Floyd to keep his glove down and “Block everything coming at you.”

Jack McNellis threw strikes throughout the inning and shortstop Wyatt Sherman threw out two runners. Their opponent only scored one run during the innning, and the Bengals ran back to the stands excitedly telling each other they just needed nine runs to tie and stay in the game.

After the nerve-wracking inning, the Bengals came up to bat and got three consecutive outs, ending the game.

But the players were just proud to make it to the extra inning.

“It was a good experience to play such a good team because we learned a lot from them about what we need to do better on,” Ripley said. “It was the best team in the Show-Me Leagues.”

Most of the members of the team have been playing together since tee ball. The team decided to participate in the Show-Me State Games as a conclusion to its season.

“We’ve been practicing for two hours every night for two weeks unless it was really hot or raining,” Floyd said.

— Maggie Creamer

Powerlifting

Powerlifting just might have saved Frank McKinney’s life.

McKinney, 71, was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2002 after having competed in his first powerlifting event in 6 years.

“I trained to come back in ’02, and I couldn’t imagine why my strength started going down until after the competition, when I had an examination and found out I had colon cancer,” McKinney said.

After having the cancer operated on in May of 2003, he was back to working out by the end of the year.

“If I hadn’t been in good shape when this all happened, I’d probably be laying six feet under,” he said.

While these days exercise has come to mean something more to McKinney, when he started out he had somewhat more superficial goals.

“As a young man I always worked out, probably for vanity, but as I grew older I kept exercising just to stay in shape,” he said.

He stayed in good physical condition for his entire life but didn’t get into powerlifting until after his retirement. McKinney moved to Camdenton shortly after retiring in 1987 and found a fitness club in the area. After spending a few months working out there, he was asked to join the staff as a trainer.

As a trainer, McKinney spent a lot of time working with athletes who went on to compete in the Show-Me State Games. He had not considered competing until he was challenged by one of these athletes to enter the powerlifting competition at the 1990 games. He won a gold medal in those games, and with his confidence bolstered, decided to continue competing.

In 1996, McKinney opted to quit competing for a few years. After his brief return in 2002, followed by his battle with cancer, he was ready to start training again within a few months. However, he soon encountered yet another obstacle when, in the winter of 2003, he blew out his rotator cuff.

“I felt something way down in the tricep, but when they put me through an MRI, they found that the rotary cuff was completely pulled away from the bone,” he said.

McKinney refused to be stopped. After a successful surgery, he was ready to return to the gym. He started off slowly, lifting only the bar, but he gradually added weight. By 2005, he was back to the Show-Me State Games where he received a gold medal in both the bench press and the dead lift.

In this year’s competition, he once again received a gold medal in both events. While he was able to bench press 215 pounds and dead lift 255 pounds, McKinney said he is still trying to return to his personal bests from 1996: a 235-pound bench press and a 335-pound dead lift.

— Kevin Garnett

Shooting

The echoes of shotgun and rifle blasts could be heard Saturday as competitors in the Show-Me State shooting games took aim and fired. Shooting in the fields and forest surrounding the Cedar Creek Rod and Gun Club, marksmen used a variety of weapons to test their skill.

Kevin Bockerstett, 15, along with two of his DeSmet High School classmates, trekked through along wooded trail, stopping at shooting platforms to fire their shotguns at bright, orange flying discs, also called birds.

“Pull,” Kevin yelled, signaling the release of a bird from a mechanical disc thrower. Following the bird with the end of his $2,300, 12-gauge Browning Cynerg shotgun as it flew high through the air, Kevin pulled the trigger, causing the disk to shatter into falling orange chips.

Shooting enthusiasts took part in other competitions as well. Cody Sunby, 18, from southwest Missouri, fired a muzzle-loader shotgun in skeet shooting. After packing black gunpowder, lead pellets and a variety of other substances into his gun, Sunby pulled the trigger, releasing a large plume of white smoke and a thunderous boom. The bird had little chance of escape.

“The reason we (use muzzle-loaded guns) is ‘cause everyone else does it the other way,” said Rod Gates, one of Sunby’s companions, referring to shell loaded shotguns. “They ain’t no fun.”

Using a muzzle-loader rifle, Kassi Meisenheimer, 12, and her grandfather Carl, 69, shot at paper targets. Carl said he enjoys teaching his granddaughter what he has been doing, shooting, all his life. Kassis enjoys the activity for similar reasons.

“It’s fun and not a lot of kids can do a sport with their grandpa,” she said.

— Justin Hienz

Bowling

A Columbia bowling dynasty is beginning. Newly engaged couple Alex Fadler, 19, and Chacey McCray, 21, both have parents who bowl. Taking lanes 17 and 18 at Town and Country Lanes in the Show-Me State Games on Saturday, the couple often bowled side by side during their three-game match.

“She’s been bowling for a lot less time than me but is getting good so fast,” Fadler said.

Fadler began bowling when his parents brought him to the alley when he was 7. Just 7 years later, he began a relationship with McCray through Red Top Christian Church in Hallsville and introduced her to the sport.

“Our parents were friends and I used to beat him up!” McCray said.

The couple has been traveling to Kansas City, Joplin and St. Louis for bowling competitions this year with parents and siblings in tow.

Fadler hopes to go professional with his bowling carreer but is currently studying electrical engineering at Linn State Technical College.

“It’s just too expensive right now, but as soon as I can afford to enter the bigger tournaments, I will,” Fadler said.

Fadler’s parents support his decision to pursue bowling as long as he can afford it.

“I want him to enter a local pro tournament to get his feet wet,” Fadler’s mother Penny said.

Like many sports, the pay at the professional level is exciting for Fadler to consider, but he says it wouldn’t change his relationship with McCray, who would more than likely be right there with him, if not competing herself.

The couple is planning on marrying in the winter of 2007 when McCray is expecting to graduate.

McCray did not bowl the highest score Saturday but still won because she improved the most on her average.

Fadler took the silver in the Show-Me State Games in 2005 and was fourth Saturday. Both will be competing in the teenage boys’ and girls’ doubles today.

— Colin Webb