Coles County Sports

03/11/2025

Lake Land College (26-7) is seeded No. 7 in the NJCAA women's national basketball tournament, which is set to start next week. The Lakers will face No. 10 Mid Michigan College at 6 p.m. on March 18 in Joplin, Missouri.

Three other Illinois schools advanced to the tourney – No. 4 Lincoln Land, No. 12 Illinois Central and No. 17 Rock Valley, which has a play-in game set for March 17.

01/16/2025

Daily Eastern News columnist Gabe Newman writes that Mahomet-Seymour has outgrown the Apollo Conference.

Mahomet-Seymour High School needs a new athletic conference. As the village of Mahomet continues to grow, so does the school system. A couple of years ago, the junior high school building had over 200 more students than it had been built for, forcing the school district to get creative to accommodat...

12/11/2024

The Charleston High School boys basketball team is putting up some mileage, yet, reports Daily Eastern News reporter Gabe Newman, the vibes are still positive.

The Charleston High School Boys' Basketball team is putting up some mileage, yet the report says the vibes are still positive. Shoutout to Gabe Newman and Br...

12/11/2024

The Daily Eastern News wrote a feature on CHS three-sport athlete Luke Bonnstetter.

At 5:50 in the morning, Charleston High School senior Luke Bonnstetter’s morning alarm sounds. Typically, Bonnstetter would still be asleep until his usual wake up time of 7:30, when it’s time to get ready for school like any other student. Not today though; Bonnstetter has basketball practice i...

11/18/2024

EIU's student-run Daily Eastern News just published this season preview of Charleston High girls basketball

Basketball is bigger than the game played on the court for senior guard Brie Tomlinson and senior forward Blair Ritchey. The people around the game are considered family to them. “I’ve grown close to so many girls and with coaches as well,” Tomlinson said. “They’ve taught me a lot of life ...

10/06/2024

Senior running back Trysten Sewell rushed for 127 yards and two touchdowns, leading Mattoon to a 20-17 win over Charleston in the 2024 Coles County Clash Friday night at O’Brien Field.

Senior running back Trysten Sewell rushed for 127 yards and two touchdowns, leading Mattoon to a 20-17 win over Charleston in the 2024 Coles County Clash Friday night at O’Brien Field. The game, which was played in front of 6,915 in attendance, was sloppy in the first half, with both teams combini...

09/28/2024

Weldon Dunston IV’s scored four touchdowns and rushed for 258 yards in a 30-20 win for Effingham over Charleston on Friday night at Washington Savings Bank Stadium.

Sometimes mother nature forces a football game to revert to its roots: smash mouth football and a strong ground game. With the weather conditions as extreme as they were, with wind gusts as high as 56 miles per hour, moving the football through the air was nearly impossible. Ultimately, it came down...

09/27/2024

Charleston High football seeks its second straight game against their conference rival, Effingham, on Friday night.

It’s Effingham week for Charleston High School football, which is a big week for head coach Brian Halsey. “Going back to [the year of] 2000, it’s just always been a rivalry for me,” Halsey said. Halsey is 7-11 against the Flaming Hearts during both his stints as head coach of the Trojans. La...

09/21/2024

The Charleston Trojans lost their Apollo Conference opener to the Mahomet-Seymour Bulldogs Friday night 56-3 at Frank Dutton Field in Mahomet.

Check out the story by the Daily Eastern News below for more.

The Charleston Trojans lost their Apollo Conference opener to the Mahomet-Seymour Bulldogs Friday night 56-3 at Frank Dutton Field in Mahomet. The game got away from the Trojans (3-1) with the first kick of the game, when Mahomet senior returner Brock VanDeveer fielded a squib kick at his own 12-yar...

09/20/2024

Charleston High football (3-0) is currently two wins from being a playoff eligible football team for the second consecutive season as it rolls into an Apollo Conference game against Mahomet on Friday night.

After an intriguing first three weeks of the high school football season, only one team is still undefeated going into Apollo Conference play: Charleston High School. The Trojans (3-0) are currently two wins away from being a playoff eligible football team for the second consecutive season, but seni...

09/14/2024

Charleston’s Treylin Couch ran for 170 yards and scored four times to lead the Trojans past Jersey, 45-34, in high school football Friday night. Check out the story in the Daily Eastern News.

The Charleston Trojans beat the Jersey Panthers 45-34 at home Friday. Running back Treylin Couch exploded on the ground as he had four total touchdowns. Jersey high could do nothing to stop Couch as he ran for 170 yards. He also caught one catch by senior quarterback Luke Bonnstetter for 42 yards an...

09/10/2024

Charleston High football hung on to defeat Paris last Friday, 25-18, to improve to 2-0. Here are some takeaways.

Charleston High School would not be denied victory in its home opener against Paris High School, winning 25-18 in week two of the Illinois High School Association football season. The game was a back-and-forth thriller, with neither team able to really pull away at all. Here are some notable numbers...

09/07/2024

Charleston High football held onto a seven-point lead to beat Paris High School, 25-18, on Friday evening at Trojan Hill. The full story by the Daily Eastern News is linked below.

Charleston High School held onto a seven-point lead to beat Paris High School 25-18 Friday evening at Trojan Hill. In a game that was close throughout, with four lead changes between the two teams, Charleston (2-0) extended its lead to seven with a 35-yard field goal by junior kicker and punter Max....

09/06/2024

EIU’s national award-winning student-run newspaper, the Daily Eastern News, will be covering Charleston High football this season. You can go to their website, follow them on social media and click on any stories linked here — like the preview for Friday night’s game vs. Paris below.

There will be football at Trojan Stadium for the first time since Charleston High School’s historic playoff overtime victory. When then junior quarterback Luke Bonnstetter scored the walk off touchdown against Freeburg Community High School, it was an exciting end to Charleston’s first playoff g...

09/18/2023

Logan Gowin, a seventh grader at St. John’s in Mattoon, fired a 70 to capture the IESA boys middle school golf championship this past weekend. He won by one stroke over three other golfers across 18 holes at the Metamora Fields course.

09/11/2023

We regret that we won’t be able to continue Coles County Sports.

We are sad. Heartbroken.

But we see no other choice.

We do not have enough reporters and cannot afford to move to the next level to offer the local sports news we had delivered in the past. It is also increasingly difficult to get results.

Finding quality reporters is difficult enough, finding those willing to work for a small stipend is even tougher.

We have tried to cover as much as possible during our three years, even if that was not our original goal. When we started almost exactly three years ago, we had just wanted to supplement the receding sports coverage in the local newspaper. We felt local athletes deserved more coverage than they had been receiving.

We never intended to be the primary sports news source for the area.

Despite that, we produced 1,759 stories on the website and at least three to four times that many more stories on Facebook.

As a result, we have had more than 1 million views on Facebook and nearly 700,000 reads on our website – along with equally strong interaction on Instagram.

But we can no longer keep pace. We have been fortunate to receive donations from several local sponsors whom are listed on the website. But reporting news at this level requires more funding than we could generate through donations. We would need to hire a full-time writer to keep Coles County Sports going at the current level.

Plus, we have struggled more than ever this fall in staffing local events and in receiving details from several high school teams. (But we get it: High school coaches are as busy as we are, working two jobs. So thanks so much, coaches, for your efforts with local athletes.)

Therefore, we have decided to retire Coles County Sports.

We wish all local athletes and teams the best. You deserve it. As always, we’ll be rooting for you all.

09/11/2023

Mallory Ramage, the all-time girls basketball scoring leader at Mattoon High, is set to begin her second season playing for Loyola. Ramage appeared in 29 games as a freshman, making six starts. She averaged 2.8 points, 1.3 rebounds, 0.3 assists, 0.3 steals per game and shot 29.2 percent from the field, 23.7 percent from 3-point line and. 87.5 percent from the line. Ramage score a season-high 14 points against Fordham in early February. She recently spoke with Jeff Owens.

Mallory Ramage, the all-time girls basketball scoring leader at Mattoon High, is set to begin her second season playing for Loyola. Ramage appeared in 29 games as a freshman, making six starts. She…

09/11/2023

Charleston girls cross country coach Chris Hawk knows this will be a rebuilding season.

The fifth-year coach has only one senior returning to a young squad that includes six juniors, four sophomores and three freshmen.

“Losing five seniors to graduation last year was a pretty big hit to us as those girls have been a backbone of the team for several years now,” said Hawk. “ I have been pleasantly surprised with our group of newcomers this year; however, six of our 14 girls have never run high school cross country before, so it has been an adjustment for all of us.

By Mike Monahan Charleston girls cross country coach Chris Hawk knows this will be a rebuilding season. The fifth-year coach has only one senior returning to a young squad that includes six juniors…