Matt Trowbridge

1 week ago | rrstar.com | Matt Trowbridge

College signing days have never meant less. They’ve also never been bigger or felt better. It’s no longer much of a contract for the nation’s top high school athletes. Instead, it’s a way to honor every athlete who plans to play at any level in college. “I love the celebration part of it,” Jefferson boys basketball coach L.C. Robinson said when parents, students and coaches overflowed Jefferson’s “triangle” lobby for the school’s fourth signing day of the 2024-25 school year.

1 week ago | rrstar.com | Matt Trowbridge

Elijah Daugherty and Christian Cummings often looked like the two best players on the floor Saturday night. Isaiah Johnson watched from the bench as the All-Area Boys scored a rare 110-107 win over the NIC-10 in the annual Rising Stars Classic. Why now? Why in a senior boys basketball all-star game at Rock Valley College but not in the regional finals against Winnebago when things really counted? Except Daugherty, Cummings and Johnson don’t see it that way.

1 week ago | rrstar.com | Matt Trowbridge

At first glance, Elaina Rager finally did something wrong on a basketball court. A cameraman asked Pecatonica’s all-time leading scorer to autograph her photo on the camera itself after Saturday’s Rising Stars Classic at Rock Valley College. “It was sick,” Rager said of the new technology. Except the glass plate fell off the camera, leaving a small pile of broken glass near the scorer’s table after Rager led the All-Area Girls to a 95-82 Rising Stars victory over the NIC-10.

1 week ago | rrstar.com | Matt Trowbridge

Show Caption Hide Caption Guilford senior Santiago Herrera back from injury againGuilford senior tennis player Santiago Herrera back from serious hockey injury againSantiago Herrera was down again. But not for long. Again. Herrera qualified for state in tennis last year, six months after breaking his neck playing hockey. Now he is again back playing tennis for Guilford two months after another hockey injury. This one maybe even worse. “I got hit into the boards again,” Herrera said.

2 weeks ago | journalstandard.com | Matt Trowbridge

Ross Robertson listed himself at 6-foot-8 his entire four years at South Beloit. He was “only” 6-7 as a freshman, but assumed he would grow to 6-8 — and beyond. “I always looked to be 6-10,” said Robertson, who heads Rockford’s list of Media All-State boys basketball players, released Monday. “My dad is 6-5. My great-grandpa was 7-2. But once I got to be 6-8, I adapted to my body well.