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Leopold's Horrell signs NLI with Mineral Area, hoops team return to winning ways
Josh Horrell, a senior at Leopold High School, signed a National Letter of Intent earlier this month with Mineral Area College for Cross Country and Track starting the Fall 2025.
"Josh has run cross country for Leopold since the seventh grade," said Julia Horrell, his mother. "He had a great final high school season, making All-Conference, All-District and Academic All-State and he is definitely looking forward to running at the college level next fall."
His top performance this past fall was 16th place in districts, crossing the finish line in 18:45. Later, he competed at the state competition.
Horrell was a four-year participant in cross country with Leopold.
"I like that the competition has gotten stronger and I enjoyed being able to hang out with friends," Horrell said.
In addition to cross country, he also plays basketball and baseball for the Wildcats.
Basketball is in full swing now, as Leopold hosted its first home game Dec. 11 and also was at home Dec. 16.
Horrell is optimistic about spring baseball, too.
"I'm hoping our baseball team can win another district," he said.
Horrell plans to major in business while at MAC. The cross country coach for the Cardinals is Steven Davis.
"I've always been a people person, and business felt like a good fit," he said.
Leopold hoops return to winning ways
Leopold ended a three-game losing streak with a 73-17 home victory over Zalma on Friday, Dec. 13.
Shoot high-percentage shots and force a plethora of turnovers, and the end result likely will be a positive one. The Wildcats forced 10 first-quarter turnovers and 23 overall, in turning back the visiting Bulldogs.
Leopold led 22-2 after the first quarter and took a 50-6 at halftime thanks to a 28-point second quarter.
“It’s good to play in front of the home crowd,” said Lincoln head coach Jimmy Lincoln. “It’s good to get a home game. I started with three seniors and a couple of juniors. It was good for them. You like coming home and playing for the first time. It was good to get a ‘W.’ We emphasized that we’ve got to guard better. Our whole goal tonight was to get after them and play good solid defense, not take chances, and I was really proud of them. I thought our team played really good team defense.”
Leopold converted 10-of-20 field goals in the first quarter and didn’t allow the Bulldogs a shot attempt until 2:55 remaining as Destin Chamberlain found senior Nate Borders cutting toward the basket and distributed a pass for Zalma’s first field goal.
“It’s tough to come out in the second half with the intensity that you need,” Lincoln said. “We’ve got some areas we can work on defensively. We’ll do that. Offensively, I thought we passed the ball well, we went to the basket. We emphasized not shooting a lot of 3s, let’s get the ball to the rim, and I thought we did a good job of that.”
“One of the key takeaways that I had from the game was just how the boys didn’t give up and played the entire game,” Zalma coach Phoenix Beal said. “It is always great to see that the boys are still running plays and working hard on defense. Offensive rebounds have been hurting a lot in these last few games which is something that we, as a team need to get better at.”
The Wildcats were led by Drew Engelen, who scored 20 points. Preston Campbell collected 12 points. Karsen Casetile made four first-half field goals, tallying eight points. Cohen Campbell and Avery Hoesli each had six points. Riley Engelen contributed five points. Tommy Buessink had a third quarter 3-pointer. Skyler Hoesli added three points.
Zalma’s Destin Chamberlain scored six points. Nate Borders contributed four points. Colby Borders scored four points. Alex Walk had a fourth-quarter 3-pointer.
Leopold defeated Westwood Baptist 51-40 on Monday at home to return to .500 with a 3-3 record. The Wildcats travel to Bell City on Tuesday, Dec. 17 and later host Delta on Dec. 20 before the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament.