Year In Review: The 10 Southwest Missouri sports stories that captivated the Ozarks in 2021
Wyatt D. Wheeler | Springfield News-Leader
The athletics season in 2021 turned out to be incredible with some historic achievements and championships won by our local teams throughout the year.
Sports in 2021 was highlighted by the resurgence of a long-struggling program, continued dominance from two of our local women's basketball programs and a few emotional state titles won by great groups of high school athletes.
It was a phenomenal year and there was rarely a boring moment as sports went on throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. It rarely got in the way of what our Ozarks programs set out to accomplish.
Here are the 10 storylines that captivated readers the most throughout the year. Covering your favorite teams and athletes throughout the year was a privilege and we thank you for reading throughout the year. We can't wait to see what 2022 has in store for all of us.
Missouri State football wins Missouri Valley Football Conference for first time since 1990
Many thought it would never happen but Missouri State football finally turned into a winner during 2021 — starting with a spring season in which the Bears made the postseason for the first time since 1990.
Bobby Petrino, in his first season as MSU's head coach, led the Bears to a 5-1 record in the spring that earned them a share of the Missouri Valley Football Conference — also a first since 1990.
A spring season was played after the FCS delayed its 2020 fall season to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
More: Missouri State football community celebrates championship that was 31 years in the making
The spring included a four-game winning streak to cap off the regular season. To make the playoffs, the Bears won four of their games by one score with their championship-clinching game coming in a 21-10 win over Youngstown State on April 10.
The Bears made the postseason with great defense and timely offense. A game-winning field goal was needed to beat No. 10 Southern Illinois along with defensive stands needed to beat ranked teams including South Dakota and Northern Iowa on the road.
More: Missouri State football's first playoff game in 31 years has brought the Bears' pride back
A 44-10 loss to North Dakota in the first round of the FCS Playoffs wasn't ideal but it set the stage for brighter days ahead...
Missouri State football makes playoffs for second time in a year
...and those brighter days came a few months later as the Bears played a fall season and returned to the postseason for what turned out to be the greatest year in the football program's history.
The fall season saw the Bears become the "Cardiac Bears" with close wins needed in wild games against Central Arkansas, South Dakota, North Dakota and Northern Iowa.
Petrino found his quarterback during the offseason between the spring and the fall with Utah State transfer Jason Shelley as he broke out and became the MVFC Offensive Player of the Year.
More: How Jason Shelley quickly became one of Missouri State football's all-time greats
An 8-3 regular-season record that nearly began with an upset win over FBS Oklahoma State proved to be enough to where the Bears hosted their first FCS Playoff game since 1990 at Plaster Stadium.
Unfortunately, the Bears couldn't grab their first postseason win since 1989 in a 32-31 loss to UT Martin in which MSU turned the ball over six times.
Petrino is set to return in 2022 along with new pieces and a lot of the familiar ones including the bulk of the Bears' defense and Shelley.
The success with the football program might be here to stay.
Lady Bears return to Sweet 16 for second straight NCAA Tournament
There hasn't been a program more special to the Ozarks over the years than the Missouri State Lady Bears. The program added to its incredible legacy with yet another Sweet 16 run and it came amid one of the great Lady Bears seasons ever.
For the first time in the history of the storied Lady Bears program, they went undefeated in Missouri Valley Conference play. Along the way, Brice Calip continued to play like the best player in the league and was awarded the Jackie Stiles MVC Player of the Year. Clutch buckets and lockdown defense made her the most feared player in the league.
Amaka Agugua-Hamilton, in her second year as head coach, was just as spectacular as she was in her first year as she has the team playing at a high level throughout.
The Lady Bears backed out of the MVC Tournament after a game due to COVID-19 concerns hoping to stay as healthy as they can for the NCAA Tournament.
The Lady Bears were safely into the NCAA Tournament where they earned a five-seed — tying the program's highest in its history.
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After wiping away the tears, the MSU Lady Bears can smile as their incredible journey ends
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The entire tournament was held in San Antonio, and in the opening round, the Lady Bears played like one of the elite teams in the country with a 70-51 beatdown of UC Davis.
A few days later, the celebration was on as the Lady Bears beat Wright State 64-39 after outscoring the Raiders 40-20 in the second half. Elle Ruffridge will be remembered for scoring 17 in the final 20 minutes while hitting four of her five 3's in the fourth quarter alone.
For the second straight tournament, Stanford stood in the Lady Bears' way in the Sweet 16 and that's where their season came to an end. Stanford went on to win the NCAA Tournament but the Lady Bears still turned in one of the great seasons in program history.
With Calip, Jasmine Franklin, Sydney Wilson and other pieces of the Lady Bears' core group and additional transfers in, another deep postseason run could come in 2022.
Kickapoo boys basketball wins state title
High expectations can sometimes crumble a group of teenage kids, but the 2020-21 Kickapoo Chiefs were different.
Everyone had the Chiefs circled as the team that would win a state championship and be considered among the great high school basketball programs to come through southwest Missouri.
And you couldn't blame them — a Power 5 player and the reigning Class 1 Player of the Year had joined a team that qualified for the state semifinals the year before without them. Four Division I-caliber players on one team were going to be tough to beat.
KICKAPOO WINS STATE CHAMPIONSHIP COVERAGE
State champs! Kickapoo boys win Class 6 state championship with victory over Liberty
After everything Anton Brookshire's been through, his career fittingly ends with a state title
Mission accomplished: Kickapoo boys live up to championship expectations by winning state
The hard work paid off when Kickapoo wrapped up a 71-62 Class 6 state championship win over Liberty in March.
Kickapoo's third title in program history comes a year after COVID-19 ended the Chiefs' season when their semifinal appearance was canceled. Four-year starting point guard Anton Brookshire said before the semifinals that the Chiefs had been on a mission all year long to make it back and win it all.
Isaac Haney moved to Springfield from a Dora program that won a state championship. The high-scoring Missouri State signee was going to need the ball. Trevon Brazile moved across town from Parkview. He had just committed to Mizzou and his seemingly limitless potential was going to command some attention.
The Chiefs stumbled twice during the season, but it showed them they still had room to grow. Following a mid-January loss to Hartville, the Chiefs started to connect and ran the table from there.
Everything came together for Kickapoo as it wrapped up its season on a 22 game winning streak that included victories over Nixa, Republic, Logan-Rogersville, Bolivar, Chaminade and a state championship win over Liberty.
Hartville boys basketball finishes off perfect season
One of the great seasons in Ozarks history finished with Hartville winning a state championship without a loss on its record.
The championship win marked the second in a row for the Eagles as they came away with a 43-35 victory over Monroe City in the championship game. Standouts including Ryce Piper, Braden Branstetter, Brady Ward, Cody Mahan and Eli Cook will graduate after a historic two-year run.
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Why Hartville fought back tears as it finished a perfect season with another state title
Perfection! Hartville boys complete undefeated season with second straight state title
Even after a bump up to Class 3, the level of competition didn't matter — as it didn't throughout the regular season.
In the middle of January, Hartville, a team without Division I talent, swept through the Springfield R-12 Winter Classic with wins over Kickapoo, a team with four Division I prospects, and Greenwood, a team with perhaps the greatest player to ever come through the area.
A historic season for a great senior class saw Piper, the team's star, scoring 13 points on 7-of-10 shooting to go along with five rebounds in the championship game. Mahan added 12 of his own including a pair of triples.
Nixa's Courtney Frerichs wins silver medal at Olympics
There wasn't an athlete in the area who captured the Ozarks' heart more than Nixa native Courtney Frerichs this year as she captured a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
Frerichs won the silver medal in the women's 3,000-meter steeplechase run with a time of 9:04.79, beating a field that included American teammate Emma Coburn, who won the steeplechase at the 2019 World Championships. In 2019, Frerichs also took silver behind Coburn.
The world saw the heart of Frerichs midway through the race when she took control and pulled away from the rest of what had been a bunched-up pack for the first half.
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Olympic silver-medalist Courtney Frerichs returns to Nixa — where her journey started
Tokyo Olympics: Nixa's Courtney Frerichs wins silver medal in women's steeplechase
Nixa's Courtney Frerichs breaks own American steeplechase record weeks after taking Olympic silver
She led until the final lap when gold-medalist Peruth Chemutai from Uganda passed her and took control and finished with a time of 9:01.45.
A few weeks later, Frerichs put together the run of her career when she became the first United States woman to break nine minutes with a time of 8:57.77 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase run on Saturday at the Nike Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon.
Frerichs has owned the American record since 2018 when she ran a 9:00.85 in the Diamond League meet in Monaco.
Frerichs had a year that no one around here will forget.
Drury Lady Panthers reach NCAA Tournament title game
After having their hearts broken by the cancellation of the NCAA Tournament in 2020, the Lady Panthers responded by putting together a season to remember.
Amy Eagan, who took over as head coach with Molly Miller's departure for Grand Canyon, led the Lady Panthers all the way to the NCAA Tournament title game.
More: In championship rally that fell short, Drury Lady Panthers showed plenty of heart
Along the way, the Lady Panthers won the Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament for the fifth consecutive time and their eighth straight regular-season title. Drury hosted the NCAA-II Midwest Regional and won both games in blowout fashion.
Paige Robinson became the latest Lady Panther to write her name in the history books as she captured the Division II National Player of the Year honor along with Eagan, in her first year, taking home the national coach of the year award.
A quarterfinal and semifinal win in Columbus, Ohio, sent Drury to its second national championship game in program history. The Lady Panthers fell a win short of the title as Lubbock Christian escaped with a 69-59 victory
Drury has had an incredible amount of success over the last few years. More should come its way in 2022.
Willard baseball wins emotional state title
High school baseball: Willard wins state championship with walk-off
Willard catcher Kyden McMain hits a walk-off single in the bottom of the seventh to give the Tigers their first state championship in program history.
Wyatt D. Wheeler, Springfield News-Leader
Many thought 2020 was supposed to be the Tigers' season to win state as it had a loaded roster and was the only team in Missouri nationally ranked.
But this special group didn't get that memo.
An incredible run ended in the state championship game with sophomore Kyden McMain stepping up to the plate. The bases were loaded with two outs in the bottom of the seventh. A ground ball found a gap between the first and second baseman as he threw up his arms in celebration and the Tigers stormed the field as state champions.
More: Willard Tigers win first baseball state championship with 'Coach Atch' in their hearts
"I saw the ball and I knew it was through," McMain said. "We've never won a state championship and doing that for our seniors after all the adversity we've been through to get here, that was pretty cool."
The adversity included the heart of the Willard baseball program, Justin Atchison, who was an assistant coach and was killed in a hunting accident in November 2018. Players wore "Atch" on their hats while Willard fans wore T-shirts with his quotes.
In 2019, the Tigers made the state semifinals and came up short when they held a two-run lead in the top of the seventh with two outs. When 2020 was supposed to be their year, COVID-19 canceled their entire season.
The 2021 team set out to prove people wrong — it wasn't going to just be a rebuilding year. The Tigers didn't look the best in the beginning, but they slowly looked like a team that was capable of putting together a special run and they finished by storming the field as state champions.
Missouri State men's basketball takes a step forward
There's no denying how disappointing the 2019-20 Bears were when they were picked to win the league, never meshed and came up well short of being a contender in the Valley.
The 2020-21 season provided just enough hope that the Bears are capable of taking another step under head coach Dana Ford.
Gaige Prim and Isiaih Mosley each emerged as two of the best players in the league while Prim ranked among the national leaders in efficiency and Mosley finished as the Valley's leading scorer.
A 17-7 season saw the Bears beat up on the bottom six teams in the league but they were swept during a four-game stretch at home against Loyola Chicago and Drake — who both qualified for the NCAA Tournament.
At Arch Madness, MSU and Drake went back-and-forth in a thrilling semifinal that ended with Joseph Yesufu making a basket with 2.5 seconds remaining to end the Bears' season.
Missouri State returned all of its key pieces for the 2021-22 season and has shown some promise throughout the early part of the season that could inspire hope going into 2022.
Missouri State basketball coaches receive extensions
It might not have been the grandest of stories but it's one that will have an impact on the sports scene for years to come.
Both Missouri State basketball coaches received contract extensions that will keep them here longer.
Ford was given a two-year extension that will keep him in Springfield through the 2024-25 season with a base salary of $425,000. He has yet to deliver Missouri State a championship and has reached the Missouri Valley Conference semifinals in each of the last two seasons — but demands will be higher than that moving forward.
Agugua-Hamilton received an extension through 2025-26 with an average of $328,000 per year. With her success thus far, Missouri State is trying to keep her in Springfield as long as possible.
These are important stories that will have an impact on the two basketball programs for the next few years.
Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email at wwheeler@news-leader.com or Twitter at @WyattWheeler_NL. He's also the co-host of Sports Talk on Jock Radio weekdays from 4-6 p.m.