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Volleyball Opens Tonight, Soccer Tuesday: The Week Ahead in Area Fall Sports

Football gets Friday. This is everything else, and this week it is a lot.

Five volleyball teams open tonight, two more Tuesday, and boys soccer starts Tuesday as well.

Volleyball — Monday, August 24

Match Site Time 2025
ROWVA/Williamsfield at Brimfield Brimfield 5:00 32-7, Lincoln Trail champs
Rockridge at Knoxville Knoxville 6:00 15-20-1
Abingdon-Avon at Deer Creek-Mackinaw Mackinaw 6:00 6-29
Bushnell-Prairie City at West Central Biggsville 7:00 14-14
Ridgewood at Monmouth-Roseville Monmouth 7:00 11-26

Volleyball — Tuesday, August 25

  • Galesburg at Morton, 5:00 — 15-21 last season, eighth in the Western Big 6
  • United at West Prairie, 6:00 — 16-20, coached by Courtney Milroy

The team to watch is in Oneida

ROWVA/Williamsfield went 32-7 last season and won the Lincoln Trail Conference at 11-1. No area program in any sport came close to that, and the next-best area volleyball record was sixteen wins.

They open at Brimfield tonight. More on why they are the story of the fall →

Monmouth-Roseville, year two under Mynatt

The Titans went 11-26 and 0-11 in the Three Rivers Conference, but the season did not end badly — they won a regional quarterfinal over Peoria Manual before losing the semifinal to Eureka.

Kristin Mynatt is in her second year. On the summer: “We tried a lot of different rotations,” she told WMOI, adding she was “very thrilled with what I saw and the good things that are coming.”

The complication is numbers. Principal Eric Matthews said this month that varsity volleyball is carrying eight or nine players — enough to field a team and very little else. Freshman and junior-high participation is strong, which suggests a gap in two graduating classes rather than a decline.

They open at home against Ridgewood at the Shoebox tonight, then go to Knoxville on Wednesday for the first area-versus-area match of the season.

Boys soccer — Tuesday and Wednesday

  • Galesburg vs. Beardstown, Tuesday 4:30, home. The Streaks went 7-12-2 last season under Philip Redington.
  • Monmouth-Roseville at Riverdale, Tuesday 5:00, under Sebastiao Neto. They host Orion Wednesday.
  • Abingdon-Avon vs. Beardstown, Wednesday 5:00, home, under Sean Foster.

Only three area schools field boys soccer. All three play inside 48 hours.

Also this week

ROWVA/Williamsfield hosts Cuba/Spoon River Valley Wednesday and United Thursday. Galesburg hosts Canton Thursday. Abingdon-Avon travels to Astoria/VIT Thursday.

In golf, the Monmouth-Roseville 2A Invite is Friday, and the United Open is September 1.

Send us results

We cannot be at seven gyms at once. If you have a match result — final score, sets, standout performances — send it to [email protected] and we will post it.

A 32-7 conference championship season should not be the thing nobody wrote about.

C. Jackson Cowart

C. Jackson Cowart is a sports writer and editor whose work has appeared in ESPN, Forbes, Front Office Sports and Advance Local publications. He edits Muddy River Sport's coverage of high school and college athletics in Galesburg, Monmouth, Knox County and the surrounding communities of west-central Illinois. He works remotely from Washington state. Muddy River Sport's Friday night coverage depends on people who are actually in the bleachers — coaches, parents, scorekeepers and photographers across west-central Illinois who send in scores, results and photos as games end. If that's you, we want to hear from you: [email protected]

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