Latest news with #statechampions
News.com.au
5 days ago
- Sport
- News.com.au
Palm Beach Currumbin SHS and Kelvin Grove State College were the big winners of grand final day
Palm Beach Currumbin SHS's male Billy Turner Cup side and Kelvin Grove State College's female team have been crowned state champions after a gala grand final day. PBC SHS edged out Kelvin Grove 1-nil in the boys' thriller, with the decisive goal coming from the boot of Sam Butler. But Kelvin Grove did break through to claim the girls decider in a commanding 5-1 triumph over Cairns SHS. Marnie Cavanagh and Meadow Cruden were both two goal heroes, while Emma Messner-Gul's strike into the back of the net completed KG's assault. For Cairns, Ava Hansen made the score sheet with her successful strike. Both games featured outstanding team and individual performances, with PBC SHS's Archie Matthews being named boys Player of the Final while Kelvin Grove's Messner-Gul snared the girls' grand final Player of the Match. The finals at Wolves FC were a culmination of a wonderful state wide competition which featured fierce competition, sportsmanship and school pride. Earlier in the semi-finals, Palm Beach won through to the decider after a 2-nil win courtesy of goals from Tyrese Bake and Nate Bruni, while Kelvin Grove booked their ticket to the final with a comprehensive 6–1 win over Kawana Waters State College. For KG goals were scored by Milan Osbourne, Redon Naite, Cooper Palm, Bepo Mohseni, Karim Naguib. Aiden Gul netted the only goal for Kawana. In the girls, Cairns SHS cruised into the final with a 5–0 victory over Varsity State College, led by goals from Yui Akiyoshi, Yasmin Wyld-Hill, Alisha Mays, and a brace from Peyton Rose. Kelvin Grove then reached the final after a dramatic penalty shootout win over Chancellor State College, following a 1–1 draw in regulation time. Emma Messner-Gul and Bronte Pennells were the goal scorers in regular play. The third place playoffs in the boys saw Kawana Waters and Cairns SHS play out a 1–1 draw after goals from Kane Duffey and Sam Freeland respectively. 'The tournament once again highlighted the strength and depth of school football in Queensland,'' said one of the competition's co-ordinator, Jason Tobin. 'With outstanding individual performances, team spirit, and memorable moments throughout, the Bill Turner Cup continues to be a critical pathway in the development of young footballers.''
New York Times
13-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Chicago White Sox first-rounder Billy Carlson is used to playing in the spotlight
Over the last two years, few high school baseball programs have garnered more attention than the Corona (Calif.) Panthers. California state champions in 2024, the Panthers came into this season with a chance to make history as the first high school program to have more than two players selected in the first round. Advertisement At the center of all of that success was shortstop Billy Carlson, a local kid who not only led the Panthers on the field but also recruited several of his teammates into the program. Now, he'll be working to bring similar success to the Chicago White Sox as their first-round pick. Coming off that state title in 2024, the Panthers finished the 2025 regular season ranked first in the state but lost in a CIF Southern California semi-final upset to St. John Bosco. It was a disappointing ending to Carlson's Corona career, but overall it was a dream four years for him and the program, which he helped bring to prominence. A Corona native who spent all four of his high school years at the school, Carlson became a recruiter for the program, helping to convince Seth Hernandez — the consensus top high school pitcher in this year's draft and the No. 6 selection — to transfer to Corona for his final two years at the school. Two other 2025 draft prospects, Brady Ebel and Ethin Bingaman, also transferred into the program. With several more high-profile prospects in the pipeline, the Corona program should continue to be in the national conversation even after this season. 'It was a lot of attention but it was good for the city of Corona and for the high school,' Carlson said at the MLB Draft Combine in June. 'Hopefully Corona has a lot of good years coming ahead.' Carlson came into the season as one of the top high school shortstop prospects in the class. Scouts kept a close eye on him all season, but he had the benefit of not being the only player on his team that scouts were coming out to see. 'It's been cool to lean on them if it gets sometimes overwhelming, because it can be,' he said. 'Every single practice, there's at least one scout there with eyes on you. So there's never not eyes on you. I think it's helpful to have four other guys going through it with you. I could see how it can get really overwhelming if it's just you by yourself, kind of going through that.' Advertisement That said, Carlson and his Corona teammates used the attention as way to keep themselves sharp throughout the season. He lived up to the all of the preseason expectations, hitting .365 with six homers and 34 RBIs in 31 games as a senior. 'We kind of enjoyed the attention. We kind of thrived off of it,' he said. 'If anything, it helped us because you're always playing with something on the line.' Like many star high school shortstops, Carlson was a two-way player, using his plus arm strength on the mound as well as from the six-hole. He showed major-league potential as a pitcher, hitting 97 mph with his fastball, but is adamant that his future is on the dirt. Offensively, Carlson hit for average and got on base at an above-average clip his last two seasons at Corona, and he showed enough in-game power that he projects 'to get to 20-plus homers if he can shorten up his swing enough to make consistent contact,' according to The Athletic's MLB Draft expert Keith Law. On Law's final top 100 draft prospect Big Board, Carlson ranked 11th. Among high school position players, he ranked fourth. Carlson has a college commitment to Tennessee, but he's not likely to get to Rocky Top. 'I think (professional baseball) is the next big step in my career,' he said. Whether it's in professional baseball or at Tennessee, Carlson is excited to take advantage of the training and coaching resources at those advanced levels. Though the 6-foot-1 Carlson spends a lot of time off the field working on his conditioning, he isn't looking to break any lifting records at the weight rack. 'If having big legs was the key to hitting bombs, I'd probably be last in line for that,' Carlson joked. His work in the weight room is more intentional, focused on core strength and flexibility. 'I like to tell teams this, that I'm like a greyhound dog. I'm not really like a pit bull so training like a pit bull isn't too smart for me. I think that could ruin what makes me good,' he said. Advertisement That core strength and flexibility has helped him become a plus defender at shortstop, so advanced that he had a stranglehold on the position at Corona even with Ebel — another top shortstop prospect — on the Panthers' roster. Law called Carlson 'a wizard on defense, with great instincts, range in both directions, and excellent hands, along with at least a 70 arm (on the 20-80 scouting scale).' 'I feel like if you are doing good training, it's going to show up on the field,' Carlson said. (Phot: Tracy Proffitt / Four Seam Images via Associated Press)
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
The MIAA crowned state champions for 35 sports this school year. See all the winners here
The 2024-25 high school sports season has come to a close with the last of the spring MIAA state championships wrapping up over the weekend. Massachusetts high school teams fought hard all season long with the goal of being named 'state champions'.From perennial powers continuing their streaks to underdogs breaking through for the title, there was no shortage of excitement in this year's state championships. Advertisement Now that the 24-25 season has concluded, it's time to take a look at every state champion over the fall, winter and spring sports. Billerica and Wellesley each won four championships this year, while Norwell and St. John's Prep grabbed three apiece for their programs. Check out which titles these teams won and the rest of the championship lineup below. Fall sports MIAA 2024 football state champions Division 1- Xaverian Division 2- Catholic Memorial Division 3- North Attleboro Division 4- Scituate Division 5- Shawsheen Valley Tech Division 6- Hudson Division 7- Uxbridge Division 8- West Boylston MIAA 2024 boys soccer state champions Division 1- Newton North Advertisement Division 2- Oliver Ames Division 3- Dover-Sherborn Division 4- Cohasset Division 5- Sutton MIAA 2024 girls soccer state champions Division 1- Wellesley Division 2- Masconomet Regional Division 3- Nipmuc Regional Division 4- Sutton Division 5- Douglas Players from the Douglas girls' soccer team swarm one another as the Tigers celebrate a 3-2 win over Hull in the Division 5 state final on Saturday at Curry College. MIAA 2024 field hockey state champions Division 1- Walpole Division 2- Somerset Berkley Regional Division 3- Watertown Division 4- Uxbridge MIAA 2024 boys cross country state champions Division 1- Brookline Division 2- Longmeadow Division 3- Parker Charter MIAA 2024 girls cross country state champions Division 1- Westford Academy Division 2- Westwood Division 3- Hamilton-Wenham Regional MIAA 2024 boys golf state champions Division 1- St. John's Advertisement Division 2- Pope Francis Division 3- Ayer-Shirley More: Hanover High boys rugby caps dominant season with state title MIAA 2024 girls swimming and diving state champions Division 1- Acton-Boxboro Division 2- Wellesley MIAA 2024 boys swimming and diving state champions Division 1- Methuen Division 2- Milton MIAA 2024 girls volleyball state champions Division 1- Newton North Division 2- Westboro Division 3- Medfield Division 4- Ipswich Division 5- Bourne Winter sports MIAA 2024-25 boys basketball state champions Division 1- Franklin Division 2- Somerset Berkley Regional Division 3- Norwell Division 4- Georgetown Division 5- Pioneer Valley Regional MIAA 2024-25 girls basketball state champions Division 1- Wachusett Regional Advertisement Division 2- Medfield Division 3- St. Mary's Division 4- Cathedral Division 5- Hoosac Valley MIAA 2024-25 boys hockey state champions Division 1- Catholic Memorial Division 2- Billerica Memorial Winthrop goalie Michael Donahue greets Nolan Upton and the rest of his teammates after defeating Dedham 3-0 to win the state final in boys hockey at TD Garden on Sunday, March 16, 2025. Division 3- Nauset Regional Division 4- Winthrop MIAA 2024-25 girls hockey state champions Division 1- Hingham Division 2- Medfield MIAA 2024-25 gymnastics state champion Masconomet MIAA 2024-25 boys indoor track and field state champions Division 1- Lowell Division 2- Algonquin Regional Division 3- Milton Division 4- Pembroke Division 5- Weston MIAA 2024-25 girls indoor track and field state champions Division 1- Lexington Advertisement Division 2- Wellesley Division 3- Billerica Memorial Division 4- Holliston Division 5- North Reading MIAA 2024-25 nordic skiing state champion Boys- Mt. Greylock Girls- Mt. Greylock MIAA 2024-25 boys swimming and diving state champions Division 1- St. John's Prep Division 2- Wayland MIAA 2024-25 girls swimming and diving state champions Division 1- Concord Carlisle Division 2- Weston MIAA 2024-25 mixed gender wrestling state champions Division 1- Shawsheen Division 2- Milford Division 3- Tewksbury MIAA 2024-25 girls wrestling state champions Division 1- Framingham Division 2- Putnam Division 3- South Shore Spring sports MIAA 2025 baseball state champions Division 1- Chelmsford Advertisement Division 2- Walpole Division 3- North Reading Division 4- Millbury Division 5- Pioneer Valley Regional MIAA 2025 softball state champions Division 1- Taunton Division 2- Silver Lake Division 3- Dighton-Rehoboth Regional Dighton-Rehoboth celebrates winning the State Title. Division 4- Joseph Case Division 5- Turners Falls MIAA 2025 boys lacrosse state champions Division 1- St. John's Prep Division 2- Billerica Memorial Division 3- Scituate Division 4- Norwell MIAA 2025 girls lacrosse state champions Division 1- Concord-Carlisle Division 2- Walpole Division 3- Medfield Division 4- Norwell MIAA 2025 boys track and field state champions Division 1- Lowell Division 2- Peabody Veterans Memorial Advertisement Division 3- Walpole Division 4- Wakefield Memorial Division 5- Weston Division 6- Ayer-Shirley MIAA 2025 girls track and field state champions Division 1- Lexington Division 2- North Andover Division 3- Billerica Memorial Division 4- Amherst Pelham Regional Division 5- North Reading Division 6- Mt Greylock MIAA 2025 unified track state champions Division 1- Natick Division 2- Sandwich Natick High School's Donny Brandt and Weymouth's Jason Tsang compete on the track at the MIAA State Unified Track and Field Championships at Natick High School, May 28, 2025. MIAA 2025 boys volleyball state champions Division 1- Brookline Division 2- Agawam MIAA 2025 boys tennis state champions Division 1- St. John's Prep Division 2- Duxbury Division 3- Bedford Division 4- Manchester-Essex Regional MIAA 2025 girls tennis state champions Division 1- Wellesley Advertisement Division 2- Longmeadow Division 3- Dover-Sherborn Division 4- Hamilton-Wenham Regional More: Silver Lake softball wins first ever Division 2 state championship MIAA 2025 girls golf state champion Wellesley MIAA 2025 boys rugby state champions Division 1- BC High Division 2- Hanover MIAA 2025 girls rugby state champion Division 1- Belmont This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: MIAA high school state champions in 2024-2025
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Donald Trump Is Enacting His Darkest Agenda in the Backyard of a Small Town. Absolutely No One Wants to Talk About It.
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Jena, Louisiana, population 4,000, would like to be known for its youth. Its youth softball team, specifically. Football is important too: This is the South, after all, and Jena High School put a player into the NFL not that long ago. But the first road sign on the two-lane highway announcing your arrival in the town name-checks only the Lady Giants, the 2021 state champions. By mid-March of this year, the varsity Jena Lady Giants had hopes of another state title in view. The team did nothing but win that week, mostly blowouts: 11–1, 15–1. On March 13, it went on the road and won 12–2. That same afternoon, back in Jena, a crowd filled up the local theater, the Strand. Attendees were there not for softball but for another institution that defines the town. Inside was the first community relations luncheon of the year with the GEO Group, the nation's largest operator of private prisons. To get to the event, cars came up through Jena's main thoroughfare, Oak Street, a nod to the city's once great timber industry. They passed a McDonald's on one side and a Dollar General on the other. They passed many American flags, draped outside businesses on both sides of the street, and pulled up to the intersection with the theater, which was marked by a road sign with a quote from the Bible: Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU SHALL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. Up the road just 3 miles farther, past Jena High School and out into the woods, would have come upon the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, run by the GEO Group. It is the ninth-largest immigration detention center in the country, and about 1,180 men are held there on any given day. But this afternoon, as it did once every three months, GEO was coming down to them. The mood in the Strand was light, positive. These meetings tended to be. The townspeople, mostly parish leaders and local businesspeople, sat down for lunch, which was catered and free. GEO was no stranger to Jena, and Jena no stranger to GEO. They'd been partners for years, back before the Jena facility had been retrofitted for immigrant detention, back before GEO was even called GEO. Now the facility was one of the largest employers in the area: 250 jobs. It was also one of the region's biggest taxpayers. The remote facility had grown into a central node in a newly established network of immigrant detention centers that span central Louisiana. Immigration advocates refer to this region as 'the black hole,' a place where people disappear into overcrowded detention, sometimes for years, often without ever seeing a lawyer or being convicted of a crime. Others are whisked onto deportation flights, headed for countries they've fled or never been to. One place where people who have been brought to Jena rarely end up is back at their American homes, in the lives they were living before agents banged on their front doors or raided their workplaces or pulled them over for a traffic stop. In the theater, the townspeople ate and listened to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center's administrator, Shad Rice, speak. He donned a black blazer over a black T-shirt, a GEO logo on the chest. It was all positive at first. He said pleasantries. He rattled off a list of promotions back at GEO corporate. The business environment was good. Often these meetings brought news of pay increases. But there was also something serious to address: The Jena facility had a new, high-profile detainee, one that some members of the audience may have heard about on the news. His name was Mahmoud Khalil. The 1,000-plus men warehoused up at CLIPC were almost always nameless, faceless—here today, gone tomorrow, or not, but certainly never heard from. Now there was a national figure, a Columbia University graduate student who had been shipped more than 1,300 miles down from New York because of his pro-Palestine activism. Other college students, political prisoners from far-flung American campuses, were not far behind: Alireza Doroudi, of the University of Alabama, would soon be hauled hundreds of miles to be deposited in Jena. Rumeysa Ozturk, of Tufts, would pass through too. Rice went into some detail about Khalil's case: He was an organizer at Columbia, activism that the Jena Times would later characterize as 'involvement in a significant protest at Columbia University, which led to the revocation of his green card and subsequent arrest for removal processing.' Even President Donald Trump, Rice noted, had been involved in the matter. Their sleepy town, their local detention center, was national news, and might continue to be. This was nothing to worry about, he said. Maybe the opposite: The Trump administration had pledged record deportations, and that had already resulted in record numbers for GEO. 'Compared to last year this time, we've conducted and had 5,000 more detainees processed through Alexandria's staging facility,' he said, referring to the airport, nearly 40 miles away, that ICE and GEO were using for deportation flights. 'So, in just three months, that's 5,000 more than last year at this point in time. That's quite the accomplishment for the staff down there.' Many of those detainees were being run on buses to and from Jena. The townspeople finished their meal. It was not uncommon for these meetings to be punctuated by grand gestures. Sometimes it was money for the nursing home or the council on aging, or scholarship money for local high school students. At the previous luncheon, Rice had pledged to send GEO employees Christmas caroling across town; he even gave Mayor LaDawn Edwards $300. This time, Rice pulled out a check for $1,000, for the Strand Theatre. Sheila Mason, the venue's representative, went up to receive it. The two posed, smiling, for a photo. 'Thank you very much for your support and allowing us to use the facility when we come up and have these events. It makes for a much nicer area for us to all come together,' Rice said. Out in town, most claimed to be unaware of what was brewing at the GEO facility. When I visited, I found the hard way that the people here don't like to talk about what goes on down the road. But it turned out their famous new visitor wasn't going anywhere—and that this was far from the first time the national spotlight had arrived here. The people of Jena had practice. By the late 1990s, if Jena was known nationally, it was known for its youth—its youth detention, specifically. Before, Jena had had oil. But oil went bust in the 1980s, and so Jena did what towns all across Louisiana did: It built a prison. The prison, run by Wackenhut Corrections Corporation—a precursor of GEO—was a 276-bed juvenile detention center called the Jena Juvenile Justice Center. Opened in 1998, it was, allegedly, state of the art. It was barely a year old when, in March 2000, the Clinton administration sued the state of Louisiana and Jena Juvenile Justice Center both, filing for emergency relief. According to a Justice Department correspondence, kids in Jena were 'subjected to excessive abuse and neglect' at the facility, including 'dangerous and life-threatening conditions.' The DOJ demanded that Wackenhut 'stop using corporal punishment, excessive force, and gas grenades; develop and implement an adequate response to the violence at Jena,' and more. Youth at the facility were 'being deprived of food, clothing and medical care and were routinely beaten by guards.' In April 2000, Wackenhut shook on a deal with the DOJ to address these concerns. A few days later, it thought better of it and decided to close the facility entirely. A month later, in May 2000, it was empty. Then, in 2005, came Hurricane Katrina. Soon after the hurricane hit, New Orleans–area prisons were evacuated due to flooding, and Jena was hastily reopened by the state to house relocated inmates. It was staffed by corrections officers from other state prisons, as well as some correctional officers on loan from Rikers Island, in New York City. The abuse reportedly started back up immediately. Inmates were 'slapped, punched, beaten, stripped naked, hit with belts, and kicked by corrections officers,' read a 2006 National Prison Project report. 'Deputies came in with dogs, riot gear, etc., beating inmates down, forcing us to the floor face down,' wrote Keith M. Dillon, who was transferred there, in a later testimony. 'I saw a LaSalle deputy slam a guy from Annex D in Jefferson Parish face down into the floor, knock two of his teeth out, then make him lick up his own blood. I could hear them beating people, people yelling, and if you looked up you got beat. After about 6 hours face down freezing, they started shaving our heads.' By October 2005, word had gotten out. The New York Times and Los Angeles Times helped put a withering spotlight on Jena. The Louisiana Department of Corrections decided to close the facility and disperse its inmates elsewhere rather than pursue an investigation. The Bush administration declined to investigate. The facility remained empty, and Wackenhut had by then rebranded, becoming GEO. Then, in August 2007, GEO made an announcement: Rather than continuing to lose money on the vacant, beleaguered, and notorious Jena facility, it would be expanding it. In a press release, the company announced it was adding 744 beds to the 416 beds already in existence, good for 1,160 in total by early 2008. 'GEO is actively marketing all 1,160 beds to state and federal detention agencies around the country,' it declared. The marketing was a success. Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency barely 4 years old at the time, signed a deal shortly thereafter. Around the same time, Jena was back in the national news for its youth again—not its youth detention center but its namesake public high school. A year earlier, nooses had been hung from a tree at Jena High School after some Black students sat beneath it. (The tree was most commonly a purlieu for white students.) In the subsequent weeks, fighting ensued. One white student pulled a gun, and other white students smashed bottles over the head of a Black student. That Black student and a group of his friends beat up a white student and knocked him unconscious. In the end, the Black students were arrested—the Jena Six, they were soon called—and charged with attempted murder. It became a national flashpoint. Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton said Jena 'reminds us that the scales of justice are seriously out of balance when it comes to charging, sentencing, and punishing African Americans.' Al Sharpton claimed that it was the new frontier of the Civil Rights Movement. The people of overwhelmingly white Jena did not take so kindly to being called racist. Craig Franklin, then assistant editor of the Jena Times, said it had all been a misunderstanding: The nooses were 'a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team,' he wrote. The insistence probably made it worse. Sharpton called for action, and he got it: In late September 2007, an estimated 20,000 protesters from all over the country descended on Jena. The town closed up its shops, shuttered up its school board, and braced for the flood. For a day, protesters, among them Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King III, overwhelmed the few streets. Celebrities from David Bowie to Ice Cube pledged support. Three of the Jena Six got their charges reduced, but all six eventually pleaded or were found guilty. The protesters left. A few months later in town, a group of white separatists rallied against Martin Luther King Jr. Day beneath a waving Ku Klux Klan flag, but that barely registered. Jena slipped back beneath national attention. Then the ICE facility opened. ICE detention was an even quieter business than criminal lockup, its detainees more transitory, with fewer rights than those in the criminal justice system. It was uncommon for word of anything to get down into town, rarer still for it to reach people beyond the parish. But after a few years, reports of mistreatment started back up again. In the first six months of 2016, three immigrants died in detention inside the Jena facility, all in separate incidents. In March 2017, another man died in detention, of cardiac arrest. One month after that, Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement found that the facility was one of the top five immigration jails nationally in terms of sexual assault incidents reported. ('GEO strongly disagrees with the allegations that have been made regarding the services we provide,' a company spokesperson said in a statement. 'These allegations are part of a long-standing, politically motivated, and radical campaign to abolish ICE and end federal immigration detention by attacking the federal government's immigration facility contractors.') During these years, after those deaths, Walter E. Dorroh Jr., the president of the LaSalle Economic Development District in Jena, made a rare public statement about the facility. 'GEO is the largest taxpayer of ad valorem taxes and one of the largest employers in our parish. But more important than the numbers is the intangible quality that GEO has brought to this parish. GEO is an impeccable corporate neighbor,' he wrote in a statement honoring the 10-year anniversary of the facility's conversion to immigrant detention. LaDawn Edwards, Jena's mayor, issued a public comment, also in celebration of the facility's first decade. 'The GEO Group is one of the town's largest employers and is a great asset to not only Jena, but the whole parish and surrounding area,' she said. In 2021 a study by Tulane University's Immigrants' Rights Clinic found 'prolonged and punitive' detention of immigrants who land in Jena, with little hope of winning release. In 2022 Edwards designated the first week of May 'National Correctional Employee Week.' And so it went, until April 11 of this year, when protesters returned to Jena. Then the protesters came back on April 15. It was happening again. 'Another group of people from out of town and out of state descended upon the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena last week,' wrote Franklin, since promoted to editor of the Jena Times, in the subsequent week's paper. 'They staged their protest in the ditch across the road from the facility's main entrance.' He added, 'There were no residents of LaSalle Parish at the demonstration. 'Who is Mahmoud Khalil?' Franklin asked in his article. 'He married his wife, Noor Abdalla in New York in 2023, the same year that Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, slaughtering babies, committing sexual violence, burning whole families alive and taking 240 civilians hostage. In total, over 1,200 Israelis were murdered on that day.' For nearly two decades, Jena had carried on far from the national eye. Its ICE facility had attracted federal contract money and better-than-minimum-wage employment and precious little scrutiny. About 91 percent of its population had voted for Trump. The out-of-town protesters were gone from Jena by the time I arrived. Things were getting back to normal. Easter was approaching. That Saturday, four men marched from one end of Jena to the other, trailing wooden crosses to commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus. I went to the ICE facility and saw it first. As I drove away, I stopped by the road to figure out directions. Not a full minute had passed before I saw a Jena police car headed toward me, in the opposite direction. I wondered where he might be going; I shouldn't have. He flipped a U-turn, pulled up close behind me, and rolled down the window. Where did I think I was going? I flashed a thumbs-up, hoping to wave him off. Again, he asked: 'What are you doing?' 'Just double-checking my directions back into town,' I said. 'There's only one road,' he barked back. The policeman tailed me the entire way back to town. I drove slowly. It took two separate visits to the police department to get anyone to speak with me beyond that. Assistant Chief David Smith initially told me that the officer with press training wasn't in. When I returned a day later, he confessed that he was actually that officer. I asked if he had seen the busloads of record transfers coming up from the airport in Alexandria, the ones GEO had celebrated in the quarterly luncheon, that by necessity had to traverse through Jena to arrive at the facility. 'They don't have to come through town,' he said. 'We don't know who's who. There are so many facilities.' I asked about how often the police were up at the facility: 'We're never out there,' he said. 'We don't see that.' About the conditions in detention: 'Nothing we can really tell you.' About the recent detentions of college students: 'They don't tell us anything. We don't own the facility.' About Jena's role in the greater immigrant detention infrastructure: 'Even if I knew, I probably wouldn't tell you,' he said. 'We hunt, we fish, we go to work, we play softball, like any small town.' It took two separate visits to the offices of the Jena Times to get a meeting with the editor, Franklin. He declined to speak with me, then he proceeded to continue talking to me. 'This is a conservative newspaper,' he said. 'We have an agenda.' He gestured at a flat-screen TV in his office that was playing Fox News. 'We watch Fox News.' He walked out of his office, headed for a meeting, he said, and I followed. 'This is a Trump town—we went 90–10 for Trump. The issue is black and white. If you break the rules, that's what happens,' he said, referring to the ICE facility. 'This is a very moral community,' he added, his voice getting louder. 'If there was anything wrong with the facility, the community would object to it, but they don't.' I made three separate efforts to meet with Edwards, the mayor. I sent an email; no response. I went in on a Wednesday, and she was in a meeting. I was told to leave my name and number and expect a call. No call came. I returned the next afternoon—meeting again. I was encouraged to come back later. No thanks, I said: I'd wait. I sat in the lobby, staring at a painted portrait of Edwards on the wall, platinum blond bob on a teal background. Two hours went by. I checked in with the receptionist, Susan, periodically. Still in a meeting. Four p.m. is quitting time in Jena; at 3:50, I asked again. 'You know,' said Susan, 'she snuck out the back door.' If I came back the next morning, she assured me, 7:30 sharp, Edwards would be there. I asked Susan if she had heard of the ICE detention center. 'Everyone in town works there,' she said. 'Everyone knows.' I returned to the mayor's office the next morning, at 7:30. 'She's not coming in today,' said Susan, smiling. Although Louisiana, once the most incarcerated place in the world per capita, had plenty of prison towns, it hadn't always been big on immigrant warehousing. For one thing, it was a relatively new enterprise: When Jena got its first ICE detention center, ICE was a fledgling new law enforcement agency, established by the Bush administration in 2003. Louisiana wasn't a border state, nor did it have a terribly large immigrant population, which made it a less obvious place than, say, neighboring Texas to set up shop. ICE saw an opportunity to skip steps by relying on private-prison contractors. Even today, the agency relies on private-prison operators to house 90 percent of its detainees. So, with the GEO Group, Jena got a head start on what would become a booming immigrant incarceration industry: For a long while, its facility was the largest in the state. It even had its own immigration court, one of just two in Louisiana, where immigration judges decided whether detainees could be deported. (It was almost always a yes.) The location had certain advantages for ICE. Because of central Louisiana's remoteness, there was little visibility into the conditions and almost no resources for detainees, who were hours and hours away from the nearest urban centers, where things like immigration lawyers resided: nearly three hours from Baton Rouge, four from New Orleans. Meanwhile, the local courts system is extremely hostile to immigrants contesting their deportation and extremely deferential to ICE. Immigration courts like the one in Jena are staffed by immigration judges who are employees of the Department of Homeland Security, not independent jurists. Detainees appealing detention or deportation from central Louisiana must file in the Western District of Louisiana, a federal district court that from 2010 to 2020 ordered release in only 1 percent of such cases. If they manage to bring their case all the way to the presiding circuit court, they go before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, the most conservative federal circuit in the nation. There, the courts deny more than 3 in 4 asylum claims. Being in Jena was like being in quicksand—the harder one fought deportation, the more stuck one got. It wasn't uncommon for immigrants to spend years in ICE detention without ever being convicted of a crime. Sometimes, if ICE appealed a ruling, a person could remain stuck even after winning. Few translators, few resources, in the middle of nowhere, a court with a rubber stamp. It was the perfect place to disappear. But neither remoteness nor favorable courts were enough to make central Louisiana into American Siberia. That didn't happen until the passage of a well-meaning statewide criminal justice reform effort. In 2017 Louisiana had a Democratic governor. Criminal justice reform had some bipartisan appeal back then. Even more importantly, it had big-money backing: The Koch brothers' political machine threw its weight behind a handful of criminal justice reform proposals. And soon enough, Louisiana had a whole raft of new laws: reducing mandatory minimums, shortening sentences, granting parole eligibility sooner. They overhauled and abridged drug sentencing and reeled in the state's much-maligned theft penalties. In just a year, Louisiana was no longer the country's most incarcerated state—it was No. 2, behind Oklahoma. (Soon, El Salvador built its own megaprison and toppled both states as the most incarcerated place on Earth.) But Louisiana's private-prison operators were first and foremost running a business, getting paid per bed to house inmates. They didn't intend to subsidize the state's soft touch. Firms like GEO turned to the federal government, which offered to pay almost twice as much per detainee for immigrants as the state of Louisiana was paying it to house locals, sometimes more. All of a sudden, private-prison operators were reopening jails and prisons that had been shuttered or were on their way to closure, often over allegations of abuse. Louisiana soon had more immigrants in detention than any other state but Texas. For ICE, it was money-saving: The day rates in Louisiana were cheaper than in other states, owing to its low wages and depressed local economy. For GEO, it was money-making and then some: State-run prisons or local jails are subject to state oversight bodies. But privately operated ICE detention centers are not subject to state inspections or regulations. And so central Louisiana boomed with new ICE facilities: in Jonesboro, in Monroe, in Ferriday, in Basile, and in Winnfield. Five of its nine detention centers opened in 2019. 'In the span of a year, the immigration detention in this state tripled,' said Mary C. Yanik, director of Tulane's Immigrants' Rights Clinic, 'largely built from a list of facilities that they were going to close or draw down.' And while a number of the college protesters targeted under Trump have since been freed, Khalil remains, despite still not having been charged with a crime. After 40 days in Jena, Alireza Doroudi, of the University of Alabama, quietly disappeared. He gave up the fight and returned to Iran. In Jena, everyone knew someone who worked at the ICE facility, and also no one knew anything. Friends, a cousin, a sister, a granddaughter, former co-workers, friends of friends. No one had heard anything about it, no one was picking up the phone, everyone would be back tomorrow and just so happened to be busy at the moment. At the doughnut shop, and again at the café, I was told that there were regularly ICE detention center employees but that I had only just missed them each time I arrived. At the drive-thru liquor store, which featured flags hanging from the rafters of Trump riding on a tank and Jesus grasping an American flag, one employee told me her ex-husband worked there. But she, too, knew nothing about it, wouldn't call him, didn't want to talk about it. At the local hospital, one employee told me that they did indeed have detainees show up for medical attention, accompanied by officials from the facility, but three other administrators came running to say that they could not and would not speak about that. At one of the town's many churches, I spoke with a woman who feared social retribution for saying anything. 'It's a really tight-knit community,' she warned. 'We did have someone come in and they visited their son out there, one family last year. We prayed with them,' she said, but asked no questions. 'It's its own little world out there' at the facility, she added. 'I never go out that direction.' At a thrift store, the clerk pulled from his wallet a photo of his granddaughter in her softball uniform. I asked what he thought about Khalil, about the men in the ICE facility. 'We don't need them,' he said. 'Send them back.' One day, I drove from Jena down to the Alexandria staging facility, one of the rare ICE detention structures situated directly on Tarmac. The detention center is relatively small, but the airport is one of the most important nodes in the entire nationwide ICE network: Detainees from all over Louisiana are brought here to be deported, or brought in from elsewhere, transferred from overcrowded jurisdictions to be submitted into the detention apparatus. I hoped to see evidence of the record arrivals, transports, and deportations that Rice had mentioned in his address at the GEO luncheon. The setup at Alexandria is unique. There is a public airport and runway for commercial flights, and a second, smaller runway serves private flights and ICE deportation both. The facility is ringed by a golf course. I drove into the parking lot of the private flight facility. I peered through a chain-link fence at a plane belonging to GlobalX, the charter airline commonly referred to as ICE Air, which sat on the runway. It was just before 2 p.m., punishingly hot and humid. The heat sizzled off the Tarmac. I watched as bus after white bus drove up to the plane and disgorged detainees. White bags were strewn all over the runway. I watched as deportees staggered off the bus by the dozen, the unmistakable waddle of men and women with their arms and legs shackled. Each stopped for a full-body pat-down before being directed to ascend the stairwell onto the plane. Some of the deportees wore white jumpsuits. Others were in civilian garb, jeans, and T-shirts. It went on for nearly an hour, then a second, smaller GlobalX plane pulled up behind it, and the process continued. For a while, these flights were trackable via online services like FlightRadar24. But when I plugged the tail code of the GlobalX plane into the tracker, it showed no active flight data going back weeks. Earlier that same day, one such flight had left from Alexandria for Honduras. On it, we now know, were three children with American citizenship: a 2-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a 7-year-old. The 4-year-old had Stage 4 cancer. Lawyers representing the father of the 2-year-old had filed an emergency petition with the infamous Western District of Louisiana the day prior, seeking her release; the child was put on a plane that left at 6:10 the next morning, before the court opened. All afternoon it continued, the buses circling, the planes being loaded, and the roar of jet engines drowning out the sounds of golfers teeing off, putting, hitting. I drove up to the Jena ICE facility one last time and sat in the visitor parking lot. Within a few minutes, I spotted another police car, which drove slowly around the flagpole at the entrance, then left. That afternoon, my last in Jena, dark clouds gathered. Peals of thunder followed; soon, it began to rain hard. A group of girls, practicing softball at one of the baseball fields at Jena Town Park, ran for cover. A few days later, the Jena Lady Giants took on the Doyle Lady Tigers in the Louisiana state softball finals. The Lady Giants fell behind early, tied it, and led for one half inning. But the Lady Tigers scored three in the top of the fifth. Jena lost by one run.
Fox News
06-06-2025
- Sport
- Fox News
Champlin Park wins Minnesota softball state title behind trans pitcher's complete game shutout
MINNEAPOLIS – The Champlin Park Rebels are state champions. The No. 2-seeded Rebels shut out No. 4 Bloomington Jefferson, 6–0, in the Class AAAA Minnesota high school girls' softball championship game Friday morning at Jane Sage Cowles Stadium on the campus of the University of Minnesota. Once again, it was junior pitcher Marissa Rothenberger, a trans-identifying male athlete, who took the mound for Champlin Park — and never gave it up. Rothenberger threw a complete-game shutout, allowing just three hits and striking out six to secure the title. The performance capped off a dominant tournament run in which Rothenberger pitched all 21 innings across three games, giving up just two runs total and leading the Rebels to three-straight wins. For the effort, Rothenberger was named to the All-Tournament team. Rothenberger's tournament began with a complete-game shutout in the quarterfinals against No. 7-seeded Eagan, allowing seven hits and striking out four in a 5–0 win. In the semifinals, Champlin Park edged No. 6 White Bear Lake, 3–2, behind another complete game from Rothenberger, who gave up two runs (one earned), struck out three and hit two crucial doubles — including one that led to the game-winning run in the seventh. Including the 14 shutout innings that Rothenberger pitched in the sectional finals to help Champlin Park reach the state tournament in the first place, the junior allowed just two runs across 35 innings to close out the postseason. Champlin Park's other pitcher, Ava Abrahamson, was listed as a designated player throughout the tournament but never entered as a pitcher. Outside the stadium Friday morning, a small group of protesters gathered peacefully, holding signs that read "Females deserve fair sports" and "Democrats for Title IX," signaling bipartisan opposition to the policies that allowed Rothenberger — a biological male — to compete in the girls' division. The Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) allows student-athletes to compete in events based on gender identity, regardless of biological sex. Attempts to speak with Champlin Park parents after the win were largely declined. One parent, the father of junior outfielder Ava Parent, did offer a brief comment. "Happy to see the Rebels' bats come alive," he said, referencing the team's stronger offensive showing compared to their close semifinal win. Another Champlin Park dad, when asked for comment, asked which outlet he'd be speaking with. Upon hearing "OutKick," he responded, "Go talk to the other side. I'm sure they have plenty to say to you." For Bloomington Jefferson parents, the loss was heartbreaking, but they were proud of the Jaguars' efforts throughout the tournament. "It was tough, but what can you do? They're following the rules, whether we like it or not," one dad told OutKick. Another Jefferson father said, "It was disappointing. I give the other team credit: They hit the sh*t out of the ball. But you can't help but wonder how things could have gone with an equal playing field." A third dad emphasized his support for the girls, regardless of the final score. "I'm very proud of the way our girls played this whole tournament," he said. "We teach them sportsmanship, and someone had to lose. This is a hard pill to swallow, though." One Jefferson mom decided to make the best of a tough situation. "We exceeded expectations this season. No one expected us to be in the championship in the first place," she said. "We're going to celebrate anyway." Champlin Park walks away with the title — and leaves behind a conversation that's far from over. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
