Mount Vernon High School

Richard Harrison Hoyt, known to his friends and fans as Rich or Richie Hoyt, passed away August 31, 2022 at the age of 83.

Mount Gilead 42, Elgin 6. Mount Gilead took on Elgin Friday, Sept. 2 and the Indians showed an impressive display of offense and defense to take a 42-6 blowout win to improve to 2-1.

Mount Vernon High School's Jacket Athletic Booster Club is teaming up with the Ohio National Guard, Knox Veterans Services, Mount Vernon Police Department and Mount Vernon Fire & EMS to present and promote Armed Forces and First Responders Recognition Week September 22-24.

The Mount Vernon News sports department’s MVN ATHLETE of the WEEK is a weekly feature that spotlights local student-athletes and their schools.

Taking over a football program that is looking for its first conference football championship since 2002, Jay Campbell, the new head coach at Mount Vernon High School, is excited in what he sees as strong work ethic and determination in his student-athletes, as he instills a “finish” expectation for the team.

Long-time Mount Vernon resident, Arthur L. “Buck” Keen, passed away Dec. 6, 2021, and the area lost a friend and a real fan of baseball and the local kids who play it. After Keen’s passing, his wife, Juanita, and Mount Vernon High School baseball coach, Nate Hunt, set up a remembrance of “Buck” in the form of a scholarship to a worthy Yellow Jackets baseball player.

Mount Vernon High School has shared results of the 2022 Grand Concours (National French Test) which was completed in mid- March.

Nathan Streby of East Knox ran away from the men in the 800-meter run and Mount Vernon’s Sophie Zoldak did the same to the women in the 3200, as 16 local teams squared off at the Fredericktown track meet, on the Freddies’ track, April 29.

Centerburg puts up four three times to defeat Madison Christian 14-3. The Centerburg Trojans scored four runs in each of the third, fourth and sixth innings to down Madison Christian 15-3 on April 8. Pinkerton’s four hits leads Scots to 10-3 win over Stallions. Zach Pinkerton connected for four hits and the Highland Fighting Scots banged out 15 safeties to outscore St. Francis DeSales 15-3, Friday to improve to 5-2 on the season.

The Mount Vernon Lady Yellow Jackets hit three homeruns and completed their spring break Florida softball trip with a 9-3 win over Franklin (Ohio)) at the Beach Bash in Ft. Walton Beach, FL. The Lady Jackets ended the week with 5 wins and 0 losses, and head coach Ryan Pentz said, “The word of the week was GROWTH and the Lady Jackets saw growth individually and as a team.”

Nova the police dog fulfills her mission at Mount Vernon Schools daily by calming defiant students down and helping others turn their bad days into better ones.

Mount Vernon High School Skills for Life students donated 60 gift bags to Knox County Job and Family Services for children ages birth to age 12 in the Foster Care program.The donations were given to Ray Guajaro, Foster & Adoption Social Worker on Dec. 6, 2021.

Mount Vernon high School softball coach Ryan Pentz cautions that these early games are only scrimmages before the real action starts for the Lady Jackets, this weekend in Florida. But in their pre-season tune-up against Highland, March 22, the Lady Jackets were running on all cylinders, hitting, pitching, errorless fielding and pushing runs across early and late.

Students at Mount Vernon High School donated over 40 items for the cats at the Knox County Humane Society. and over 100 items for the dogs at the Knox County Animal Shelter.

Coming off a big season in which they went 19-4 and 10-0 in the Ohio Cardinal Conference, the Mount Vernon Lady Jackets softball team is looking to fill the gaps left by seven graduated starters off last year’s team. The 2021 squad won their fourth straight conference title, outscored their opponents 274-67 and advanced to the OHSAA Softball State Div. 1 Regional Semifinals, where their run was stopped by Pickerington Central, 6-2, on May 26.

Mount Vernon Highs School’s head baseball coach, Nate Hunt, said the challenge that the Jackets face year after year is that they play in a tough conference (Ohio Cardinal Conference) and all of those teams are NOT in the Central District. Hunts said, “Because of this, we have to play a tough non-conference schedule in order to have some respect in the central district. The goal for this season is to win the O.C.C. and continue to improve every day and be as prepared as we can for the tournament.”

In two recent sectional and divisional high school wrestling tournaments, the Mount Vernon yellow Jackets placed third (sectionals) and eighth in regionals, and the team saw 10 wrestlers move forward to the regionals, then several more move on after the regionals.

Tim Zeller, graduate of Mount Vernon High School, class of 2017, need only the first week of the Great Midwest Athletic Conference baseball season to win Athlete of the Week honors in the league for his college school, Ashland University (Ashland, Ohio).Zeller earned following a big weekend at the plate and on the mound for the Eagles at the Frank Loria Invitational in Salem, W.Va.

Emma Rinehart, Mount Vernon High School’s only female wrestler, placed third in the 115-pound weight class, at the Ohio High School Wrestling Coaches Association (OHSWCA) Girls State Wrestling Tournament , Feb. 19-22 at Hilliard Davidson High School in Hilliard.

The Mount Vernon wrestling team finished third among seven teams at last weekend’s OCC Championships, Feb. 19 at Ashland HS. Defending champion Ashland was supplanted by West Homes to win the Ohio Cardinal title. The Knights amassed 221.5 points, Ashland 218.5 and the Yellow jackets 195. Mount Vernon had four wrestlers win gold medals. Colton Spurgeon at 126 pounds, Rylan Firebaugh at 132, Jake Taylor at 150 and Zach Thomas at 175 all won their weight division titles.