The home fans had to be patient before letting out their enthusiastic cheers Friday at Big Cat Stadium. The home Tigers had zero points at the end of one quarter. In the meantime, Holdingford shot out front with a pair of scores.
The complexion of the game completely changed in the second quarter. The tables were turned with MACA scoring 15 points and Holdingford zero. The third quarter went the Tigers' way again. After that, the home team polished things off with a 13-8 scoring advantage in the final quarter. So, the game goes in the books as a resounding 44-21 win for the orange and black.
The first quarter scores by Holdingford had Andrew Hanson and Alex Lange crossing the end zone stripe. Aaron Welle added the PAT kick after the first score. Would you believe the next seven scores were by the Tigers? What a surge. First it was Matt McNeill carrying the ball in from the three. Next it was the refs making the signal for "safety" as Holdingford got trapped.
Austin Berlinger recovered a fumble and was able to score on the play. Eli Grove kicked for the point-after. MACA momentum continued with a five-yard TD run by McNeill, after which Grove's toe was again true. Two more points were added when the refs again signaled "safety." Camden Arndt was off to the races on a big 38-yard scoring run. Grove kicked the PAT again.
MACA continued burying Holdingford under an avalanche of offense, as now it was Arndt catching a 27-yard touchdown pass from Zach Bruns. Grove sent the ball through the uprights. Holdingford scored on a one-yard run by Tate Lange. The two-point conversion play was good on a pass from Lange to Will Ethen. MACA pulled a kick return out of its bag of tricks, as Kenney Soderberg found daylight. Soderberg scored on his thrilling 90-yard return.
The Tigers totaled 20 first downs on the night. Our rushing yardage was 288. The rushing charge was led by Matt McNeill with 110 yards and Camden Arndt with 101. These other Tigers also contributed rushing yardage: Colten Scheldorf, Riley Reimers, Zach Bruns, Kenny Soderberg, Jack Riley and Josh Rohloff.
Bruns completed three passes in nine attempts for 59 yards. Reimers had the other pass completion for MACA. The pass catchers were Arndt, McNeill and Rohloff. The Willmar paper has "N/A" for "not available" for interceptions, fumble recoveries, tackles and sacks. It's that way for both teams, so we must wonder why the paper didn't just exclude mention of these categories completely. Why bother reporting a negative?
Volleyball: Tigers 3, Montevideo 0
MACA built on its early-season success with a sweep over the Thunder Hawks of Montevideo on Thursday. The orange and black prevailed 25-8, 25-14 and 25-13.
Riley Decker batted two serving aces at the Thunder Hawks. These Tigers each had one serve ace: Bailey Marty, Liz Dietz, Kenzie Stahman, Larae Kram and LeAndra Hormann. Dietz led in set assists with 12 followed by Kram with eight. Lexi Pew was at the fore of the hitting attack with nine kills. Marty and Sophie Carlsen each notched five kills. Kenzie Hockel produced three kills and Emma Berlinger had two.
Five Tigers each had one ace block: Hockel, Berlinger, Pew, Marty and Carlsen. Marty was sharp in the digs department with her team-best 18. Hockel and Decker each had 12 digs and Dietz had eight.
The Willmar paper butchered spelling of Tigers' names. They had Kenzie Stahlman instead of Stahman, Larea Kram instead of Larae, Sophie Carlson instead of Carlsen and LeAndra Horman instead of Hormann. Jeez guys, can't we count on you a little better than this?
Watch the Tigers roll forward under coach Caleb Greene.
Cross country: LQPV/DB Invite
OK what do all those initials stand for? The alphabet soup comes out as "Lac qui Parle Valley/Dawson-Boyd." When the LQPV district was being created, didn't Dawson-Boyd almost join in, then they pulled out and today they're most gratified they did? Well today they're all together for cross country and they hosted the invite at Appleton. And, it was LQPV/DB that topped both the boys and girls standings.
Our Tigers were right behind in second in both gender divisions. Nine schools had their runners in action. Noah Stewart of our Tigers was the boys individual champion. Noah covered the course in 17:48.02. Ben Hernandez of the Tigers arrived at the finish chute No. 5 with his time of 18:49.33. Bradley Rohloff placed 15th, clocked at 19:42.94. Solomon Johnson was No. 16 with his 19:44.61 showing. Thomas Tiernan placed 23rd at 20:57.67.
The girls individual champion was Isabel Schirm of LQPV/DB, timed at 16:33.49. MACA runner Maddie Carrington was runner-up at 16:55.47. The fleet Carrington sisters made their mark on this day, as Meredith arrived at the finish line sixth with her 17:51.11 performance. Crystal Nohl was No. 9 to the finish chute: an 18:30.92 time. Malory Anderson placed tenth (18:34.97) and Madelyn Siegel covered the course in 19:19.89.
We're underway for 2018
Writing this post reminds me how complicated a football game is to summarize. So many categories of information, many of which have to coordinate with each other to make sense. I continue to write about football despite misgivings. You might say I'm doing this under protest. We hope to see diminished participation in football nationally as a way of realizing that parents are paying attention to the disturbing news of the health effects of the sport.
I personally stopped by Big Cat Stadium Friday, inadvertently right at the time our MACA momentum started taking off, and I was discouraged to see a pretty good fan turnout. No signs of hope emerging.
Lots of fans will want to grit their teeth reading my kind of thoughts on this, and that's too bad. Your own sons are at risk, not only of the brain/cognitive problems, but also the more well-known traditional injuries to joints etc. Those latter injuries are worrisome enough. The MAHS administration would say "we are following all protocols." That's a nice CYA stance. They don't have the courage to lead and to actually encourage boys and their parents to steer toward soccer. It's ironic that I should care more than a lot of you parents. The "benefits" from football can be gained from any number of other activities.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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