MACA girls outdone in first week of season

MACA girls basketball had a bumpy first week of the season. The Tuesday and Thursday action had the Tigers on the short end. It began with a loss to Breckenridge that had some encouragement early-on: a tied 30-all score. Then it was downhill. So the orange and black was bested by the green of Breckenridge. Final score of 49-35 at the Breck gym. Breck's fortunes took off with a 19-3 run. 

Maddy Grove was a force for the Tigers with 17 points, 11 rebounds. Maddie Fehr contributed seven points, nine rebounds. Our shooting was pretty cold: 27 percent. Parker Yaggie was a force for the host with her 20 points.

 

New London-Spicer 78, Tigers 33

On to game 2. Wish I could paint a brighter picture here. Alas the reality was hardly upbeat. You probably know that New London-Spicer has an extensive track record from over the years, carving out so much success. Their tradition was built upon on Thursday. So the fans at New London had to be mighty happy. The score was 78-33. The Tigers are going to have to work on some aspects of their game. 

As with the Breck game, the early stages were pretty decent for us. The roof fell in, in the second half. This was to the tune of a 40-9 Wildcat scoring advantage. Ouch. The Wildcats are at 2-0. 

Our Maddy Grove had a productive night as she connected three times from 3-point range. Her point total for the night was 17. Mackenzie Konz had our other '3'. Konz failed to score outside of that. Maddy really dominated the offensive side for us. Kaylee Harstad scored five points, Brianna Marty four, Konz three, and Hana Schutz and Maddie Fehr two each. No other individual stats were available from the West Central Tribune website. 

Four NL-Spicer Wildcats posted double figures scoring totals: Avery Rich 19, Dakota Rich 18, Delaney Hanson 13 and Jaden Coahran 13. Ellary Peterson put in seven points. These Wildcats each scored two: Ayla Caskey, Ava Carlson, Piper Barney and Kaatelyn Tortorella. Hanson led their attack in 3's with three. Avery Rich made two long-rangers, and Coahran and Dakota Rich one each. 

Peterson was top Wildcat in rebounds with 12, followed by Hanson and Carlson each with nine. Avery Rich led in assists with four, followed by Coahran and Hanson each with three. The steals department: Avery Rich 8, Coahran 5 and Hanson 3. In blocks: Peterson 3, Hanson 2, Dakota Rich 1, Kaylee Thorson 1. 

The game was not a rout from the start. The score was 21-20 at one early point.

 

On the media

My Central Minnesota newspaper friend likes to give me a heads-up when he does dynamic and innovative things in covering the public school. He deserves praise. As an amateur futurist, I do have to wonder how much longer his approach will stay at the cutting edge. What does that mean? Here's a portion of an email I sent to him on November 22. He had just finished covering his school's big musical, "Anastasia."

 

Congrats on the continued great work. I have to look ahead and wonder, though, if in the long run the schools themselves will take more possession of the reporting and promo work. I mean, look at Morris Area where the so-called "YouTube geniuses" are covering more ground all the time. I suggested in a blog post that they consider video podcasting. They could share the same kind of information that appears in the commercial media.

I remember for most of my career just being able to walk into a school with no restrictions. "Everyone knew who I was." I would call that the old Normal Rockwell America with a particular type of personal networking. For example, if you needed a contractor, you looked for someone in your church. Today, you'd go to Home Advisor! A local civic-minded doctor would simply volunteer to be at football games to attend to any medical emergency. Today there are formal provisions for all this. The Morris school was just starting to get particular with passes for the public at the time I left. I remember how they decided to make an exception for me at first. "Everyone knows who you are." That isn't cutting it any more in contemporary America! Everything is by the book. I describe the old model as "Peyton Place."

In the old days, people in a town would know about a guy who molested kids but it was all hush-hush. It's a sea change now. I remember a particular person in Morris whose name I won't share now, he's long deceased. I think this happened everywhere. People knew about certain men who'd beat their wives. They knew who the "drunks" were. Everyone just plodded forward.

For the Morris school musical, just held, I never saw a single promo poster around town. I remarked about this with a few people but nothing ever got done. And then, the Morris paper came out with an article but there were no rehearsal photos. I was astonished by that. Such an absolute no-brainer thing to have done. So I was discouraged and I did not attend musical.