MACA boys counter the weather blues

Feeling stung by how the MACA girls' game turned out on Thursday? There's some compensation from the boys' side. The MACA boys really took care of business Thursday against Paynesville. The Tigers were in a homestand that would carry into last night (Friday). Weather conditions were such yesterday that I felt the game at Tiger Center might be called off. No, the teams took to the court: MACA hosting Sauk Centre. 

What a successful homestand it was. 

Meanwhile the girls experienced quite the down note at Minnewaska Area. It is difficult to write about this. The MACA girls were held to four points in the first half. I have heard that Minnewaska is good. No one can deny that. 

I sure cannot observe with a coach's eye. However it is totally the fan's prerogative to try to offer analysis. Maybe I should put "analysis" in quotes. But hey, seems to me almost anyone could offer a constructive thought or two after a favorite team loses. Loses the way we have against Mayer Lutheran and Minnewaska Area. 

Ahem, I will say this: were I to be in charge, I would retreat back to basic conditioning. When all else fails, drill the players until they are totally winded, tongues hanging out as it were. And in this sense I might recall the movie "Hoosiers" with Gene Hackman. A wildly successful movie but it's from the 1980s, maybe getting a little lost in time. This guy who has been kicked out of college coaching gets a new chance at an Indiana high school from the superintendent who is an old college friend. "Buffalo State Teachers College." He takes over practices and makes clear from the get-go that the players will end up "in the best shape of their lives." 

The townspeople are befuddled at first. Of course the movie paints a rosy scenario for the whole thing. I think it overdid the "town drunk" character. But we see "coach Dale" lay the foundation for success with sheer conditioning. I hope the MACA girls can right the ship pretty soon. Had the game been at home and on YouTube, the announcer would have been beside herself trying to describe while saving face for Motown. A 58-4 halftime score? 

I know nothing is guaranteed in sports. People have been known to lecture me in the past about that. But like I say: It's a fan's prerogative to share basic theories. All that said, let's look at the Thursday night boys game: Tigers versus Paynesville at Tiger Center. A one-sided score favoring the orange and black. 

 

Boys: Tigers 80, Paynesville 42

We cruised up to 80 points with Alex Asmus providing 18 of those. Drew Huebner pumped in 15. 

The parade continued with Tyler Friesen scoring 14 and Jack Kehoe 12. We were up 49-21 at halftime and we outscored P-ville 31-21 the rest of the way. Ben Tiernan and Tyson Grove each scored seven points. Riley Asmus was held to four points. Jonah Huebner contributed two and Charlie Hanson one.

This helps us think spring!

The West Central Tribune has "Asmus" with three 3-pointers and we can confirm it was Alex - that's because Alex scored 18 points and Riley four. Just have to do a little arithmetic. A sportswriter has to have a careful eye for where siblings play on high school teams. It is so common. A rule of thumb for me is that I distinguish with full first names rather than just first initials. 

Tiernan and Grove each made one 3-pointer. Obviously a nice overall performance by coach Jacob Torgerson's crew in front of the home fans. 

Oh, the final score was 80-42!

Paynesville had one player creep his way into double figures and that was Matthew Hemingson with ten points. Otherwise it's single digits: Sam Brunner 9, Carter Flanders 6, Brayden VanderBeck 6, Elias Vig 3, Reed Johnson 2, Caden Long 2, Derek Mergen 2 and Esau Nelson 2. Hemingson made two 3-pointers and VanderBeck one. 

 

The Friday story: 57-49 win

Home wins on back-to-back nights was a treat for the locals. The Friday story was the 57-49 win over the Sauk Centre Streeters. Fortunately MACA did not have to go on the road on this blustery unpleasant evening. It's "polar vortex" time. I'm content in my house for the day. I keep my brain active writing this stuff. Oh it is a pleasure. 

Sorry I cannot find details online of the Sauk Centre game. I complain about this dearth of timely info quite often. It does no good.

 

Behind closed doors?

I wonder if the Thursday girls game at 'Waska resulted in any sort of private meeting or discussion at the administrative level at Morris. You can't blame the players. The players would be the first to deserve compliments since they are making the commitment. I just wonder how any MACA basketball team on any given night playing a reasonably comparable opponent - Minnewaska surely is - could be held to four points in a half. 

Any team that simply runs aggressively up and down the court should be able to do better. 

Again: conditioning. I think my words would be echoed by the old coach of the Hancock girls team. Regardless of how his career turned out, he created memories for the ages in his Hancock tenure. Try to strip away what happened at the end. You might say that's impossible. I demur. History is what it is. 

Hancock and Wheaton back in that era could be breathtaking with their quality of play, often exhibited at our UMM P.E. Center. Wheaton fans would fill half the place, nearly all dressed in red! In my newspaper articles I sometimes called that assemblage the "sea of red." Man how the P.E. Center could get crowded in those days. 

Today, I think the UMM administration would be concerned about the sheer wear and tear there. All the time for custodians to clean up and close down the place afterward. Today colleges are in such intense competition for students (read their money, or the money from their parents), the whole campus is managed like it has to be in mint condition! And I really think that's sad. 

Campus facilities are at their best, most useful when there are mass participation events. Example being the old UMM Jazz Festival. That would be in the legendary Jim Carlson years. We didn't know how good we had it.

UMM music today would appear to be in a state of rapid deterioration. I can underscore that with empirical facts. I like to use words like "empirical" to try to impress UMM faculty. As if I could succeed with anything in that regard! But UMM faculty are far more pleasant to interact with now, compared to the days when there was an irritating effete element out there. 

 

Breath of fresh air

The people who remain as UMM faculty now in our challenged times are relatable folks. But will UMM even survive? That is now the question. 

Perhaps the best defense we have is that Minnesota continues to be a blue state. But now with Trump taking charge again from D.C., will the screws be turned on Minnesota along with other blue states? Because, Trump is a totally political animal who believes in all-out retribution. If Liz Cheney is put on trial, I hope and pray she does not get the death penalty. But prepare yourselves, y'all.

Addendum: Back in the years of Wheaton and Hancock preeminence in girls basketball out here, nobody even talked about Morris as being a contender for anything, ever. You might have a hard time believing that but it's true. So I tried speaking up about that and got all sorts of enmity directed at me. Hoo boy. The effete element of this town put a target on my forehead for a prolonged time. Another term I have used for them is "intelligentsia." "All we care about is academics." Well, go sit under a cow.

I'll name-drop with the old Wheaton and Hancock coaches: Earl Steffens and Dennis Courneya, Courneya being the one with the ignominious exit. Let's be frank: prison time. Sin is a trait of the human condition, n'est-ce pas?

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com