Hitting again strong as girls sweep LQPV

The home gym was a friendly place as expected for MACA volleyball on Monday, 9/23. The Tigers are at home for both their matches this week. Thursday's opponent will be BOLD.

On Monday the Tigers took charge, winning in the minimum three games versus Lac qui Parle Valley. It was the sixth season triumph for coach Kristi Fehr's squad. The Tigers turned back the Eagles by scores of 25-15, 25-10 and 25-18.

The success comes on the heels of the football team's decisive Friday win for Homecoming 2013.

Click on the link below to view a Flickr photo album on the Morris Area Homecoming parade. The photos are by yours truly (B.W.).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wcminn/sets/72157635812245596/

 
The volleyball Tigers didn't play at home last week. This week there's a much-appreciated generous dose of home volleyball. The bumping, setting and spiking attract many fans to our spacious and state of the art MAHS gym.

A sweep is usually achieved with a strong hitting phase. The Tigers certainly succeeded on that count.

We saw Sydney Engebreton and Paige Schieler both pound down nine kills. Engebretson had 19 of 20 good/attempts stats, while Schieler posted 30 of 33. Terianne Itzen slammed down six kills on 14 of 17 in good/attempts.

Lacee Maanum was a force with four kills on 14 of 16 in G/A. Erdahl was a perfect six-for-six with two kills. Nicole Strobel rounded out the attack at six-for-seven with one kill.

Maanum went up to perform four ace blocks. Schieler followed with three and Strobel had one.

In digs it was Beth Holland setting the pace with 17 followed by Erdahl with 12, Chelsey Ehleringer with eleven, Itzen with ten and Strobel with five.

Ehleringer and Erdahl were the Tigers busiest with producing set assists, finishing with 12 and 10 respectively.

Let's wrap up this stat report with serving. Erdahl executed two serving aces and was eleven of 13 in good/attempts. Itzen had one serving ace on 22 of 23 G/A. Hunter Mundal was one of three, Courtney Giese one of one, Holland five of seven, Engebretson 11 of 11, Ehleringer 12 of 12 and Tracy Meichsner one of one.

The Tigers enter Thursday's match vs. BOLD with a 6-3 overall record, 5-2 in conference.

Lac qui Parle Valley is having a struggling season, having only two wins as of mid-week. Kaitlyn Connor had five kills for LQPV vs. the Tigers.
  

Media happenings

Looking at the want ads in the Morris newspaper, it looks as though turnover is happening at the Morris newspaper.

It is my opinion that the newspaper is not a pleasant work environment.

We all know changes are happening with newspapers. The Internet has been a highly disruptive force for this medium. This is a good development for the general public but it creates obvious stress with the print media. Newspapers no longer have the entitled position they once did. They are trying to preserve whatever niche they have left.

Technology has allowed more work to be consolidated, to be done in central locations (like with Detroit Lakes, relative to the Morris newspaper). History books may someday tell us that networked computers were the biggest job killers of all time.

The Morris newspaper is owned by a chain which means it can harness all of the current trends. Does that mean it puts out a better product? Heavens no. But it can use synergy to cut costs.

Being an employee in a business that aggressively seeks to cut costs means watching your back. The modern corporation works the numbers constantly to optimize profit. Employees are statistics.

The heroes in the movie "Moneyball" (Brad Pitt) weren't the players. Rather we saw the cutting-edge approach with numbers analysis, using computers, trumping all the judgment that the scouts once made. It was a numbers proposition. You plugged in certain players that together had the odds favor them vs. most opponents.

But it wasn't about the players, not about their hopes, their dreams or their families. It was about the numbers and ultimately the money.

I don't know all the details about what is happening at the Morris Sun Tribune. I could scrounge around but have felt no strong impulse to do so. I suspect there is an atmosphere of instability and never reaching a status quo that can be comfortable for an indefinite period.

Should we care? Historically we have felt we should care about the stability of our newspapers. But that was when papers were in their entitled era, when they performed functions that couldn't easily be duplicated in any other way in the community. We have come light years from that.

People can get information at the micro level from their computer. The systems may have been a little specialized at first. The average layman might have been a little slow catching on to it.

I remember about seven years ago telling a friend that my photos were being posted on the Morris Eagles baseball website. This individual, who had a good education and worked at the soils lab, said "how do you find it?"

The average person is far more well-versed today "finding stuff" on the world wide web. Search engines are anything but a mystery. (We can be nostalgic about "Alta Vista.")

"Friday Facts" from our Morris Area Chamber of Commerce is getting better continually, as a bulletin board for upcoming events in our community.

I have continually needled the school district about how it should make its website more of a PR and outreach tool to the whole community. I have continually needled businesses in Morris to quit supporting those "sucker ads" in the Morris newspaper, which simply extract money from businesses with no tangible return.

Old habits fade slowly. Let's hasten the process.

I'm delighted to perform journalism with no need for a printing press. It's the year 2013. If you are going to spend money on advertising in print, then do it with Heather Storck's "Morris Area Merchant" publication. It's entirely local in its orientation. It doesn't exist to serve Fargo, ND.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com