Tigers get win No. 12 in volleyball, here

Tigers 3, Benson 1

I got fooled. I normally would have posted about the MACA-Benson match on Tuesday. That's if I had known the match was going to be played Monday.

Our Morris Area school calendar had this match down for Tuesday, Oct. 1. I guess we can't accept that school calendar as gospel.

The MACA girls took to the home court on Monday to face those Braves of Benson. Our Tigers, buoyed by success in the weekend Hancock Tournament, showed more of same in terms of quality of play. Coach Kristi Fehr's orange and black crew turned back the maroon Braves 3-1.

Game scores were 25-14, 23-25, 25-14 and 25-16.

The success got the Tigers' win total pushed up to 12. Everything looks upbeat for the Tigers.

Chelsey Ehleringer picked up a couple serve aces while going a perfect 15-for-15 in good/attempts. Terianne Itzen had one serve ace to go with 14 of 15 in G/A. Other Tiger servers: Hunter Mundal (15 of 16), Beth Holland (10 of 10), Haley Erdahl (16 of 16) and Sydney Engebretson (14 of 16).

Ehleringer raced around to put up 22 set assists. Erdahl raced around to perform 14.

Lacee Maanum came through with three ace blocks.

Itzen stood out in digs with her hefty total of 32. Holland came through with 22, and the list continues with Mundal (15), Ehleringer (14), Erdahl (11), Engebretson (9) and Maanum (6).

Let's wrap up our stat report with hitting. Here we had Itzen and Engebretson showing authoritative play. Both came at the Braves with 12 kills. Itzen had 36 of 40 stats in G/A while Engebretson had 29 of 34. Paige Schieler was a force with her nine kills achieved on 30 of 35 G/A.

Maanum was poised at the net and pounded seven kills while posting 25 of 31 in G/A. Kayla Pring had six kills to go with 12 of 14 G/A. Nicole Strobel had three kills and five of six in G/A. Holland picked up a kill while going four-for-five.

Taylor Laumeyer had seven kills for Benson followed by Bethan Erhardt and Krista Motzko each with five.

Morris Area Chokio Alberta owned a 12-4 overall record coming out of Monday.

 

Marathon weekend coming up

The Twin Cities Marathon is this Sunday. A mass of runners will take off from the Metrodome and head toward the state capitol. The event now has a long history.

I remember being among that mass three times. The first was in 1984 when, not coincidentally, I ran my best. My body was still fresh. I nearly finished the 26.2 miles in under three hours. I remember straining over those last six miles thinking I could do it.

The historical record shows that I finished that marathon in three hours, one minute and eleven seconds. Given that I'm fairly large of stature, it was a performance bringing satisfaction.

My second participation in the TC was in 1987. I had recently gotten a hamstring problem. I was never medically diagnosed but I'm certain that's what it was. I had to stop running completely for a week or two. Then, as I was getting rather desperate to resume, an acquaintance suggested I try a "thigh support." I went to the drugstore and acquired one.

A lot of times, drugstore remedies fall short of one's hopes. You're really just buying hope sometimes. But in the case of the thigh support, the remedy was incredible. It felt like a miracle as I found I could actually run again. I joined my friends for backyard volleyball over by the Morris Dairy Queen.

I resumed running. I showed up at the starting area for the Twin Cities Marathon wearing my long-sleeve T-shirt with "New York City Marathon" on the front. No, I hadn't run it, although I had visited the Big Apple as a tourist a couple times. Spectators along the route acknowledged my apparent connection to the NYC race.

It was wonderful I could even be participating, given the hamstring problem. The thigh support did give some resistance that kept my speed less than optimal. My time dropped off about 15 minutes from 1984. I could have been sad about that.

I interviewed several runners for feature articles through the years who would have given their right arm to have a time of 3:15. So looking back, my thoughts are warm regarding the 1987 experience.

Today I gather that runners aren't motivated as much by time. The idea today is to have a manageable and reasonably enjoyable experience.

The Twin Cities Marathon has aesthetic pluses. You wind through parts of the Cities you'd never visit or see otherwise. Each year I participated, the sights and sounds were invigorating, such as having TV helicopters hovering overhead at the start! You certainly wouldn't experience that at the Barrett 10K.

I have always felt strongly that you needn't train specifically for a marathon. I'm quite the contrarian with this view. I believe that if you simply run four or five 10K races over the summer, hard and focused, you can take off for the Twin Cities Marathon and feel confident. I ran a 10K every other weekend in getting ready for the 1984 Twin Cities Marathon. I got a little extra rest leading up to marathon weekend.

I attended the U of M Gophers football game, vs. Ohio State, on the night before the marathon. Lou Holtz was coaching the Gophers. I had a Polish hot dog for supper. Everything clicked the next day. It doesn't seem so long ago, but oh my it is.

Good luck to all the runners this Sunday. I'm a spectator now, apt to have two Polish hot dogs rather than one, for supper.

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