The MACA boys basketball team sure doesn't look like a team that is on a two-game loss skid. The record shows we are. We fell to BOLD on Friday and to West Central Area Saturday in a hectic and demanding stretch of the schedule, for players and fans. What would our winter be like without basketball?
Fans got their fix on the weekend as the Tigers put up a supreme challenge Friday vs. highly-touted BOLD. Highly-touted? The Warriors are ranked No. 1 in the state. And we nearly toppled them. Nearly. But a three-pointer at the end kept us down, and then our Saturday contest vs. the West Central Area Knights went the way of the opponent too. We were stopped by the Knights in the 73-65 final.
The Knights were pretty sharp shooting: eleven three-pointers and 54 percent from the field. Grant Beuckens was a force for the victor with 21 points. He also snared five rebounds and had three steals. Jack Van Kempen - now there's a name with Morris connections - did his part frustrating the Tigers as he scored 16. Jack collected seven rebounds and blocked four shots. Adding to the attack were Gage Staples with eleven points and Tate Christenson with ten.
The Knights like the BOLD Warriors are highly-ranked in state. The Knights boast the No. 6 position. The Tigers appear on the verge of sharing that elite stature.
The Knights move forward with a 15-2 record. They had the lead at halftime Saturday, 33-28. They outscored us 40-37 the rest of the way. Action was at their gym in Barrett.
The orange and black had a trio of players putting up double-digit point totals: Jackson Loge with 16 points, Cade Fehr with 15 and Brandon Jergenson with eleven. Here's the rest of the list: Thomas Tiernan (9), Durgin Decker (7), Toby Gonnerman (3), Bradley Rohloff (2) and Riley Reimers (2). We shot 21 of 48 for 44 percent.
Jergenson led our three-pointer attack with three in four attempts. Decker, Tiernan and Fehr each made one '3'. We were six of 19 in 3's for 32 percent. And in freethrows, the numbers were 17-for-27, 63 percent. Loge was in his usual position atop our rebounding. He snared one offensive and seven defensive. Fehr had two offensive, three defensive. Decker had four total rebounds, Tiernan two, Gonnerman two, Cameron Koebernick one and Brock Peterson one.
Here's the assist list: Loge 3, Jergenson 2, Tiernan 2, Rohloff 1, Gonnerman 1 and Fehr 1. Loge and Brock Peterson each had a steal. Loge had two blocked shots. We had nine turnovers.
My summary of Friday's BOLD game was posted Saturday on my companion blog, "Morris of Course." Thanks if you visit either (or both!) of my sites. Here's the permalink for the BOLD game, a barnburner. It is nice for yours truly to stay connected to these activities.
Girls: Tigers 60, West Central Area 54
Meredith Carrington was a leader for the victor with 15 points. Malory Anderson contributed 14, plus she grabbed ten boards. LaRae Kram's point total was nine. West Central Area was propelled by Hailey Bennett with 16 points, Lexi Bright with 12 and Claire Stark in a reserve role with eleven.
Wherever. . .
Donald Trump congratulated the Super Bowl winners from "Kansas." Well, most people would readily associate the Kansas City Chiefs with the great state of Missouri. Trump's misstep will not hurt him because he is a hero to ignoramuses. And evangelicals, of course.
I probably watched about five minutes of the game just out of curiosity - I'm done as an active consumer of football because of all the health revelations coming out about the sport.
I remember when the Chiefs played the Vikings in a long-ago Super Bowl. That event cemented the Vikings as an item of worship for Minnesotans for a very long time. This was the Super Bowl that had Joe Kapp as Vikings quarterback. We were transfixed as the Vikings climbed to our league title. I believe we beat the Browns in the league title game. And I believe there was a very long pass from Kapp to Gene Washington where the defender lost his footing. Sad to reflect on Washington because an injury abbreviated his career.
Kapp got into the news a few years ago for getting into a fight with someone, so perhaps he's having some cognitive issues. We don't care about these players after they're done playing, do we? A new wave of young and fresh players is always coming along.
The Vikings played in three other Super Bowls, all heartbreaking and forgettable for us, and these were with Fran Tarkenton as quarterback. We try hard to forget those three Super Bowls. As for the first, I think we still thump our chest a little over how the "man of machismo," Kapp, led us so gloriously to the NFL title. The NFL and AFL had not yet merged. Len Dawson quarterbacked the Chiefs. Hank Stram was the Chiefs' colorful coach.
All of the highlight video showing Stram today omits one very politically incorrect thing, where Stram describes the Vikings (I think the defense) as a "Chinese fire drill." That was once famous. It is conveniently forgotten today like the "MaHale's Navy" TV episodes where the guys refer to the Japanese as the "Nips." That years-ago time was also when cigarette commercials on TV were quite accepted. And we knew hardly anything about football head injuries.
Common sense has informed us all along about football's dangers.
So, congrats to Kansas, or Missouri, or Timbuktu or whatever.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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