Girls shake their recent second half woes, win

MACA girls basketball got things turned around Tuesday to defeat the Lac qui Parle Valley Eagles at the Eagles' court. Score was 54-47. Winning was a relief because the Tigers have had problems sustaining a top-notch effort. They have had a problem with second half collapses, to be blunt about it. Their Friday and Monday games were unfortunately in the "collapse" category. I cover those games on my companion blog, "Morris of Course," and you can read with this permalink. Thanks.

https://morrisofcourse.blogspot.com/2022/02/a-hex-in-second-half-whatever-maca.html 

 

OK, now on to a more upbeat story. This time our fortunes actually improved after halftime. Way to go, coach Henrich. And way to go Tigers. The score was tied at halftime, 25-25. This time around we held off the opposition the rest of the way. So we won by the seven-point margin. 

Have we found a solution to the second half woes? We own a 9-14 record now. Beating the Eagles was a feather in the cap as this team is quite far above .500 (at 18-6). 

Maddy Grove was a standout with her 13 points and eight rebounds. Meredith Carrington was a factor with 12 points and seven boards. Kaylee Harstad put in 12 points. Then we see Sydney Dietz with nine and Cate Kehoe with eight. Cate came though with eight rebounds and six assists also.

Boys: Tigers 77, Montevideo 64

I wish the West Central Tribune would knock it off with all the "future Augustana player" or "Augustana recruit" references to Jackson Loge. What matters now is that Loge is an MACA Tiger. College can wait. Loge was a force on the basketball court on Tuesday with his 34 points. Indeed, we lived up to our lofty state position with yet another win. We have only lost once. 

Another bothersome thing that I associate with the Willmar paper: the way they always refer to us as "Morris/CA." It is simply inaccurate. Maybe they have made the judgment that "Morris Area Chokio Alberta" is unwieldy or illogical, I don't know. Maybe they'd even be right about that. It misses the point. We are Morris Area Chokio Alberta or MACA. 

Personally I'd like to see "Morris High School" take over as the reference for all our sports teams. We'd go back to the old days! It is understood that Morris pulls in students from a wide radius. The "little" towns are not as identity-conscious as they were in a bygone time. Many have become bedroom communities and they just don't care, outside of appreciating that their towns are quiet and safe. 

I am old enough to remember when the community of Cyrus was highly parochial and assertive with its image. That attitude grated on a lot of us. Nothing against Cyrus at all, but it is a satellite town. I'll take that over St. Cloud, where reportedly there are gangs. In the old days, the problem with St. Cloud was that there were too many Catholics! I guess I'm just kidding on that. 

Fans at Tiger Center saw their team assume a 46-38 lead by halftime Tuesday. We outscored the T-Hawks 31-26 the rest of the way. Presto! We got win No. 20, score of 77-64. 

Let's pore over some stats. We were 31 of 53 in field goal shooting, 58 percent. Loge was a monster contributor on this night: 15 of 19 in shooting! Thomas Tiernan made five of eight shots and posted 14 points. Brandon Jergenson put in nine points on three of nine. Also scoring: Cole Wente 7, Tyler Berlinger 6, Durgin Decker 2 and Toby Gonnerman 2. 

Tiernan, as he so often is, was a key shooter from three-point range. He made four of seven. Jergenson and Loge each made two 3-pointers, and Wente made one. We were nine of 25, 36 percent, from 3-point land. I'm trying to get back in the habit of writing "3-point land" again. It's charming, right? 

Loge went to work at the freethrow line to sink five of six. He was sure pinpoint on Tuesday. Jergenson had our other made freethrow. We were six of nine. Loge vacuumed the boards for 12 rebounds, three offensive. The team total was 24, five offensive. Jergenson was sharp with his passing to rack up nine assists. We had 24 total assists. Tiernan had two steals of our five total. Our turnover total was 11. Loge blocked three shots and Gonnerman blocked one.

 

I invite you to compare my coverage of the Monday and Tuesday MACA hoops action with what you see on the Morris newspaper website. Am I out of bounds in saying that the sports part of the paper's website is just overloaded with UMM to an annoying degree? To add insult to injury, the best source of UMM sports coverage is UMM's own website anyway. The newspaper has someone paid to do sports.

 

Valentine's Day 2022: non-event

Yours truly came very close to making a Valentine's Day gesture with a woman. Let history record. I was strongly inclined for a time - you might say I had my heart set on it. And then: fear. I have done an excellent job all my life of protecting myself from the substantial risks involved with coaxing a special relationship with an opposite-sex person. 

Did my risk-aversion win out again? Looks to be the case, and I'm not completely proud about it. I wasn't certain if the female would welcome it. I think the odds were better than 50-50 that she would. But there was no way of knowing for sure, alas. 

So now I'm at least content in knowing that she isn't going to come after me with a rolling pin. Do young people even know what a rolling pin is any more? Or has that gone the way of hot water bottles on your forehead after a "night on the town." Remember the old comic strip "The Better Half?" The guy would be sitting at the breakfast table in his white sleeveless undershirt with water bottle on his head. 

What lies ahead for me? Safety only? I guess "relationships" are all about risk. Will I ever place my toe in the water? Look what happened to Jeff Zucker at CNN. And to his significant other. There's a headline in front of me now: "Ex-CNN  Executive Allison Gollust fires back at Parent Company WarnerMedia: An attempt to retaliate against me." See where love gets you?

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