It is hard to figure some things. We're looking at comparative scores. Comparative scores can in fact be a head-scratcher. Sometimes it's confounding to make sense of things. No way to predict future matchups, just as coach Hendrickson's comment underscored. What games might be presented as exhibits here? Let's consider first the very good news for MACA girls basketball. It happened Thursday night, to truly put everyone in an especially good mood for the holidays: a 53-37 win over Paynesville. So it wasn't even that close.
The game was enjoyed by fans at our Tiger Center. This outcome certainly would have been hard to predict. Three games previous to this, the Tigers suffered a quite bad loss at the hands of the Minnewaska Area Lakers, score of 70-29. Our home court certainly didn't help for that contest.
Since that game, Minnewaska had a matchup with Paynesville. Just consider: Paynesville defeated the Lakers 47-45. Weigh the three outcomes of the games I have reflected upon here. How to make sense of it? Here's a suggestion: don't try. Sports has surprises by its very nature.
We might have expected Paynesville to dominate here on Thursday. I can remind of a comment associated with the great ESPN sportscaster Chris Berman. "That's why they play the game."
You can put aside the on-paper expectations for certain. I wonder what our coach Dale Henrich would say about all this. Well he'd be happy as heck we won the most recent game, that's for sure. The schedule says our next game isn't until after the holidays. Our next foe will be C-G-B, here. The Tigers have a 4-6 overall record, 2-2 in section, 1-2 in conference, 3-6 at home.
Wish list
Wouldn't it be nice if we in Motown had a local news media that could report with some depth and enthusiasm about our high school sports developments. What a nice added dimension this would be. I'm thinking of media because I notice a little shift by our SCT newspaper lately. Unfortunately the shift has only a superficial quality. That's because the paper will not back down from its insistence that we buy its print product once a week.
That's the problem: it's only once a week.
The paper has given us a new look by having some headlines on its website that at least give a heads-up for scores of games played very recently. I guess you could say this is a big step up from what the paper did previously. Previously on its website we often saw 100 percent UMM sports headlines, a situation that I actually felt insulted by.
The new approach gives but scant satisfaction. I have checked. I have clicked on a couple headlines for MACA items and found maybe a sentence or two followed by a "plug" to read more in the next print issue. And that of course will cost you money.
How much at the store now? I don't take notes on this. I'm not obsessed with such things even though I was once involved with the paper. We published twice a week.
I remember a school administrator who could be very unpleasant - I would say uncivil - if we failed to publish a complete report from Tuesday night in Thursday's issue. That wasn't easy with the kind of schedule I had then. But this individual and other critics could scream bloody murder in effect. What would they say now? Maybe they'd calm down because this is after all Morris where apathy hangs in the air like the fog on this Friday morning.
If you do see a thorough MACA game report on the paper's website - this has been evident lately - it would be for a game played the previous week. These articles would probably already have been in the print paper. So to the extent the paper has tweaked its approach with its website - to at least save face a little - the net result is really wholly negligible.
The paper is trying to fool us.
If you want to see an example of what a community paper can do on its website in a dynamic way, look no further than Bonanza Valley, i.e. BBE. Check out their recent web-based coverage which even has a video podcast! We here in Morris could do this too. It takes some brainpower and ambition. Here's the link to admire the BBE work:
Tigers 53, Paynesville 37
A surprising win? It may be considered such. Certainly the MACA faithful felt happy seeing their Tigers work to this 53-37 win, our fourth of the season. It was a Section 3AA-North matchup. Paynesville is 4-3. Unfortunately the West Central Tribune is very brief and with no individual highlights or stats. So I'll have to move on to the Thursday boys game.
Boys: Tigers 68, Paynesville 67
Our boys climbed to 7-1 with this hard-fought win on the road. The Tigers had to fight from behind. We trailed 26-22 at halftime. Then in the second half, we came on strong with a 46-41 scoring advantage. Paynesville was left with a 5-2 record.
The West Central Tribune comes through with some stats. So we see two Tigers sharing the team-high in points: 15 each by Charlie Hanson and Alex Asmus. Riley Asmus was right behind with 13. Four other Tigers put in points: Drew Huebner 8, Tyler Friesen 7, Jack Kehoe 6 and Owen Anderson 4.
Oh no! All the other stat categories in the WC Trib's coverage have "N/A" for "not available." I have seen a lot of media struggling this year. You know, instead of so many "N/A's" in the review, maybe the paper should just omit mention of those categories completely.
Bryce VanderBeek of the Bulldogs scored the game-high 24 points. Abe Brunner put in 17. Then we see Brayden Pung 10, Reed Johnson 6, Jackson Walker 6 and Carter Flanders 4.
I will repeat with emphasis: We miss Brett Miller at the Morris radio station.
Addendum: It is Friday afternoon and I just checked the kmrs-kkok website. Hardly worth the trouble. You'll find the scores there but you can always go to the "Minnesota Scores" site to learn scores. The score is all we get for the boys game. We get scant more for the girls. Why can't someone do something about this? We have UMM in Morris and that means there should be a lot of smart people here.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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