MACA girls surge from behind, defeat BOLD

Opener success in hoops

The Tigers struggled in long-range shooting but they overcame that weakness, and came from behind in thrilling fashion to win the season opener.

The curtain opened on the road with Morris Area Chokio Alberta matched against BOLD (the Warriors).
Down by 20 points, the situation looked grim indeed for the orange and black crew. But it was quite the undaunted crew that battled the Warriors on Tuesday, 11/29.

MACA ended up winning 52-49 at Olivia.

The Tigers had a donut in three-pointers, going 0-for-9 and having to come up with other strengths. Those strengths indeed manifested themselves in ways that can make the Morris Area Chokio Alberta faithful optimistic.

It also didn't hurt that the host Warriors got into foul trouble. That foul trouble opened the door for freethrow opportunities. The Tigers capitalized, scoring ten of their 16 first half points from the line.

Those 16 points still didn't look very encouraging. BOLD enjoyed the halftime lead 30-16.

Everything came up roses for the Tigers in the second half. The BOLD foul woes reached the point where two Warriors fouled out with ten minutes left. This opened a door for Tiger surging, plus the Tigers were simply coming on strong with their caliber of play.

The clawing back from that staggering earlier deficit reached a turning point when Katie Holzheimer scored to tie things up. The BOLD faithful sat stunned.

The Tigers clawed into the lead thanks to another Holzheimer score. The clutch play of this junior guard was decisive. She would lead the Tigers with 13 points.

The team's donut in three-pointers held down their overall field goal shooting stats which were 18 of 62, 29 percent.

Holzheimer was followed in scoring by Courtney Gades and Nicole Strobel each with ten points.

Freethrows meant at lot. The MACA numbers from the charity stripe were 16 of 28.

Carly Sigurdson paced BOLD with her 13 points, plus she dished out five assists and stole the ball twice. Warrior Baylie Kubesh put in 12 points, and teammate Maggie Nagel had ten.

The Tigers outscored BOLD 36-19 in the second half.

Beth Holland put in eight points on the night. Cassey Hickman scored six, MaKenzie Smith three and Miranda Day two.

Setback at home vs. Silverstreaks

The Tigers faltered in their game #2 assignment which was against Osakis. Annalise Savageau was a force for the Silverstreaks - terrific team nickname - who worked to a 43-39 win over the Tigers. The action was Thursday at home.

Savageau came at the Tigers with 20 points. She connected three times from three-point range.

The halftime score had MACA trailing by one, 18-17.

The Tigers got untracked a little with long-range shooting, making two of five from beyond the three-point line. Holzheimer was the Tiger who was dead on with those shots.

In overall field goals the squad was 15 of 40. In freethrows: seven of eleven.

Nicole Strobel was the lone double figures scorer for MACA, putting in 15 points, and Katie Holzheimer had nine. The list continues with Beth Holland (5), Holly Amundson (4) and a trio of Tigers each with two: Miranda Day, Courtney Gades and MaKenzie Smith.

Strobel snared six rebounds and Smith four. Holzheimer was at the fore in assists with five followed by Holland and Hickman each with three. A trio of Tigers each had two steals: Amundson, Holzheimer and Holland.

Media notes

The Willmar daily paper, which you'll remember had some difficulty reporting accurately on the football Tigers last fall, is referring to our team as "Morris/Chokio-Alberta," "MCA" or "Morris/CA."

They even had a typo in Friday's paper: "Morras."

Yours truly is quite certain that it's "Morris Area Chokio Alberta" or "MACA" (and let's not quibble over slashes and/or hyphens).

We ought to be in agreement on something so basic.

It had better be "MACA" because I recently wrote lyrics for a tentative new fight song in case we're forced to switch, and did so on the "MACA" assumption. If I'm wrong, then I'll feel like that guy who painted "Chefs" in the end zone instead of "Chiefs."

My proposed fight song uses the melody of the old "Skol! Vikings" theme song used by the Minnesota Vikings. I think the team has put aside the song Denny Green wrote. Green is a drummer and where do these people get the notion they can write music? (OK, I'm kidding.)

We'd have to make sure it's OK to use any established melody, of course. "Skol! Vikings" is a superlative fight song melody - a much better route to take than the old retread "Minnesota Rouser."

Do you want to know my lyrics? Well. . .

go tigers give out a roar

go tigers let's see a score

go for the title never be idle

tigers tigers fight fight fight fight

go tigers build up our fame

work on to victory

m-a-c-a it's our way

roar tigers let's roar

(end)

Can we keep the gym rocking with this?

And, about the school calendar

I consult the Morris Area school calendar to verify game dates. Tonight (Friday) I was somewhat taken aback seeing "Kwanzaa" specified on the calendar. "Kwanzaa begins" appears on December 26.

There are myriad religious faiths in the world and I see no need to pepper the school calendar with their terms. If this means nixing "Christmas Eve" (which appears for December 24), that's fine with me. Just use the old trick of substituting "holiday." It gets Fox News outraged but so what?
We can't expect non-Christians to accept acknowledgment of Christian terms through public avenues.

"Kwanzaa" struck me as kind of a throwback, to when "diversity" was such a buzzword and Christians were put on a horrible guilt trip. We're over all that now, Supt. Monson, so I would suggest just striking all religious terms.

Christians can have an abundant celebration anyway.

Kwanzaa seems like kind of a contrived holiday, not that its followers can't enjoy it. All the more power to them. It didn't originate in Africa, did it? Did it originate in Los Angeles? Fine. But we don't need it on the school calendar.

Now let's get proactive and put the school calendar on the school website in a totally user-friendly way. And how about a link for specific sports schedules? This is how people get information today.

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