I'm barely getting this post online before the Tigers play their final post-season match. They are warming up as I'm typing this. My task today is to review the Friday (11/13) consolation round match against Hermantown. We faced the Hawks last night. This was a Class AA consolation semi-finals match. The site: St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center.
The Tigers were sent to consolations by the defeat they were dealt by Rocori, the No. 3 seed. Against Hermantown, we not only won, we won by sweep which has been a common outcome for the Tigers. We've had five sweep wins in six post-season contests. Wow!
We enter today's match with a 25-4 season record. Today we face No. 5 seed Hill-Murray.
The Tigers swept Hermantown by scores of 25-17, 25-14 and 25-22. Brooke Gillespie sent three serving aces at the Hawks. These Tigers each accumulated two serving aces: Lindsey Dierks, Riley Decker and Cassidy Fehr. Koral Tolifson added a serving ace to the mix.
Karly Fehr was smooth in her specialty of setting, picking up 32 set assists. Dierks and Carly Maanum each had two set assists. Decker was busy picking up digs, 15 in all. Karly Fehr dug up the ball eleven times. The list continues with Gillespie (9), Dierks (7) and Maanum (6).
On to the hitting department: Jenna Howden, Dierks and Gillespie each pounded nine kills at the Hawks. Ashley Solvie and Maanum each executed four kills. Karly Fehr had two kills and Haley Erdahl and Moira McNally one each.
Hailey Menzel led Hermantown in kills with seven. Ellie Gamradt and Jordyn Thomas each had one ace block. Hailey Menzel had 18 digs for the Hawks. The setting was unusually balanced, with Cassidy Kaneski and Jordyn Thomas each getting 12 set assists. These Hawks each had one serving ace: Kaneski, Kailey Mihalik and Manzel.
Rocori is playing in the state third place match today, against Stewartville. For the title, Belle Plaine will have a showdown against Concordia Academy.
Adventures in TV watching
Last night (Friday) I turned to the History Channel for extensive watching. Once the news broke about the terror attacks in Paris, I knew the cable news channels would be saturated with that coverage, beyond the need for giving meaningful updates. We've seen the same thing with the occasional tragic school shootings. We sort of get the gist of what happened in short order, and then the topic eats up the news cycle.
So I turned to the History Channel. My takeaway: I think we need some special attention or scrutiny toward these sensational investigative shows. These shows actually have the potential to be very fascinating. They simply must be "on the level." It's very questionable whether they are.
Did those bigfoot hunters really capture a live bigfoot in a cage? Of course this monster got away, very convenient if the whole thing was contrived and concocted. Oh, someone left the door to the cage open. Was the monster real? If it was, if should be national news.
This little cadre of explorers should have surrounded the cage nonstop. Government should have dispatched specialists post haste, because the state has a strong interest in confirming that bigfoot is real. Is it a gigantopithecus, having survived from prehistoric times? It's not a reach to think it might be. It hasn't been unusual to discover various species thought to be extinct, like that fish the name of which I can't spell.
If the bigfoot catch on TV is a hoax, then we need regulations to rein in these shows, just like the TV quiz shows of the 1950s had to be reined in. Of course, maybe a hoax was pulled on the cadre of bigfoot hunters, in which case the latter could deny any complicity. How convenient.
Don't you think greed comes into play with these shows? They have a budget. They need to generate ratings to stay on the air. By the end of the bigfoot show, I began to feel like a fool, having been taken in by this.
Now I'm wondering about other, similar shows on the History Channel. We see this cadre of well-credentialed researchers looking for evidence of Hitler escaping Germany and going to South America. It is a highly plausible theory. Newly declassified documents actually support the theory. But can we believe what we see on TV? Are the documents a hoax?
When the group finds Nazi artifacts at a remote South America place, can I really believe they're legitimate? Could they have been planted? If bigfoot can be faked, anything can be faked. It's too bad because these shows, if done on the level, can be a tremendous asset. We must remember what their job is, who their master is. It's not science, rather it's ratings. Without ratings there'd be no show. Keep that in mind.
Update: After just checking Google, I'm now concluding that the bigfoot show was a "mockumentary." Based on that, I can no longer trust the searching-for-Hitler shows or anything else of this type on TV, which is a shame.
- Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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