Girls upstaged by Lund, Eagles at LQPV

LQPV 54, Tigers 40

The Tigers were in the background Monday night (2/1) at the Lac qui Parle gym. Not only were we on the short end of the score, we were upstaged by a LQPV player who reached a significant individual milestone. She's just a sophomore! Her name is Kelsea Lund.
Lund is already at the 1000-point career scoring plateau. She reached that plateau Monday at the expense of our Tigers. She came into the night needing four points to reach the magic number. She got far more than that. 

Putting in 24 points, Lund boosted her team to a 54-40 win over the Tigers. She made 14 of 16 freethrow shots. Her Eagle team was 27-for-32 at the freethrow line. Meanwhile the Tigers had just 12 attempts at the line.
The Eagles led 29-22 at halftime. Their win was their tenth of the season. MACA slipped a game under .500 with this setback, to 9-10. Lund with her 24 points was followed on the LQPV scoring list by Kelsey Kuechenmeister (8), Haley Wollschlager (6), Lindsay Kranz (5), Taniah Tosel (5), Katyln Gades (4) and Sidney Gerdes (2).
Lund made two 3-pointers and Wollschlager made one. Tosel was the Eagles' top rebounder with seven. Lund dished out four assists.
Ashley Solvie was the only Tiger scoring in double figures with ten points. Becca Holland put in eight points. Riley Decker and Correy Hickman each scored seven. Moira McNally's contribution was six points. Karly Fehr and Jenna Howden each added one point to the mix.
Holland kept her sharp eye in long-range shooting, making two 3-pointers. Decker made one. Holland led in rebounds with five followed by Hickman and McNally each with four. Hickman and McNally each had three assists. Decker had three steals.

 
Girls: Tigers 69, ACGC 32
Becca Holland was a terror with her long-range shooting, giving key spark as her MACA Tigers disposed of ACGC. Riley Decker connected twice from three-point range. The offensive firepower lifted the orange and black to a 69-32 win over the ACGC Falcons.

This success was on Friday, Jan. 29, at home. We got up 30-17 by halftime. The one-sided nature of the game was more in evidence in the second half: a 39-15 advantage.

Holland's barrage lifted her point total to a team-best 24 points. Correy Hickman put in 14 points and Moira McNally 11. The list continues with Decker (9), Ashley Solvie (6), Nicole Solvie (4) and Liz Dietz (1). McNally with her nine rebounds was tops on that list. Next came the Solvies, Ashley with six and Nicole with five, and Holland collected five rebounds.

Hickman had four assists and Holland had three. In steals it was Hickman leading with six while McNally had four. Morris Area Chokio Alberta came out of the game with a 7-3 conference record. In overall we reached .500 at 9-9. ACGC is having a struggling campaign.

The ACGC scoring was led by Hannah Wilner with ten points. Kendra Miller made a three-point shot.

So many sports summaries in the Willmar newspaper do not state where the game was played. I have to check the school calendar or Pheasant Country Sports.
 

Boys: Tigers 74, BOLD 50

Thursday action (Jan. 28) had the Tigers of MACA vanquish the Warriors of BOLD by a healthy margin. The 74-50 win was our eleventh of the season. We led by ten at halftime, 33-23.

Fans at the home gym saw Jacob Zosel at the fore of the team's scoring, with 17 points. Right behind Jacob were Camden Arndt and Eric Staebler, each with 16 points. Sean Amundson put in nine points. Then we have Lukus Manska and Robert Rohloff each with five points, followed by Ryan Dietz with four points and Taylor Carrington with two.

Zosel got his edge on the scoring list with his two 3-pointers. Three Tigers each made one '3': Amundson, Rohloff and Manska. Staebler snared eight rebounds and Arndt had six. Zosel and Amundson each dished out five assists.

Five Tigers each had one steal: Rohloff, Philip Anderson, Staebler, Arndt and Ryan Bowman.

The top BOLD scorer was Ethan Weis with ten points. He made two 3-pointers. Once again the Willmar newspaper did not report the location of the game.

 

Boys: Lac qui Parle 67, Tigers 59

The Tigers experienced a down note with their loss on the road to Lac qui Parle Valley on Friday, Jan. 29.

The Willmar paper tells us this game was played in Madison. Actually the game was played out in the middle of nowhere, wasn't it? Where you can probably near coyotes howl at night?

LQPV shook a three-game losing skid with its 67-59 win over the Tigers. LQPV got up 30-24 by halftime. Their win was their ninth of the season. They got a big lift from the 24 points scored by Noah Jensen. Lucus Strand scored 15 points and Connor Ole had 13. The list continues with Tom Witte (8), Ross Olson (6) and Isaac Gerdes (1).

Jensen led in rebounds as well as points - in rebounds he had 16. Strand and Witte each had four assists. Witte stole the ball twice.

Eric Staebler had another monster night with 25 points, not in line with victory though.

Staebler recently passed Kevin Loge to top the all-time rebounding list for MACA. But career stats don't float my boat. Loge had a bittersweet hoops career. He committed to the U of M Gophers but ended up not really playing college basketball. UMM coach Perry Ford once told me that Kevin made a bigger impression with his play in the summer than in the real basketball season. That really made me shake my head. I wondered if Kevin was getting the best possible coaching for post play. Any rational person would have to wonder that. But in Morris it's only politically correct to say certain things about our high school basketball programs. That has never changed. Are we a town of zombies? Well, I'm not one.

Sean Amundson scored ten points against Lac qui Parle Valley. Jacob Zosel and Camden Arndt each scored eight. Lukus Manska scored five points, Robert Rohloff two and Philip Anderson one. Amundson and Staebler each made two 3-pointers.

Another editorial comment: Sometimes I think these basketball teams play too many games. They have been playing on Saturday. It's hard to appreciate a given game when the next one might be played two days later. The flurry of games makes me weary sometimes. We had to wait a long time for the first band concert of the new school year.

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