MACA girls hang on to beat Lac qui Parle

The MACA girls played a rare Saturday game against Lac qui Parle Valley at home. The girls injected some liveliness into the weekend by winning a close one. We edged the Eagles by one, 53-52. It was our 14th win against nine losses.

In the first half it looked like we might own this game. We were up 26-17 at halftime. Indeed the home gym fans were happy. But in the second half we had to hold off the Eagles who created suspense. LQPV outscored us 35-27 in the second half. But we had enough cushion from the first half.
LQPV came out of the day with a fine 16-9 record. Indeed these are evenly matched teams.
Correy Hickman made two 3-pointers for the Tigers. Riley Decker connected once from three-point range. But it was Ashley Solvie who was truly at the fore of the Tigers' offense. Ashley put in 17 points. The other double figures scorers were Hickman (12) and Jenna Howden (10).
Decker finished with seven points followed by three Tigers each with two: Maddie Carrington, Malory Anderson and Liz Dietz. Nicole Solvie added one point to the mix. The Solvies stood out in rebounds, Ashley with eleven and Nicole with six. Hickman led in assists with seven followed by Decker with three.
Hickman stole the ball three times. These three Tigers each had two steals: Decker, Howden and Nicole Solvie. the time is getting closer to focus on the post-season!
 

Campus paper informs

I picked up my free copy of the University Register newspaper at Casey's. There's a news rack for the Register next to where the "paid for" papers are sold. Everyone seems to know that the Register is free. I always have the impulse to ask. This can get confusing because the popular "Sr. Perspective" is also free. Yet we are expected to pay for those Forum-owned papers: Morris and Willmar.
The current Morris paper has a ridiculously large photo on the top half of page 1. It's not like the photo has any photojournalistic merit. It does not. It is totally pedestrian. It eats up space so the news staff does not have to work as hard. Nice work if you can find it. Outside of two special sections with the paper, it appears the actual Morris paper is only 18 pages - totally minimal. And yet people are expected to pay for it? When the University Register and Sr. Perspective are free? Stop acting like lemmings and stop buying the Morris paper. Set yourself free.
I examined my University Register. There's a new chancellor at UMM: Michelle Behr. I regret we haven't had the chance to meet her. Mom is having health issues that puts her in limbo for now. We would have attended the welcoming reception.
Morris used to be considered a "company town" because of UMM, but it seems Superior Industries may have come to the fore for that now. We as a community have always thought the world of UMM and for obvious reasons. I wonder, though, if its liberal arts mission is getting strained. This is hardly a radical thought, is it? I mean, liberal arts divisions of colleges all across the U.S. are feeling stress.
I'm not sure young people need to attend a bricks and mortar institution to get this kind of enrichment anymore. All the information in the world is at our fingertips, online, n'est-ce pas?
I'm also concerned about the contentious political opinions that increasingly seem to be causing problems at our august local institution. Maybe this is a sign of stress within the institution itself. Why is it necessary to have such strong political opinions? Behr has actually sent out an email plea to all students to simply cool it. Young people should not be coming to UMM in order to vent politically. Behr's plea makes it sound like there is a real problem - it makes me hesitant to even visit the campus.
Attention Chancellor Behr: Let's hear the "UMM Hymn" again. That song hearkens back to a time when politics seemed on quite the back burner at UMM. Of course, we eventually got the Viet Nam war protests. I personally witnessed that, right on the UMM campus. A troubled time.

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