Our Tigers are often showcased at the unusual time of Memorial Day weekend, obviously an important holiday weekend. The reverence that one normally associates with that time is interrupted for high school sports to push forward. Some people also seem to feel "reverence" about the tradition of getting to "the lake" on the three-day weekend.
Those of us who aren't lake people are not crestfallen when the weather is not cooperative. It surely was not cooperative for summer-time activity in 2019.
I took a long walk on Memorial Day and was dressed like it was March. It was an enjoyable walk to be sure, but this time of year a simple T-shirt ought to suffice, and maybe even shorts.
Well, let's get to the subject of MACA Tiger softball. The fans have to feel disappointed, don't they? I mean, we rolled through the whole regular season losing just once, to Proctor. Not only that, we won by commanding scores much of the time. So surely we could roll through some opponents in post-season, right?
Didn't we seem like a team that might be destined for state? I surely thought so. But I had a feeling in the back of my mind, based on memories, that those juggernauts from the south might thwart us. What is so different about southern Minnesota? It's not so far to the south that the climate is appreciably better. So I'm kind of drawing a blank. We were the top seed coming out of the North but I guess this does not stoke supreme confidence.
Yes, we took care of business at the start, downing Minnewaska with the kind of flourish our team always shows. Then we faced Luverne. Alas, we were stopped in the 3-2 score on Saturday. The site was Marshall. We got down 3-0 early. There was more than a glimmer of hope in the fifth frame. My, we had the bases loaded with no outs! The pressure was on Rylee Olson, Luverne pitcher. She faced the pressure admirably. She bore down to retire the next three batters. No more runs in.
Hope grew for MACA fans again in the sixth. Again we got the sacks full. But again we had the door slammed on us. It ended up quite the heartbreaking loss.
Luverne got its 3-0 lead against Tiger pitcher Kenna Kehoe. So sad to see Kenna falter on this day. Katelyn Wehking took over with her pitching arm. Luverne did not get to her, over her stint of 5 2/3 innings. Offensively Bailey Marty stood out for MACA with her two-for-three line and an RBI.
Tigers 10, JCC 3
A trait of the softball post-season is that it's double-elimination. The Tigers would have another chance. Double-elimination can make tournaments hard for fans or even media writers to understand. The Tigers found new life with a 10-3 triumph over the Huskies of Jackson County Central. This game also was played on Saturday.
We got going with a bang as we plated three runs with a two-out rally in the first. The second inning was ditto: three runs with two outs.
Liz Dietz had her pitching arm showcased this time. She pitched the whole way, allowing just one earned run of the three total that JCC scored. Her win was a three-hitter. Emma Bowman made noise with her bat: four-for-five with two runs scored. Jen Solvie homered for the fourth time this season. Her RBI total was four. Kenzie Hockel drove three runs in.
The win was our 20th in a most banner season. We pounded out 15 hits in the win vs. JCC. So, could we stay on a roll? Alas, no.
St. James Area 4, Tigers 2
So, the books are now closed on Tiger softball for 2019. Unfortunately there is no state tournament in the team's story, despite all the promise shown. The end came with a 4-2 loss at the hands of St. James Area.
It was disappointing because we had fielding lapses that proved costly. We committed four errors and these led to runs for the foe. Unearned runs by St. James took a toll.
Liz Dietz doubled in the third to score Riley Decker. This made the score 1-1. We then took the lead in the fourth thanks to a wild pitch, but the Saints of St. James knotted up the score in the fifth. The seventh inning began with the score 2-2. Alas, we succumbed to a Saints rally that had three hits. And oh my, there were three Tiger errors.
St. James pitcher Addie Bowers, just an eighth-grader, had what it took to retire MACA batters in our last chance. Sigh. Bowers pitched the whole way and was quite impressive, setting down ten Tiger batters on strikes. She also hit safely twice.
Dietz did our pitching and gave up just one earned run among the four total. She fanned five batters and allowed six hits. LaRae Kram showed quality at the plate with a two-for-three showing.
Our final won-lost record is 20-3, super of course, but still I sense a bittersweet or anticlimactic air at the end. The rain and cold of Monday added insult to injury, n'est-ce pas? Congrats to the Tigers on all their success. The orange and black were powerful.
What direction Morris?
The Chamber of Commerce gives a pretty good indication of a town's direction and vitality. It appears that our Morris Chamber has a new director, albeit a part-time job. Is part-time really the only way to go? Whatever, we wish the new person well, name of Kolby Gausman.
Yours truly is getting so cotton pickin' detached from the main currents in this community, I look through names of people with the Chamber board and I recognize fewer all the time. All these whipper-snappers are moving up in the world. I guess that is the nature of life's cycles.
Perhaps I am struggling to stay "with it," as I still cannot understand why it was necessary to cancel Prairie Pioneer Days as a summer event. Maybe the retreat of PPD reflects broader societal trends which are also evident in the closing of Shopko. Or even more shockingly, the near-death of shopping malls like the one in Alexandria. Who could have ever predicted this, 15 years ago?
We seem to be less inclined to go to public spaces now. Perhaps we're just content looking into our computers, laptops or iPhone screens all the time, just living life that way. Or, sitting in your car at the drive-up window at McDonald's instead of just going inside, eating your meal and enjoying the company of some people. Again, I'm just having a hard time understanding.
Fortunately I'm still close to some community leaders like Kevin Wohlers. I know Kevin was thrown off-guard by the cancellation of PPD as a summer event. Someone else out there is on the same page as me! Thank goodness.
Could we restore PPD as a summer event in the future? We already have the UMM welcome picnic for the first week of September. I was once high profile with the newspaper giving the summer PPD lots of attention. I found sheer joy in it. I'd tear out to the halfway point of the 10K run, on bike, to near the river to photograph the leader. I'll never forget moments like that.
Summer is now going to seem dead in Morris, frankly. Kevin fears that too.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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