The MACA boys finished the week on an encouraging roll. They now have a win skein of four. They have dispatched Paynesville, Sauk Centre, Osakis and Montevideo. The Monte game was last night (Friday) and had a low-scoring complexion. So it might not have been the most crowd-pleasing. MACA took advantage of this game complexion which was slow and half-court.
Winning was not going to be easy against the Thunder Hawks at their gym. I'll never forget the days when they had a big mural painting there that featured a Native American. Their nickname was "Mohawks" in those days.
Monte moved away from the Native American images, a long time ago in fact, and now they're the "Thunder Hawks." Darn, I always have to check if that's one word or two. Same with "Silverstreaks" of Osakis.
A check with the "Minnesota Scores" site on this Saturday morning shows that Monte has won a lot this season. That is almost understatement. My what a string of "W's". But hey, for Friday, Jan. 24, we see the "L". That's because the Tigers of MACA had the winning formula. We handed the T-Hawks one of their rare losses with a score of 56-45.
Monte was left with a record of 13-2 with their only other loss being against Jackson County Central 63-55. Looks like a similarly slow game to Friday's. Is that the key against Monte?
Our Tigers own a 10-5 record as we get set for February. We hope that the new month will bring some milder weather like somewhat higher temperatures. This morning as I write this, it is windy. That's what happens so often when the temperature goes up some.
Somehow the weather is just gnawing at me. Or maybe I'm a little bummed seeing what is happening now just days into the new Donald Trump term. Things have gotten so extreme, you should realize that this type of political leadership would never have passed Title IX for girls athletics, what paved the way for what we see today. Not a snowball's chance in heck.
And we certainly would not see the MLK holiday created, mercy!
But how regressive could this nation become? A comeback of Jim Crow laws in the South? Lynchings? And as for girls sports being on equal footing with males, look at the joy this has brought for our whole culture. Just think if we had never allowed it to develop. We'd have a situation like when I was young and "girls sports" was represented by the "G.A.A." page in the high school yearbook.
Jim Thoreen recalled for me his hometown where the G.A.A. girls would put on a "tumbling" demonstration at halftime of a basketball game. It wasn't "boys basketball" then, it was "basketball." Girls were cheerleaders. The really "cute" girls had the advantage. I'm just describing the reality we had.
Caitlin Clark today might be a mere store clerk. But I love what women's liberation has given us in sports.
We learn this morning that Pete Hegseth has in fact been confirmed as defense secretary. According to an affadavit he once asserted that women should not be able to vote or to work. Well, there goes Clark's store clerk job I guess. But this guy now passes muster with our elected leaders. Don't complain to me about it.
How did John Thune and Mike Rounds vote? We're pretty close to South Dakota here in Morris.
Big second half
The MACA boys trailed by one at halftime last night. We surged after that on the strength of our shooting. Boy, our girls basketball team could sure use a dose of that! The girls BTW sure could have used a win on Thursday - an understatement. And we came close. The team has been steam-rolled at times this season with the analysis always being the same: "We weren't hitting our shots." On Thursday the Tigers did quite fine against Melrose but were on the short end by one, 62-61.
Some of us have been worried about whether the MACA girls would even be able to finish the season. I think we can relax now. However, we will have to play Minnewaska one more time, Feb. 18 at home.
I was almost startled this morning to see that the MACA success is the lead story in the West Central Tribune's "boys basketball roundup" online. MACA isn't even in the coverage territory of the Willmar paper. But I think Montevideo is.
Why are we not? You'll have to ask them.
So often we see "stats not available" for MACA after a game. Today we see our individual scoring totals along with 3-pointer data but no other stat categories. Monte meanwhile has all stat categories reported. So we're still being slighted some by the Willmar paper. Good grief, I've seen coverage of Brainerd in the Willmar paper.
Tyson Grove made three of our 3-pointers. Tyler Friesen made two, and Ben Tiernan, Alex Asmus and Charlie Hanson one each. Alex with his 15 points topped our scoring. But it was really a balanced look as Grove scored 13 and Drew Huebner 12. I don't see the Riley Asmus name. Friesen scored six, Jack Kehoe four, Hanson three and Tiernan three.
The game-high scorer was Monte's Gannon Reidinger, 19 points. Brody Dick scored eleven.
As they have done for years, the WC Trib does not refer to us as "MACA" or "Morris Area Chokio Alberta." They think they have better ideas.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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