Sports from the week of November 1, 2000 Headlight Herald - Serving Tracy, Minnesota, since 1880
Panthers 21, BOLD 0
This time, TMB makes big plays
On a gray, windy day in Olivia Saturday, the Panthers avenged an early season (28-6) loss to BOLD and decisively beat them 21-0 to advance in the Section 3AA playoffs. The Panthers will now play Canby at Canby next Saturday for the section championship
In the earlier game BOLD used 6 Panther turnovers to run up a score of 28-6 in an otherwise very even game. This time it was the Warriors who committed the turnovers. Two pass interceptions and 2 fumbles lost by the Warriors contributed to the Panther win. A football will take some crazy bounces and on this day it bounced favorably for Tracy/Milroy/Balaton.
The Panthers are now 8-2 on the season. BOLD, the co-champion of the 212 Conference with Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City, closed out their year with an 8-2 record.
The Tracy/Milroy/Balaton football team (8-2) will meet Canby (9-1) for the Section 3AA Championship at Canby Friday night at 7 p.m.
Canby, the No. 3 seed in the Section 3AA tourney, beat No. 7 seed Windom 36-34 in overtime Friday. Canby won 20-0 over Gibbono-Fairfax-Winthrop in the tourney's opener.
Panther spikers advance to Final Four of region volleyball
Tracy/Milroy/Balaton advanced to the finals of the Section 3AA volleyball tournament with a 3-0 win over BOLD Tuesday night at Redwood Falls. Game scores were 15-11, 15-6 and 15-5.
The 3-0 match was not as one-sided as the score indicated. BOLD gave the Panthers all they wanted in the first game before succumbing 15-11. A serving run by Heidi Peterson helped the Panthers to an 11-3 lead with six straight points. However BOLD came back and brought the score to 13-11 in favor of the Panthers before Kristin Rokke served for the game winner which came on a kill by Jenny Otto.
"We knew BOLD was a good team," said Panther Coach Katie Gervais. "They have an abundance of good athletes. I thought Laura Zwach played very well in the back row for us tonight."
The Panthers meet Renville County West in the north division of the section tournament at SSU Thursday night. The winner advances to a the Section 3AA championship game Saturday, 7:30 p.m., at SSU.
"We have to be ready for them. We have been working on our middle hitters to take some of the pressure off Jenny Otto and they played well tonight," commented Gervais. The RCW Jaguars are so tall that we are going to have to do something to keep their hitters at bay."
Young cross country squad is back near top of region
A year after losing five of their top seven runners to graduation, the Panther girls' cross country team is back among the top Class A teams in Section 3.
The Tracy/Milroy/Balaton runners finished third among 19 teams.
Seventh grader Jillian Tholan, emerging as one of the top runners in the region, led the Panthers with a 10th-place finish. Kristen Sweetman, the Panthers No. 1 runner all season, turned in another solid performance with a 12th place finish.
Jackson County Central won the meet with 33 points, followed by Murray County Central with 86. Both teams advanced to the state meet at St. Olaf College Saturday.
The Panthers, 17 points behind MCC, topped Southwest Star Concept (110) and Canby (151) teams that had beaten the Panthers earlier in the season. Other team scores were:
The team's entire squad returns for next season.