Sports from the week of February 28, 2001 Headlight Herald - Serving Tracy, Minnesota, since 1880
The Panther boys basketball team broke through and recorded their first win of the season Friday night, defeating Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg 59-46 at Tracy.
The victory came after 20-straight losses. The Panthers finished their 212 Conference schedule with a 1-13 record.
"It was good to win one for a change," said Panther Coach Jon Ruoff. "We shot better tonight from the field, but still not very good on free throws but we did a great job of rebounding."
Tracy/Milroy/Balaton controlled the boards by pulling down 43 rebounds, 11 by Matt Loeslie and 8 by Derek Rignell. Rignell led the team in scoring with 20 points and Loeslie contributed 5 points and had 7 assists. Scott LaVoy added 13 points for the Panthers.
The Panther boys basketball team begins play in the South Section 3AA Tournament against Pipestone-Jasper at Worthington on Saturday, March 3. Ironically they opened the season with a loss to the Arrows at Pipestone on Dec. 1. They then played nineteen straight games before they got their first win of the season against KMS at Tracy last Friday.
Aldon Struchen is headed for the state wrestling tournament at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul Thursday through Saturday. The senior captured the 135-pound weight class by recording two falls and a decision at the section meet at Southwest State University in Marshall Friday and Saturday.
Struchen, with a 33-1 record this season, will be the lone Tracy/Milroy/Balaton representative at the state wrestling tournament starting March 1. Struchen meets Brandon Lexvold of Goodhue, ranked #3 in the state and a fourth-place state finisher last year, at 6 p.m. Thursday. If he wins he will next meet the #4 state ranked wrestler later Thursday night.
State tournament appearances are nothing new to Struchen. He made tournament appearances in 8th grade, 9th grade and 10th grade before sitting out last year with a knee injury.
It is no secret that Struchen has been pointing to this tournament all season. His goal is to be the first Panther wrestler to win a state championship.
"All of the kids wrestled well," said Panther Coach Joe Kemp. "Mike Kamrud lost a tough 1-0 decision in the semi-final match to stop him from going to the state tournament."
The Panther girls basketball team call themselves the winner of the Stearns County Holiday Tournament. They won over Eden Valley-Watkins 60-48 at Tracy Thursday night in a rematch of a game at Cold Spring Dec. 28, that was canceled because of weather conditions.
That game would have crowned the champion of field that included T/M/B, Eden Valley-Watkins, Bemidji, St. Cloud Tech, Albany, Sauk Rapids/Rice, Rocori and Minnewaska Area.
The Thursday night win improved the Panther's season record to 18-4 while EV-W's record dropped to 22-2.
"We did a good job of containing the Eagles' two leading scorers, Katie Huschle and Mandy Pearson, who had scored 913 points between them this season," said Panther Coach Paul Soupir. "It was a good game for us as we prepare for the tournaments. They have a good team with real hustle but we played well and we didn't panic from the pressure that their defense put on us."
The section basketball game between Tracy/Milroy/Balaton and the winner of the Martin County West vs. Pipestone-Jasper game, scheduled for Tuesday night, has been postponed until Friday night.
All of the tournament games originally scheduled for Feb. 24 will be played on Tuesday, Feb. 27. The Feb. 27 games are moved to March 2 and the March 2 games to March 5 with the championship game to be played on March 9.