Sports from the week of December 4, 2002

Defense sparks TMB to first win of season

The Panther girls' basketball squad evened their season record at 1-1 with a 44-37 win over MACCRAY Tuesday night at Tracy. Tracy/Milroy/Balaton is now 1-0 in the 212 Conference.

"We had a very poor shooting night," said Panther Coach Paul Soupir. "We missed a lot of scoring opportunities. Our defense had forced 15 turnovers in the first half and we did not convert those to very many points. "

The Panthers led all the way but never by a comfortable margin. TMB led at the end of the first period 16-11 and 27-20 at the intermission. A five-point surge at the end of the third quarter gave TMB 33-29 lead at the end of the third quarter. The defense held the Wolverines scoreless in the last few minutes of the third period and the first two minutes of the fourth to give the Panthers their biggest margin of the game at 40-29. MACCRAY closed to 44-37 with a seven-point scoring run in the closing moments.

Laura Zwach led the team in scoring with 20 points and turned in an excellent floor game.

"Laura (Zwach) gives us excellent senior leadership," commented Soupir. "The rest of the girls are very young and they will get better. I thought we played pretty good defense tonight but on offense we weren't very good."

The Panthers committed 14 turnovers while the Wolves had 27. TMB out-rebounded MACCRAY 41-29. TMB hit 10 of 51 two-point field goal attempts for 20% and made 3 of 10 from three-point range for 30%. The Wolverines hit 31% of their field goal attempts.

Four wrestlers unbeaten

The Panther wrestling team opened their 2002-03 season by losing all three dual meets in a quadrangular at Clara city Tuesday night. TMB lost to MACCRAY by a score of 40-31, lost to Renville county west 43-33, and to Benson by a score of 43-39.

In recent years the heavier weights have been the strength of the Panther team, at least at this point. In the MACCRAY dual meet the Panthers held a 31-4 lead before losing. In the RCW meet they lead 21-6 at one time and against Benson TMB carried a 33-0 lead into the 140 pount match.

All three losses were by very close scores. The season promises to be an exciting and interesting one. Cole Cooreman, Chad Ccooreman, Cody Arnold and Adam Snyder all had 3-0 records for TMB in this quadrangular.

TMB boys travel to Grove City Thursday

The Tracy/Milroy/Balaton boys' basketball team has been picked by the Minnesota Basketball to finish eighth in the 212 Conference this season.

"Based on our past record you have to say they were justified in picking us to finish last," said first year Coach Nathaniel Boyer. "However that is the past and we are going to do our best to bring them into the future."

Coach Boyer scouted ACGC, the Panthers foe in the opening game this Thursday, against McCleod West Saturday.

"They play a fast, uptempo game on offense and are not afraid to shoot," he said. "We need to control them, make them adjust to us. We stack up pretty well physically against them, it should be an interesting game."

The Panthers participated in a four-team scrimmage at Windom Saturday with Windom, Adrian and Springfield. Boyer stated that the Panthers were able to keep up with Adrian and that they displayed good fundamentals, but that it was evident that improvement was needed in some areas such as rebounding and in shooting.

"Our press was very effective against Springfield and gave us many good scoring opportunities," he said. "We shot over 50% against them and controlled the game."

The scrimmage also suggested that the Panthers need to work on their strength program.

"We have been working in the weight room since last fall," observed Boyer. "The Windom scrimmage showed us that we need to keep it up."

The Panthers first home game will be next Tuesday, Dec. 10 when they host BOLD in a 212 Conference game.