Sports from the week of September 17, 2003

Volleyball team still unbeaten in 212 play

The Panther girls volleyball team improved their 212 Conference record to 3-0 with a 3-1 win over Renville County West at Renville Tuesday night and they are now 6-5 for the season. The game scores were 25-18, 25-21, 19-25, and 25-16.

"It was a great team effort," said Panther Coach Katie Gervais. "We played with more onfidence and it showed by us not getting rattled in difficult situations. The two area we really improved on was our serve receive and defense-basically ball control touches. Any team that can do this has a great chance of success during the season as well as post season.

"The girls played like a team tonight," said Gervais. "They flowed on offense and defense. We limited our errors and, in rally scoring, it's key."

Tholen paces Panthers in Worthington Turkey Trot

The Panther girls' cross-country team placed second in the Turkey Trot at Worthington Saturday.

The team scores were: Jackson County Central, 61; T/M/B, 71; Windom, 88;) Worthington, 153; Luverne, incomplete; MCC, incomplete; Adrian, incomplete; SW United, incomplete; SW Christian, no varsity runners; W-WG, no varsity runners; MLBO, no varsity runners; HBC-E-E, no varsity runners.

Jillian Tholen led the Panther effort with a third-place finish. Tholen was 21 seconds behind winner Lexi Heitkamp of Luverne, and seven seconds behind Jenna Sorenson of Windom.

"We are making good, steady improvement," said Panther Coach Steve Jones. "Our individual scores are squeezing together."

Ryan Tholen won the junior high boys' race with a time of 5:20. Alex Jones was 14th with a time of 6:06.

"There were 54 boys competing in this race and to win it is a real feather in Ryan's cap," said Jones. "If we can get some more boys to compete we could have a good boys team in a few years."

Big town beats little town

Fairmont depth wears on TMB

The Panther football team's season record fell to 0-3 with a 29-12 loss to Fairmont Friday night at Fairmont. The Fairmont Cardinals improved to 1-2 with the win.

Fairmont opened up a close 8-6 halftime lead with 14 unanswered points in the third quarter and out-scored T/M/B 7-6 in the final stanza to get the win.

"They ran to our weak spot in the third quarter," said Panther Coach Randy McIntire. "Our outside containment unit on defense broke down. Our interior linemen and interior linebackers played very well."

"They just wore us down," said Panther Fan Steve Schreier. "From a city of 11,000 people it is not surprising that they were too deep for us."

"We lost Sean Kirk and Mike Schreier to injuries early which cut down our running game," said McIntire.