Sports from the week of December 24, 2003

Girls head into break with win

The Tracy/Milroy/Balaton girls topped BOLD Monday night at Tracy in a 212 Conference make-up game, 56-47.

The win improved the Panthers' season record to 2-2. Their next action is the Holiday Tournament at Norwood, Monday through Wednesday of next week.

"They made us work for it," said Panther Co-coach Ric Haberman of Monday night's win. "We played pretty well, especially in the second half."

The Panthers got off to a 13-10 lead in the first quarter but the score was knotted at 28-28 at intermission. TMB outscored BOLD by nine in the third and fourth periods.

Kasey Loeslie led the Panthers with 15 points. Tessa Nelson with 14 and Ashlee Domine with 11 followed. The Panthers committed 24 turnovers to only 18 for BOLD and had only 5 steals (Schaar 4) to 11 for the opponents. TMB pulled down 35 rebounds (Tholen 10) to 27 for BOLD, had 14 assists (Kaup 3) to 11 and 3 bocks (Nelson 3) to 2 for BOLD.

Free-throws sink boys

Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City used the free-throw line to good advantage in a 78-66 win over the Tracy/Milroy/Balaton boys Friday.

"We got caught out of position on defense too frequently," said Panther Coach Nat Boyer. "Being out of position we fouled too often and they beat us on free throws."

The Falcon's two postmen, 6-3 Brad Hopp (called the best basketball player in the conference by Boyer) and 6-4 Jeff Martin combined for 46 Falcon points, and meshed 11 free throws.

The Panthers led 16-14 after a quarter of play. The score was tied at 41 at intermission. But ACGC forged to a 58-52 lead after three periods and maintained control until the final buzzer. Eric Peterson led the Panther scoring with 16 points and was followed by Ross Ladehoff with 13.

The Panthers did a much better job of taking care of the ball than they had the previous week again Redwood Valley, committing only 10 turnovers compared to 14 for the Falcons. TMB outrebounded the Falcons 30-29. The home team hit 25 of 65 field goal attempts for 38%, compared to ACGC's 24 of 73 for 33%.

It was in the free throw department that the Panthers lost the game. T/M/B hit 12 of 24 free throws while ACGC hit 25 of 35 for a 13 point margin. The visitors also hit 5 of 7 three-pointers while T/M/B hit only 4 of 20.

Champs at Maple River

TMB takes team, 3 individual titles

Tracy/Milroy/Balaton wrestlers won the Maple River Tournament Saturday.

The Panthers 182 points topped second place Blaine by nine points. Other teams were: United South Central-Alden /Conger, 167.0; Mankato West, 148; Maple River 143.0; Sibley East, 137.5; Minnehaha/Minnesota Lutheran, 90.0; Mankato West JV, 31.0.

Cole Cooreman, Paul Carlson and Mike Schreier were individual champions. James Prairie was runner-up, with Adam Snyder, Brett Peterson and Jordan Rolling earning thirds. Chad Cooreman and Andy Nelson were fourth, Dan Deiter was sixth. Snyder recorded the 75th win of his career.