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Sports from the week of February 26, 2003

Girls survive shaky start for first-round JCC upset

The Panther girls basketball team upset second-seeded Jackson County Central 48-40 Saturday night to advance to the second round of the Section 3AA South Trournamrnt at SSU.

"The Panthers scare the dickens out of me," said JCC Coach 'Tub' Voss prior to the game. "When they are playing well and hitting their shots they are capable of beating any team in the tournament."

"It was a great game to win," said Panther Coach Paul Soupir. "The kids did a great job of keeping their composure after our slow start."

Kasey (Loeslie ) got us going," said Soupir. "It was a great team win, all the kids stepped up and played well, Laura (Zwach ) had a great game."

Frigid shooting freezes Panther play-off quest

The Panther girls basketball team saw their season come to an end with a 52-35 loss to the Windom Eagles in the semi-finals of the 3AA South Section Tournament at SSU Tuesday night. The Panthers finished the season with a 8-16 record and they were 7-7 in the 212 Conference.

The game followed a similar pattern to other Tracy/Milroy/Balaton losses this year. The Panthers have won when they shot well and lost when they did not. In most losses, an opposition strategy of taking senior Laura Zwach out of the game by doubling up on her has worked when the balance of the Panther squad has not been able to take up the slack on offense.

"Windom is too good a team to fall that far behind and try to recover," said Panther Coach Paul Soupir. "We were not aggressive enough on offense tonight, when you are aggressive the ball tends to go into the basket and when you are tentative it does not."


Paul Carlson advances to state wrestling meet

The Panther wrestling team will be represented in the state tournament by 145-pounder Paul Carlson.

Carlson beat second-seeded John Kremmin of Windom/ML-B-O in the semifinals in 2 overtime periods 6-5 to gain the state meet.

"We were very pleased with Paul's effort in the match against Kremmin," said Panther Assistant Coach Jeremy Trulock. "He gave it everything he had. He could hardly stand up after the match ended."

Cole Cooreman, at 103 pounds, placed third, Chad Cooreman, at 112 pounds placed second but lost to Kyle Evans of Pipestone in the match for true second. Adam Snyder, at 119 pounds finished in fourth place, Andy Nelson 6th, Tim Byrne, 6th and Mike Schreier 5th.


Boys draw No. 1 Arrows for tournament opener

The Panther boys basketball team has been seeded 8th in the Section 3AA South Tournament and will square off against the No. 1 seed Pipestone Arrows at Windom Saturday, March 1 at 6 p.m.. No. 4 seed Jackson County Central will play No. 5 seed Martin County West at 7:30 at Windom.

Third seeded Redwood Valley faces sixth rated Windom at Jackson at 6 p.m. Second seed Worthington faces No. 8 Luverne at 7:30 in Jackson.

MACCRAY outside shooters rip nets against TMB boys

The Panther boys basketball team fell to MACCRAY 67-53 at Clara City Friday night in a 212 Conference game.

"It was the three-pointers that did us in," said Panther Coach Nat Boyer. "They hit 5 threes, 2 of them by Epema, which we did not expect. We held Tyler Knott, their 6-10 center, to only 12 points."