Sports for the week of October 27, 2004

Football team advances

The Tracy/Milroy/Balaton Panther football team advanced to the second round of the Section 6AA playoffs with a 21-6 win over Lac Qui Parle Valley at Tracy Tuesday night. The Panthers will next host Renville County West this Saturday night in the semi-finals. This win marked the first Panther playoff win since the 2000 season when T/M/B lost to Canby 20-19 in the section finals after winning over Springfield 6-0 and BOLD 21-0.

"We came ready to play tonight," said Defensive Coordinator Jason Kainz. "It was good to win the first playoff game now we are going after the second one Saturday night, 'we expect to win'."

The term "we expect to win" was coined by the coaching staff this season to over come the Panther's lack of confidence following several losing seasons.

Saturday will mark the second time that T/M/B has played the RCW Jaguars. On October 8 the Panthers came from behind to beat the Jaguars 24-16. RCW won over number one seed West Central Tuesday night by a score of 10-7 to advance to the second round of the playoffs.

Panther VB faces Canby Friday

The Tracy/Milroy/Balaton volleyball team has completed its schedule and is preparing for the section tournaments, which start on Friday, October 29. The Panthers are the number one seed in the North Section Tournament and will meet Canby in the first round at Redwood Falls on Friday, October 29 at 6 p.m.

Renville County West is the number 2 seed, GFW is number 3, YME number 4, Minnesota Valley Lutheran #5, BOLD #6, Redwood Valley #7 and Canby is #8.

If T/M/B and RCW can win their first two matches they will meet in the finals at SMSU on Saturday, November 6 at 7 p.m. The teams have met twice this season with each team winning once.

"We have been working hard this week," said Sarah Fritz and Emily Miller. "We have been spending most of the time on our specialties."

Panther B-Squad End of Season Wrap-up

The Panther B-Squad Football Team recently ended their season on a high note with a 30-6 victory over the RTR Knights in Tracy on October 18th.

The Panthers caused 4 turnovers turning 3 into touchdowns and the 4th an interception in the end zone to stop what could have been another RTR score. This leaves the Panther B-Squad with a 2-4 record (2-2 at home and 0-2 on the road). This is a slight improvement over last year’s record of 1-5. "You could really see the kids come together as a team as the season progressed. There was less emphasis on ‘I’ and more of an emphasis on the team," said Coach Michelson.

The season scores looked like this:

TMB 7 Pipestone 6
TMB 0 MCC 28
TMB 6 Wabasso 36
TMB 7 Redwood 29
TMB 8 Windom 22
TMB 30 RTR 6

"All in all, it was a great learning experience for our kids," said Coach Michelson. "They really learned to depend on each other and you could actually see them grow as they learned their positions." Though both the offensive and defensive teams struggled at times, there were some standouts at many different positions. A few players have the potential to play varsity football next year. Chris Swenson and Andrew Prairie could see some time at both running back and linebacker. Kyle McIntire and Drew Nelson could see some time at cornerback. Tim Miller and Pheng Her could see some time at offensive and defensive line. With the experience these young men gained, the Panthers could continue to be a strong force in years to come.