Sports from the week of December 28, 2005

Paul Carlson passes 75-wins

It’s been a good season so far for Panther wrestler Paul Carlson.

The senior 189-pounder recently achieved the coveted 75-career victory milestone, and he’s off to a strong start with a 9-2 record.

Individual wins and honors are nice, Carlson concedes, when prompted by a reporter. But the Panthers’ success as a team is the main reason Carlson is enjoying the ‘05-06 wrestling season.

“The team is doing well, that’s the main thing. I couldn’t really care less what my record is as long as the team is doing well.” This year’s mat squad, Carlson feels, has great potential.

“We don’t really have a weak spot.”

Carlson is one of three Panther wrestlers with 75 or more career wins. Cole and Chad Cooreman reached the 75-victory level last year.

“We’d like to qualify for state as a team,” Carlson said.

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Including his youth wrestling days, Carlson has been wrestling for 13 years. As of last week, he was the fourth-rated Class AA wrestler in his weight class. Carlson downplays the ranking.

“I don’t feel as if I have earned it yet.” His goal is to keep working and improving. Besides helping the team advance to state, Carlson would also like to qualify for state as an individual and place at state. He’s already wrestled at state three times.

Carlson is now wrestling at 189-pounds, but plans to wrestle at 171 pounds when post-season tournaments begin in February.

Coach Brian Michelson thinks highly of the senior wrestler.

“I sure wouldn’t want to be without him.” Michelson said Carlson won two especially tough matches in a recent quadrangular, beating Minneota’s Wade Eischens and Marshall’s Bruns each by one point.

Hot-shooting Panthers get one-sided victory

The Panther boys’ basketball improved to 4-3 heading into their holiday basketball tournament this week with a convincing 88-53 victory over Lincoln HI.

The Rebels dropped to 2-5 for the season.

The Panthers host a holiday basketball tournament with Russell-Tyler-Ruthton, Wabasso, and Red Rock Central Wednesday and Thursday.

Tracy/Milroy/Balaton led by as much as 15 points in the first half, but ahead only 35-31 at halftime. Hot-shooting in the second half allowed the Panthers to outscore Lincoln HI 53-22 in the second half and coast to the win.

“We played a very good game and it was nice to get a win, going into the holidays,” said Panther Coach Nat Boyer. “The boys contained Vierhuf (averaging 19 points per game) to only 12 points. Our guard play was pretty consistent throughout and our posts played their positions well. Pressing on defense and pushing the ball on offense is what this team is finding as its trademark. We were glad that we could have three nice wins (A, B and C squads) on parent’s night.”

Drew Nelson scored 18 points and pulled down 5 rebounds, Derek Radke chipped in 17 points to go along with 7 rebounds. Isaac Dolan and Gary Knott had 12 points each and 6 and 9 rebounds respectively. Steven Paradis also added 9 points and 3 rebounds.

The Panthers hit 30 of 62 two-point field goals and 7 of 18 three point attempts while the Rebels hit 11 of 34 two-point shots and 8 of 22 threes. TMB had 49 rebounds to 37, 18 assists to 11, 11 steals to 2, 8 blocks to none and turned the ball over 17 times to 24 for the Rebels.

The B squad won. 82-11. David Schmidt led the scoring with 21 points, followed by Schlager 3, Kaup 10, Paradis 12, Hook 6, Xiong Va 5, Gervais and Thooft 11 each and Hanson 3.

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TMB-McIntire, 2,0-0,4; Knott, 6,0-2, 12; Nelson, 9, 0-0, 18; Rignell, 1, 0-0,3;I. Dolan, 5, 0-0, 12; Zwaschka, 2, 2-5,6; Radke, 5, 4-5,17; A. Dolan, 2, 0-0, 5; Paradis, 4, 1-2, 9; Kaup, 1, 0-0,2. Totals,37,7-14,88.

Victory eludes TMB girls in closing seconds at Tyler

Russell-Tyler-Ruthton tripped the Panther girls 82-75 Friday at Tyler.

The action dropped Tracy/Milroy/Balaton to 3-6 and 1-3 in the Camden Conference. R-T-R improved to 4-4 , 3-2 Camden Conference.

The game was marred by 59 fouls and 70 free throws. Two Panther players and five R-T-R players fouled out.

The Lady Knights were in command for most of the game but the Panthers rallied to bring the score to 66-65 with 4:53 remaining.

The game was tied 75-75 with 31 seconds left, but TMB turned the ball over on its next three possessions.

“We had chances to win but didn’t handle the last seconds of the game very well, said Panther Coach Rick Haberman. “We need to learn from this and execute better in late game situations. We hurried too much when we didn’t need to.”

Alyssa Kirk scored 28 points, followed by Mallory Fultz with 19 and Emily Miller with 15.

The Panthers pulled down 43 rebounds as well as the Lady Knights, T/M/B had 11 assists to 21 for R-T-R, had 11 steals to 21, 1 block to 2, and turned the ball over 35 times to 24 for R-T-R.

T/M/B-E.Miller, 5,3-5,15; Carpenter,0,1-4,1; Haecherl, 1,2-2,4; Alyssa Kirk, 9,6-8,28; Coulter, 0,1-2,1; Daniels, 3,1-1,7; Ashley Kirk,0,0-3,0; Fultz, 6,7-13,19. Totals 24,21-38, 75.