Sports from the week of August 30, 2006

Panthers open at Canby

The Panther football team is going through final preparations for the season opener at Canby Thursday night. The team hopes to improve on its performance in the scrimmages with Minneota, Windom and Dawson-Boyd last Saturday.

“Some of our problems in the scrimmage were due to losing some key offensive blockers in the first few plays of the scrimmage last Saturday,” said Panther Co-Head Coach Randy McIntire. “On every play there are 5 or 6 key blockers and we lost four of those right away. You can get by with one or two losses of experienced personnel but any more than that and real problems develop.”

Most of those injuries have healed and the Panthers look for improved play against Canby Thursday night.

On offense the starting line-up should look like this: End- Chris Swenson backed up by Nick Soupir; Tackle- Spencer Zwaschka; Guard- Dan Deiter backed up by Adam LeClaire; Center-Chris Hansen backed up by Logan Sanow; Guard- Pheng Her backed up by Ryan Thooft; Tackle-Nate Jacob; Split End- Kyle McIntire; Quarterback- Isaac Dolan; Fullback-John Gervais backed up by Andrew Prairie; Tailback- Seth Swan backed up by John Swenhaugen. If a spread formation is used Taylor Rignell and Drew Nelson would be wideouts.

On defense it will be: End-John Gervais backed up by Chris Hansen; Tackle- Tyler Bauer; Nose-Pheng Her backed up by Dan Deiter; Tackle- Nate Jacob backed up by Aaron Frisvold; End- Spencer Zwaschka; Linebackers-Seth Swan, Chris Swenson and Andrew Prairie backed up by Steven Paradis; Corners-Kyle McIntire and David Schmidt backed up by John Swenhaugen and Brady Jackson; Safety- Taylor Rignell backed up by Drew Nelson.

Panther coaches stress that the depth chart is not written in stone. If changes are required many of the players could be used in several positions-other than where they are listed.

Game time Thursday night in Canby is 7 p.m.

Penguins tested in Mankato

The Plum Creek Area Penguins (made up of students at T/M/B and WG-W) lost three games at the Mankato Loyola Classic last weekend.

The Penguins lost to Mankato Loyola 9-0, to Concordia Academy 13-0 and to St Peter 9-0.

“We had a very difficult week end,” said Coach Phil Goetstouwers. “We got outshot 30-9, 39-7 and 30-10 in the three games. We had to play without some key players and no extra players for substitution. We were nervous for our first game but played tough in the first 25 minutes of our second game before a mistake led to another blowout. In the third game we got tired from the long rides and playing without substitution. We need to keep in mind that we are a new program and very young. We consist mainly of freshmen and sophomores, with just three juniors, one senior and a few seventh graders. The goal for all of us is not to get discouraged by these results.”

Small turnout challenges TMB volleyball program

Panthers open at Clara City

Numbers on the Panther volleyball team are thin at the high school level this year.

Only nine players are out for volleyball in the junior and senior classes, and none from the sophomore class. The lack of numbers has caused some problems for the squad.

“We have had to schedule some scrimmages with other schools because with so few squad members we haven’t enough players for a intrasquad scrimmage,” said Coach Cyndi Raymond. “Most of the other schools have a game this week and since we do not play until next Tuesday at MACCRAY, all of our players will be going out Tuesday night to scout other teams.”

The Panthers have scrimmaged against Red Rock Central and Wabasso to date and will scrimmage with Fulda this Friday.

Tracy/Milroy/Balaton also have some injury issues to overcome. Emily Scharfe is recovering from shoulder surgery and Michele Lanoue from knee surgery.

“To minimize the chances of injury we have recently worked out in the swimming pool,” said Raymond. “That is a good way to improve conditioning without risking injury.”

Scharfe and Molly Miller will hit from the middle, Mallory Fultz and Michele Lanoue from the outside while Jackie Haecherl and Shelbie Jones will hit from the right side. Lindsey Daniels will do the setting and Lisa Bauer and Cheri Willard will be serving specialists.

“The scrimmages have gone quite well so far,” said Raymond. “We have served well and done well on free balls.”

The Panthers open against MACCRAY next Tuesday at Clara City and will host KMS on Thursday, Sept. 7.

Runners open at Mt. lake

Panther cross-country runners open their season Wednesday at the Mountain Lake Invitational.

“It is hard to replace someone like Jillian Tholen,”
said Panther Coach Marie Hanson of the all-state runner that the Panthers lost to graduation. The coach said that Jillian’s sister, seventh grader Karli, has shown great potential. “I gave her the option of running in the Junior High or the varsity race and she chose the varsity.”

Celia Brockway, Jessica Mason, Rachel Stobb, Jen Vroman, Carly Miller, Haley Hebig, Tinke Albach, Ayla Snyder and Bekah Zens are the other Panther girls running this week.

Ryan Tholen, Alex Jones, Sam NanVevel, Joe Hook, James Prairie and Derek Evans will be running on boys’ varsity. Josh Lubben and Dalton Kirk will compete in the junior varsity race.

The Panthers host a meet at the Tracy Country Club Thursday, Sept. 7 at 4:30 p.m.