Sports from the week of February 1, 2006

Three reach century wrestling milestone

Seven wrestlers in the history of Tracy Scrapper and TMB Panther athletics have earned 100 or more career wins. Three of the seven are on this year’s Panther mat squad. Chad Cooreman and Paul Carlson got their 100th wins this past week. Cole Cooreman got his 100th win in early January. Aldon Struchen is the school’s career win leader with 144, followed by Adam Snyder, 117; Travis Christensen, 110; Mark DeVetter, 101. Cole Cooreman is fifth with 108, followed by Chad Cooreman, 104; and Carlson, 100. See page 8 for more photos

Buyck, Brockway are ribbon winners in Schwan's speech meet

The Tracy Area High School speech team competed in the Schwan’s Speech Spectacular tournament this past weekend.

Eighteen students competed along with 750 other speakers from 24 teams from central and southern Minnesota in the two-day tournament. Tracy tied with St. Paul Highland for 19th place ahead of schools such as Jackson County Central, Holy Angels, New Prague, Mound Westonka, and Totino-Grace.

The Schwan’s Speech Spectacular tournament has three rounds of preliminary competition on Friday followed by a fourth round of preliminary competition on Saturday. Based on the results from the four rounds of preliminary competition, competitors then start qualifying for rounds of quarter-final, semi-final, and final rounds. Senior Bobbi Buyck and Junior Celia Brockway led the team with impressive performances in storytelling. Bobbi and Celia advanced to quarter-finals, but missed advancing to semi-finals by one point. Bobbi and Celia both received quarter-final ribbons.

The Schwan’s Speech Spectacular attracted some of the top AA Speech programs in the state. Teams such as Apple Valley, Eagan, Eastview, and Sioux Falls Lincoln were in attendance.

Other Tracy competitors included: seniors Jenna Fischer and Casie Miller; junior Jessica Mason; sophomores Jordan Christiansen, Jeremiah Martin, Brittnee Michael, David Nilius, Ashley Sammons, Rachel Stobb, and Ben VanMoer; freshmen Carly Miller, Megan Nelson, Melissa Noerenberg, Alicia Rykhus, Caitlyn Sanow, and Skylar Carlson.

“It was a great tournament. We are very pleased with how the team performed against such tough competition. Every member of the team performed at their best. They did not let the competition intimidate them in any way,” stated coach Tamara Purrington

The new team members will be in action on Saturday, Feb. 4, at the Canby First Timers tournament. The first round starts at 10 a.m. The veterans will be in action again on Saturday, Feb. 11 at the SMSU tournament with the first round starting at 9 a.m.

Panther boys regroup following tough losses

Team travels to Westbrook Friday night

The Panther boys’ basketball team dropped games to Russell-Tyler-Ruthton and Windom last week.

The action left T/M/B with an 8-9 season record, and 3-5 in the Camden Conference South.

“We had a tough week, no doubt about it,” said Panther Coach Nat Boyer.

“We played well for 33 minutes on Thursday night (against Windom) and then came back and played well for 4 minutes on Friday (against RTR). Things did not come together for us and that makes it tough for everyone.

“Playing back-to-back is tough enough, but playing R-T-R on the second half of the back-to-back is an extremely tough contest for anyone.”

The Panthers have a break in their schedule until Friday, when they travel to Westbrook to play Westbrook-Walnut Grove.

“We’ll do all we can to be prepared to play ball,” said Boyer.

RTR 71, TMB 41

Gary Knott led the Panthers with 15 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocked shots. The Panthers hit 16 of 38 field goal attempts for 42% and were 1 of 9 on threes for 11% while the Knights hit 26 of 39 field goal attempts for 67% and were 3 of 11 on threes for 27%.

The Panthers had only 16 rebounds to 43 for the Knights, 16 assists to 24, 4 steals to 6, 1 block to 3 and turned the ball over only 10 times to 9 for the Knights. The halftime score was 38-21 in favor of R-T-R.

TMB- Schmidt,1,0-1,2; McIntire, 0,2-2,2; A. Dolan, 1,0-2,2; Knott, 7,1-3,15; Rignell, 0,1-2,1; I. Dolan, 1,0-0,3; Zwaschka, 4,0-1,8; Nelson, 2,2-5,6;Radke, 1,-02,2. Totals, 17,6-18, 41.

Windom 85, TMB 75

The Panthers trailed the Eagles 34-30 at halftime but built up a nine-point lead in the second half until Windom started using a pressure defense to create some costly turnovers, recaptured the lead and held on for the win

“We did exactly what we wanted to do offensively and defensively in the first half,” said Boyer. “We controlled the ball and held their fast break to a minimum in the first half, but in the second half the pace of the game for both teams picked up and we really got caught in some situations that were unfavorable to the outcome we wanted.

“The boys played well and by playing with a team like this, we showed that we can play with one of the top rated teams in our section. We were disappointed with the outcome, but the effort the whole team displayed can not be questioned, the boys, on the whole, laid everything on the line. We just have to keep working and good things will continue to happen.”

Radke led the Panther scoring with 17 points while Knott and Rignell added 12 each. TMB had 29 rebounds to 36, 18 assists to 12, 3 steals to 0, 7 blocks to 1 and 21 turnovers to 18. The Panthers hit 16 of 41 field goal attempts for 39% and were 8 of 19 on threes for 42% while the Eagles hit 27 of 67 field goals for 40% and were 5 of 7 on threes for 71%.

TMB- Knott, 5, 1-2,12; Nelson, 3, 1-2, 8; Rignell, 3, 4-5, 12; I. Dolan, 1, 0-0, 3; Zwaschka, 2, 2-2, 6; Radke, 6, 2-3,17; A.Dolan, 4, 1-2, 9; Schmidt, 0,2-2,2. Totals, 24, 13-18,75.