Because He's Black
LeBron James's high school athletic eligibility is being questioned because he is now driving a brand new, $50,000 Hummer. It is obvious that James is being questioned because high school officials are not used to seeing a black teenager from Akron drive such a nice car. How many atheltes at Edina or Wayzata high schools do you think pull into their respective high school parking lots behind the wheels of expensive sport utility vehichles. Do they get questioned? Of course not. They are fortunate enough to live in the white suburbs where such an occurance is deemed normal. Why should James be punished simply because his mom or dad isn't a vice president for General Mills?
Rude Homecomings
Over the past month, four Robbinsdale Armstrong graduates have returned to Minneapolis for basketball games at Williams Arena.
The University of Minnesota women’s team hasn’t been too friendly to the Minnesota natives as the Gophers have won all three contests in blowouts.
1999 graduate Amanda Neby’s Radford team came to Minneapolis on November 23 and lost 93-53. Neby had a strong performance with ten points and eight rebounds.
2000 graduates Katie Wiberg and Randi Meissner came to town with the University of Missouri-Kansas City and lost 88-53.
Meissner tallied 12 points and seven rebounds, while Wiberg didn’t get many looks at the basket and finished with two points.
Former Metro Player of the Year and Ms. Basketball, April Calhoun returned to Minneapolis on Jan. 12 with the Iowa Hawkeyes.
The Gophers jumped out to a 30-5 lead and topped the Hawkeyes 94-65. Calhoun started and played a team high 36 minutes for the Gophers Big Ten Rivals.
Like Wiberg, Calhoun didn’t get many looks at the basket and finished with five points and five rebounds.
Falcons Lose Two Close Ones
By Matt Thomas (From 01/14 edition of The Lakeshore Weekly News)
Going into last week the Armstrong boys basketball team was undefeated, yet they knew they had their toughest week ahead of them.
The second ranked Jefferson Jaguars traveled to Armstrong and came away with a 66-55 victory. Two days later, the Falcons traveled to fourth ranked Hopkins and fell 62-50.
The Falcons found themselves in the middle of both games, but ran out of gas in the second half in both contests.
Senior Billy Wiberg and junior Everette Pedescleaux combined for 12 first quarter points against the Jaguars as the Falcons trailed 20-18.
The Jaguars scored the last five points of the first half as senior Dan Wheeler hit a three pointer to widen the Jaguars lead to 36-26 at halftime.
The Falcons battled back and looked to gain some momentum when the Falcons executed an ally-oop out of a time out.
Wiberg fed junior DeAnte Ferguson for a slam dunk to get the Falcons within nine. Pedescleaux trimmed the lead to seven with a turnaround jumper, but the Jaguars outside shooting took over after that.
Two three pointers by Brent Augustine and another by Wheeler in the last two minutes, pushed the Jaguars lead back to ten after three quarters.
The Falcons got as close as seven in the fourth quarter, but the Jaguars put the game away by going 6-7 from the free throw line down the stretch.
“We thought we played pretty good, but we were a little tight in the first half and missed some easy shots,” head coach Greg Miller said.
The Falcons shot 66 percent from the field in both the first and third quarters, but were hurt by poor shooting in the second quarter when they went just 2-12.
The Jaguars had their stroke going from the outside all night as they connected on 8-14 three point attempts.
Wheeler led the Jaguars with 23 points on 9-13 from the field. Augustine hit four three pointers and finished with 14 points.
The Falcons had three players in double figures, led by Pedescleaux’s 18 points. Wiberg added 14, while DaWon Ferguson chipped in ten.
Although Pedescleaux is the type of player who can score twenty points or more per game, Miller is looking for a more balanced scoring attack.
“We have four guys averaging in double figures right now and a team like that is hard to defend,” Miller said. “Obviously Everette inside is one of the premier players in the state, but Billy Wiberg is a heck of a play and then we have players like Chris Babcock and Dawon as well.”
The Falcons are now 6-2 overall and just glad that they have their starting center, Pedescleaux, back in the lineup after he missed several games due to injury earlier in the season.
“He pretty much scored at will on us tonight,” Jaguars head coach Jeff Evens said. “He’s a good ball player and we had some things designed to try and shut him down but it obviously didn’t work.”
Pedescleaux had the daunting task of playing against Hopkins senior Kris Humphries two days after the loss to Jefferson.
The Falcons again hung around and trailed by only nine at halftime. The Royals proved to have too much size inside as Humphries scored 20 and Dan Coleman added 16 in the Royals 62-50 victory.
Pedescleaux led the Falcons with 16 points, while junior Phil Knutson added 12.
Pedescleaux has the possibility of a big week ahead as the Falcons face two of the smaller teams in the conference in St. Louis Park and Cooper.
The Falcons will host St. Louis Park on Jan. 14 and will travel to Cooper on Jan. 17.
Edina Too Much For Skipper Boys
By Matt Thomas (From 01/14 edition of The Lakeshore Weekly News)
If the Minnetonka boys basketball team could replicate its play in the first quarter of last Friday’s game with the Edina Hornets, they would make head coach John Hedstrom a very happy man.
The Skippers jumped out to a 17-9 first quarter lead and eventually led 25-16 two minutes into the second quarter. That’s when the Hornets went a 30-6 run as they made 12-17 shots to put the Skippers in a hole they couldn’t climb out of.
“We lost our intensity on defense after the first quarter,” Hedstrom said. “And we started to take shots too quickly. Edina is an experienced team and when they started to make shots, we were forced to try to shoot our way back into the game.”
Much of the Skippers early success was due to the outside shooting of junior guard Brian Ranwick. The six foot guard went a perfect 3-3 from outside the arch to give the Skippers their early lead.
The Skippers leading scorer on the season, Tom Conboy, hit a three of his own to open the second quarter and it looked like the Hornets would have all they could handle on this night.
The Hornets did not panic as their quartet of senior captains calmly brought their team back into the lead by halftime.
Seniors Tim March and Brad Hildebrand both hit three pointers in the second quarter, and the Skippers had no answer for Senior Ricky Presthus.
Presthus scored 12 points in the second quarter alone and finished with 21 points. His three pointer just before the halftime buzzer gave the Hornets momentum and a 35-29 lead.
Presthus and March combined for three three pointers early in the third quarter as the Hornets took their biggest lead at 46-31.
“We knew that stopping Hildebrand and Presthus would be the key and that March would hit a three pointer if he was open,” Hedstrom said.
The Skippers settled down and got back to their game plan on offense to cut the lead to ten after a jumper by Conboy.
An offensive rebound and putback by Conboy to start the fourth quarter, cut the Hornets lead to eight, but March countered with a three pointer as the Hornets never led by less than ten after that.
Ranwick ended up leading the Skippers with 19 points, while Conboy added 17. Seniors Kevin Martin and Vaughn Hedberg were also in double figures with 12 and 11 points respectively.
March led the Hornets with a game-high 23 points, while Hildebrand and senior Dan Aagard added 17 and 11 points respectively.
The game was the conference opener for both teams and dropped the Skippers overall record to 5-6 on the season. The Hornets are now 1-0 in conference play and 7-6 overall.
The big story for the Skippers thus far this season has been the absence of leading returning scorer John Manley. Manley has played sparingly this season due to ankle, elbow and knee injuries, forcing Conboy to step up and score on a more consistent basis.
Conboy, a six foot, seven inch junior, has responded and has led the way for the Skippers in several of their five victories.
The Skippers only game this week is a home contest on Jan. 17 against Wayzata. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:15.
Hedstrom is looking forward to having four days of practice and also getting Manley back into the line-up.
“We’re going to get back to the basics and focus on getting better this week,” Hedstrom said. “We’re going to spend this week getting John back into the fold. I’m fairly optimistic he’ll play Friday against Wayzata.”
Trojans Cruising in Conference Play
By Matt Thomas (From 01/14 edition of The Lakeshore Weekly News)
It’s common for high school coaches to say that they set up a non-conference schedule to get ready for the conference schedule. In the case of the Wayzata boys hockey team, that theory appears to be true.
After an up and down non-conference schedule in which the Trojans posted six wins and five losses, the team has picked up its intensity to earn a 3-0-1 conference record.
The Trojans jumped out a 3-0 lead over a hapless Hopkins team and hung on for a 5-3 victory on Jan. 9. Two days later, the Trojans didn’t give the Minnetonka Skippers a glimmer of hope as they buried the Skippers 7-1.
The game against Hopkins appeared to be a major mismatch as the Royals came into the game with a 2-11 overall record.
The Trojans looked like a much better team in the first two periods as they dominated play on both ends of the ice.
Senior forward Travis Olson opened the scoring with 9:26 left in the first period with a wrist shot just inside the blue line. Sophomore Matt Woods got the assist on the goal and the Trojans led 1-0.
With 2:55 left in the first period, the Trojans padded their lead to 2-0. The Trojans controlled a face-off in the Royals zone and sophomore Kurt Davis skated in and scored past Royals goalie Luke Edwall.
Trojans goalie Kevin Johnson did his part to keep the Royals off the scoreboard in the waning seconds of the first period. The Royals had a two on one opportunity and Johnson made a sprawling save to preserve the shutout.
Less than five minutes into the second period, the Trojans went ahead 3-0 when junior Nate Anderson left a drop pass for John Zmuda who scored.
The Royals got on the board with 1:41 left on a rebound goal, but the Trojans countered with 8.6 seconds left.
Senior Matt Sundberg centered to junior Kevin Kolkind who gave the Trojans a three goal cushion heading into the third period.
The Trojans opened up a 5-1 lead when Woods scored in the opening minutes of the third period. The Royals scored two goals after that, and put 20 shots on goal in the third period, but the Trojans prevailed 5-3.
Johnson ended up making 42 saves on the night, while Edwall made 24 for the Royals.
Two days later, the Trojans continued their strong offensive play, as they notched seven goals against Minnetonka.
Six different Trojans scored goals, while Woods was the only player to score two in the victory. Sundberg and Ryan Freeland each had a goal and two assists.
Johnson made 21 saves as the Trojans improved to 9-5-1 overall and 3-0-1 in conference play.
The Trojans will go back outside the conference to face Osseo on Jan. 14 before resuming conference play against Cooper on Jan 16 at the Plymouth Ice Arena.
LeBron James's high school athletic eligibility is being questioned because he is now driving a brand new, $50,000 Hummer. It is obvious that James is being questioned because high school officials are not used to seeing a black teenager from Akron drive such a nice car. How many atheltes at Edina or Wayzata high schools do you think pull into their respective high school parking lots behind the wheels of expensive sport utility vehichles. Do they get questioned? Of course not. They are fortunate enough to live in the white suburbs where such an occurance is deemed normal. Why should James be punished simply because his mom or dad isn't a vice president for General Mills?
Rude Homecomings
Over the past month, four Robbinsdale Armstrong graduates have returned to Minneapolis for basketball games at Williams Arena.
The University of Minnesota women’s team hasn’t been too friendly to the Minnesota natives as the Gophers have won all three contests in blowouts.
1999 graduate Amanda Neby’s Radford team came to Minneapolis on November 23 and lost 93-53. Neby had a strong performance with ten points and eight rebounds.
2000 graduates Katie Wiberg and Randi Meissner came to town with the University of Missouri-Kansas City and lost 88-53.
Meissner tallied 12 points and seven rebounds, while Wiberg didn’t get many looks at the basket and finished with two points.
Former Metro Player of the Year and Ms. Basketball, April Calhoun returned to Minneapolis on Jan. 12 with the Iowa Hawkeyes.
The Gophers jumped out to a 30-5 lead and topped the Hawkeyes 94-65. Calhoun started and played a team high 36 minutes for the Gophers Big Ten Rivals.
Like Wiberg, Calhoun didn’t get many looks at the basket and finished with five points and five rebounds.
Falcons Lose Two Close Ones
By Matt Thomas (From 01/14 edition of The Lakeshore Weekly News)
Going into last week the Armstrong boys basketball team was undefeated, yet they knew they had their toughest week ahead of them.
The second ranked Jefferson Jaguars traveled to Armstrong and came away with a 66-55 victory. Two days later, the Falcons traveled to fourth ranked Hopkins and fell 62-50.
The Falcons found themselves in the middle of both games, but ran out of gas in the second half in both contests.
Senior Billy Wiberg and junior Everette Pedescleaux combined for 12 first quarter points against the Jaguars as the Falcons trailed 20-18.
The Jaguars scored the last five points of the first half as senior Dan Wheeler hit a three pointer to widen the Jaguars lead to 36-26 at halftime.
The Falcons battled back and looked to gain some momentum when the Falcons executed an ally-oop out of a time out.
Wiberg fed junior DeAnte Ferguson for a slam dunk to get the Falcons within nine. Pedescleaux trimmed the lead to seven with a turnaround jumper, but the Jaguars outside shooting took over after that.
Two three pointers by Brent Augustine and another by Wheeler in the last two minutes, pushed the Jaguars lead back to ten after three quarters.
The Falcons got as close as seven in the fourth quarter, but the Jaguars put the game away by going 6-7 from the free throw line down the stretch.
“We thought we played pretty good, but we were a little tight in the first half and missed some easy shots,” head coach Greg Miller said.
The Falcons shot 66 percent from the field in both the first and third quarters, but were hurt by poor shooting in the second quarter when they went just 2-12.
The Jaguars had their stroke going from the outside all night as they connected on 8-14 three point attempts.
Wheeler led the Jaguars with 23 points on 9-13 from the field. Augustine hit four three pointers and finished with 14 points.
The Falcons had three players in double figures, led by Pedescleaux’s 18 points. Wiberg added 14, while DaWon Ferguson chipped in ten.
Although Pedescleaux is the type of player who can score twenty points or more per game, Miller is looking for a more balanced scoring attack.
“We have four guys averaging in double figures right now and a team like that is hard to defend,” Miller said. “Obviously Everette inside is one of the premier players in the state, but Billy Wiberg is a heck of a play and then we have players like Chris Babcock and Dawon as well.”
The Falcons are now 6-2 overall and just glad that they have their starting center, Pedescleaux, back in the lineup after he missed several games due to injury earlier in the season.
“He pretty much scored at will on us tonight,” Jaguars head coach Jeff Evens said. “He’s a good ball player and we had some things designed to try and shut him down but it obviously didn’t work.”
Pedescleaux had the daunting task of playing against Hopkins senior Kris Humphries two days after the loss to Jefferson.
The Falcons again hung around and trailed by only nine at halftime. The Royals proved to have too much size inside as Humphries scored 20 and Dan Coleman added 16 in the Royals 62-50 victory.
Pedescleaux led the Falcons with 16 points, while junior Phil Knutson added 12.
Pedescleaux has the possibility of a big week ahead as the Falcons face two of the smaller teams in the conference in St. Louis Park and Cooper.
The Falcons will host St. Louis Park on Jan. 14 and will travel to Cooper on Jan. 17.
Edina Too Much For Skipper Boys
By Matt Thomas (From 01/14 edition of The Lakeshore Weekly News)
If the Minnetonka boys basketball team could replicate its play in the first quarter of last Friday’s game with the Edina Hornets, they would make head coach John Hedstrom a very happy man.
The Skippers jumped out to a 17-9 first quarter lead and eventually led 25-16 two minutes into the second quarter. That’s when the Hornets went a 30-6 run as they made 12-17 shots to put the Skippers in a hole they couldn’t climb out of.
“We lost our intensity on defense after the first quarter,” Hedstrom said. “And we started to take shots too quickly. Edina is an experienced team and when they started to make shots, we were forced to try to shoot our way back into the game.”
Much of the Skippers early success was due to the outside shooting of junior guard Brian Ranwick. The six foot guard went a perfect 3-3 from outside the arch to give the Skippers their early lead.
The Skippers leading scorer on the season, Tom Conboy, hit a three of his own to open the second quarter and it looked like the Hornets would have all they could handle on this night.
The Hornets did not panic as their quartet of senior captains calmly brought their team back into the lead by halftime.
Seniors Tim March and Brad Hildebrand both hit three pointers in the second quarter, and the Skippers had no answer for Senior Ricky Presthus.
Presthus scored 12 points in the second quarter alone and finished with 21 points. His three pointer just before the halftime buzzer gave the Hornets momentum and a 35-29 lead.
Presthus and March combined for three three pointers early in the third quarter as the Hornets took their biggest lead at 46-31.
“We knew that stopping Hildebrand and Presthus would be the key and that March would hit a three pointer if he was open,” Hedstrom said.
The Skippers settled down and got back to their game plan on offense to cut the lead to ten after a jumper by Conboy.
An offensive rebound and putback by Conboy to start the fourth quarter, cut the Hornets lead to eight, but March countered with a three pointer as the Hornets never led by less than ten after that.
Ranwick ended up leading the Skippers with 19 points, while Conboy added 17. Seniors Kevin Martin and Vaughn Hedberg were also in double figures with 12 and 11 points respectively.
March led the Hornets with a game-high 23 points, while Hildebrand and senior Dan Aagard added 17 and 11 points respectively.
The game was the conference opener for both teams and dropped the Skippers overall record to 5-6 on the season. The Hornets are now 1-0 in conference play and 7-6 overall.
The big story for the Skippers thus far this season has been the absence of leading returning scorer John Manley. Manley has played sparingly this season due to ankle, elbow and knee injuries, forcing Conboy to step up and score on a more consistent basis.
Conboy, a six foot, seven inch junior, has responded and has led the way for the Skippers in several of their five victories.
The Skippers only game this week is a home contest on Jan. 17 against Wayzata. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:15.
Hedstrom is looking forward to having four days of practice and also getting Manley back into the line-up.
“We’re going to get back to the basics and focus on getting better this week,” Hedstrom said. “We’re going to spend this week getting John back into the fold. I’m fairly optimistic he’ll play Friday against Wayzata.”
Trojans Cruising in Conference Play
By Matt Thomas (From 01/14 edition of The Lakeshore Weekly News)
It’s common for high school coaches to say that they set up a non-conference schedule to get ready for the conference schedule. In the case of the Wayzata boys hockey team, that theory appears to be true.
After an up and down non-conference schedule in which the Trojans posted six wins and five losses, the team has picked up its intensity to earn a 3-0-1 conference record.
The Trojans jumped out a 3-0 lead over a hapless Hopkins team and hung on for a 5-3 victory on Jan. 9. Two days later, the Trojans didn’t give the Minnetonka Skippers a glimmer of hope as they buried the Skippers 7-1.
The game against Hopkins appeared to be a major mismatch as the Royals came into the game with a 2-11 overall record.
The Trojans looked like a much better team in the first two periods as they dominated play on both ends of the ice.
Senior forward Travis Olson opened the scoring with 9:26 left in the first period with a wrist shot just inside the blue line. Sophomore Matt Woods got the assist on the goal and the Trojans led 1-0.
With 2:55 left in the first period, the Trojans padded their lead to 2-0. The Trojans controlled a face-off in the Royals zone and sophomore Kurt Davis skated in and scored past Royals goalie Luke Edwall.
Trojans goalie Kevin Johnson did his part to keep the Royals off the scoreboard in the waning seconds of the first period. The Royals had a two on one opportunity and Johnson made a sprawling save to preserve the shutout.
Less than five minutes into the second period, the Trojans went ahead 3-0 when junior Nate Anderson left a drop pass for John Zmuda who scored.
The Royals got on the board with 1:41 left on a rebound goal, but the Trojans countered with 8.6 seconds left.
Senior Matt Sundberg centered to junior Kevin Kolkind who gave the Trojans a three goal cushion heading into the third period.
The Trojans opened up a 5-1 lead when Woods scored in the opening minutes of the third period. The Royals scored two goals after that, and put 20 shots on goal in the third period, but the Trojans prevailed 5-3.
Johnson ended up making 42 saves on the night, while Edwall made 24 for the Royals.
Two days later, the Trojans continued their strong offensive play, as they notched seven goals against Minnetonka.
Six different Trojans scored goals, while Woods was the only player to score two in the victory. Sundberg and Ryan Freeland each had a goal and two assists.
Johnson made 21 saves as the Trojans improved to 9-5-1 overall and 3-0-1 in conference play.
The Trojans will go back outside the conference to face Osseo on Jan. 14 before resuming conference play against Cooper on Jan 16 at the Plymouth Ice Arena.
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