alexandriacardinals

January 12, 2016

Full disclosure:  I had every intention on going to the boy/girl hockey doubleheader against Willmar on this evening but academia got in the way.  After senior college I made a mad dash to the RCC to discover the parking lot was overflowing, 30 minutes after the start of the boys’ game.  I decided this could be a bit of a hassle so hied back across town for the girls’ basketball game – I had no idea who the opposition was until arrival.  BTW, the boys won their game 11 – 0; the girls won 6 – 1 – I believe both were exorcising some demons.

[Camera test . . . one, two, three . . . prior to game start.]

[The JV was in action and looking good . . . ]

[Yup, that’s pretty good.]

[As varsity warm-ups begin, Coach Kohler displays the finer points of the “all-court” game to her charges.  Daughter Kendall in the background pays close attention.]

[Emma Schmidt’s folks – dad provided a “stand up” highlight.]

[And we have player introductions, with Kara Thomson (23) as greeter.]

[Emma Ziegler (1)]

[Kendall Kohler (3)]

[The Flash]

[Macy Hatlestad (11)]

[Emma Schmidt (25) (see ‘dad’ standing above)]

[Kayla Feldhake (43)]

[OK, let’s play basketball (first 5 minutes)!]

[Kendall making some free throws.  As a team, we only missed maybe a couple as we’re rounding into tournament form.]

[Macy]

[It either went in or it didn’t?]

[“The Whippets,” Kelby Olson-Rodel (13) and Kiyana Miller (21) prepare to press.]

[Did Kelby get a piece of it?]

[Kelby is the pest you don’t want to have guarding you in a pick up game – quick hands and feet and always going for the steal.]

[Inbounds “D”]

[Three wings across – Kiyana, Kelby, and Zig.]

[Zig receives a pass while Kiyana sets a pic.]

[Kelby made two.]

[Schmidty (to differentiate the Emmas) on the defensive point.  This is a key position, and we amazingly have 5 players who have the length, quickness, and motor to excel at what I call the “LT” (for Lauren Trumm) position.  None of them have Lauren’s offensive skills (yet), then she was all-state, but Schmidty (5’10”), Zig (5’9″), Kelby (5’8″), Kiyana (5’8″), and Elise Stockmoe (41, 5’9″) can all make life difficult for the opposition at this position.]

[At the half, pretty much as expected.  We knew the Storm would have trouble scoring against us.]

[Zig waits for traffic crossing into the frontcourt.]

[Courtney Gould (53) played a lot of solid minutes as a post player.  McKenzie Duwenhoegger was not suited for this game?]

[Elise chases after the ball from her defensive point position as Macy closes from below.]

[Elise on ‘D’ point – having a lot of depth at this position, they can play it like a shift in hockey.]

[Courtney and Elise surround the post.]

[Kiyana and Courtney go for the block.  The defensive point defenders (and Macy)  can also play the back line, as Kiyana is doing here.  They can get a rebound and immediately start speed dribbling upcourt.]

[I shot a ball into the air, it fell to earth I know not where . . . ]

[Kayla with a freebie.]

[Harken back with me, if you will, to the halftime scoreboard.  The Storm had 13 points then.  This is with about 4 minutes left in the game, and they just scored their 14th point (trust me, something about digital cameras not always being able to capture scoreboard lights?).]

[A free throw sequence with freshman Kaye Paschke (51) . . . swish!  Kaye has all the makings of the point defender of the future.]

[And it’s over!]

[Amazing . . . almost the same score as the JV game!]

[OK, who lost their jacket?]

These are my new shoes. They’re good shoes. They won’t make you rich like me, they won’t make you rebound like me, they definitely won’t make you handsome like me. They’ll only make you have shoes like me. That’s it.  ~  Charles Barkley

Up next:  Cardinal sports of some sort?

Afterthoughts

January 3  [Family going out for “rib night” at The Depot after an exhausting day of present opening on Sunday.]

January 4 [Joining fellow offspring of the Greatest Generation for “Shun Li and the Poet,” the community ed foreign movie at Grand Arbor the next night!]

January 8 [The Super made her acting debut as a juror last night at Lakes Area Radio Theatre’s double-feature! Both shows were hilarious!

“Mismatch & the Mac”: A man has sent the town into a tizzy with his murderous threats. If that isn’t enough the city leaders are all matched up with the wrong people. Will they be able to sort everything and everyone out before Mac the Meth Man takes them all out permanently?

“Trial”: Come be a part of the jury to decide if the sleep clinic is defrauding its patients or are they just snoring too loud to hear the question?]

January 9  [“Hey, kids, 6 degrees below zero this morning! You know what that means, right? Yup, first SUN DOGS of the season!”]

[Then we sent Grandson Tom back to Purdue. By spring, he will be a college graduate.]

[Then that night at SAWA, when he reached the line ” . . . and put bread in my jar” from Piano Man, Paul Drinkwine was totally surprised when the patrons stormed the stage to his tip jar. He said that had never happened to him before. Of course, it was totally spontaneous (wink, wink, nod, nod). And the anniversary couple truly enjoyed their evening . . . ]

January 10  [5:00 am, going out to get the Sunday paper. Temperature – minus 14; wind chill – minus 31. Makes one proud to be a Minnesotan! (Well, what else ya gonna post at 5:00 in the morning?)]

[Thus endth Afterthoughts.]

Sartell-Sauk Rapids – 2, Alexandria – 1

This was the game for first place in the conference.  For some reason, the rules of hockey were changed for this game . . . our Cardinals only got to use four skaters throughout??

But more about that later . . .

[A re-uniting of past and current announcers . . . ]

[The JV game . . .  I saw about the final 2/3’s of the game.]

[In a nutshell, I thought we were outstanding.  I can see why we won the Hastings tournament.  We’re the first JV team I can recall that plays three lines.  We passed well, always seemed to have players in position for rebounds, and were always looking for cutters going toward the goal. Good for us!]

[The varsity warming up . . . ]

[And play begins . . . ]

[Go back to the beginning as a refresher.  Here’s our first (and only) goal by Mari Wosepka (18).  It was shorthanded . . . because we were always shorthanded!  This goal was in the 2nd period and gave us a 1 – 0 lead. Amazing, as we had 3 penalties in the 1st period and 4 in the 2nd (so we were shorthanded over half of the period.]

[Mari in on some more action.]

[But their big defense rode us away all game . . . ]

[Two Cardinals v. five Stormin’ Sabres, not numbers made for success.]

[Here Sam Kilmek (37) at least got off a clean shot, but hit the goalie dead center.]

[Kristin Trosvig (15) commiserates with a teammate.]

[Is that Mari again?]

[Cardinal schmushed on the boards.  Kind of a metaphor for the whole game.  The Cards just were too tired in  the 3rd, and the Stormin’ Sabres finally scored a power player and then got the game winner late in the game – final 2 – 1.  Amy Jost played great in goal and kept us in the game.  I was reminded that those guys have won the last four conference titles, so the Cards really wanted this one.  They are a class AA team, however, and that makes  it tough – Sartell has a population of 17,000 and Sauk Rapids 13,000, so they are drawing from a base more than twice that of Alex.  At game’s end, Coach Hovel could barely contain himself in his radio interview, saying they got all the calls and we got none.  Their fans, and they had a lot of them, called for penalties on every incidental contact – they must realize it works?  We won earlier at their place, and I’m not saying we could have won this one, but playing shorthanded so much it was very difficult. ]

I sat at the game with The Voice who was monitoring the score of the girls’ basketball game against Brainerd taking place simultaneously across town.  He reported the Cards had 53 points at the half!  Whoa, we haven’t been scoring that many in entire games lately.  The next morning I saw Mark Nelsen, retired cross-country coach, at the gym – he was at the game, said Kendall hit her first five 3-point attempts and had 19 points at the half.  The Cards, naturally, won big.  When I got home from the hockey game, I turned on Gopher women’s basketball.  They were at Illinois and Carly Wagner was shooting free throws.  The announcers said she ‘only’ had 13 points.  Then Rachel Banham missed back-to-back open 3’s.  I assumed the Gophers were losing.  Then they gave the score – the Gophers had 106, with 5 minutes left in the game (they scored no more).  A big win – Banham had 39 points, matching her career high, and was 10 – 15 on 3’s!  The team had 19 3’s, matching the conference record!

A puck is a hard rubber disc that hockey players strike when they can’t hit one another.  ~  Jimmy Cannon

Up next:  ?

December 3 – Going Home

[Pack up, do laundry, make the beds, get ready to go, say good-bye to Roy’s place and thank him for his hospitality . . . ]

[Stop at the bookstore with the one-eyed kitty . . . ]

[Stop one last time at Sam Choy’s for lunch . . .mmmmm, Portuguese bean soup!]

[Arrive at the Kona Airport – it’s all outside, like a bus stop, so with my going-to-Minnesota long pants on, I’m sweating my brains out!]

[Airborne, Big Island to Honolulu – Mauna Kea the early views.]

[Honolulu!]

[Landing over Hickam AFB, the Super had business here a few times during her career.]

[I have now been to Honolulu three times in my life – and never once have I left the airport grounds.  The three following photos were from my first visit, August 1971.  Notice any changes in the last 44 years?  Well, Diamondhead looks the same . . . ]

[The long flight to MSP, and here’s me seat window.  It’s cracked . . . and, OMG, repaired with Scotch tape!!  Help, am I in an episode of “The Twilight Zone”?  (I don’t know how I made it home alive?)]

And now the truth can be told, the 30-degree temp when we arrived at MSP felt . . . refreshing!  🙂

Climbing K2 or floating the Grand Canyon in an inner tube. There are some things one would rather have done than do.  ~  Edward Abbey

Up next:  Back to local.

December 2

The previous day, the northern tip of the island; today, the southern tip.

Last full day in the 50th state. Roy-san took the Super, then me, for a little drive through the neighborhood this morning in his 2000 Miata (only a little over 40,000 miles on it). The temp was 69 degrees, the COLDEST since we’ve been here. Roy has never experienced colder than the 60’s since he’s lived here. In fact, the high temperature range for an entire year in Hawaii is 7 degrees – coldest month high temp is 80, hottest month high temp is 87. Can you say “Groundhog Day”?

[The Sheraton where we attended the luau two nights ago.]

[Kailua – Kona, Roy’s hometown with a cruise ship “in port.”]

[On the far right center is a white water reservoir, about where Roy lives.]

[Roy’s mountain, Hualalai, top and bottom.]

[Kailua-Kona and the cruise ship.]

[We’re heading south now, past lava fields and construction.  Apparently I mentioned more than once that “flagmen” became “flaggers” during my era at the Department of Labor.]

[In the distance is South Point.]

[But we actually overshot South Point and headed north a bit (toward Volcanoes National Park) to see Black Sand Beach.]

[And here we are . . . ]

[The plants grow in the direction so designated by the prevailing winds.]

[OK, I got lunch!]

[Forbidding skies but never got to us.]

[The Super and Roy venture out onto the beach . . . I don’t like sand in my shoes.]

[Look, I found sea turtles on the beach!]

[And I’m taking movies of them!]

[OK, and now back to South Point, the southern most point in the United States.]

[But people do dive off the platform, and apparently return climbing up through this hole in the cliff.  On this day, I believe it was considered too windy for any diving.]

[Don’t fall in, Roy!]

[The ubiquitous rain, hanging around in the background.]

[Guess which way the wind blows?]

[Now we’re at the neighboring green sand beach.]

[It’s a short hike down from parking somewhere along the road in.]

[See the green sand?]

[We didn’t find any green sand pellets, but Roy found a crab shell.]

[But people do it . . . as we hiked out below, rescue vehicles came in as far as they could go as a four-wheeler had apparently tipped over somewhere along the beach road.]

[And while the Super and Roy lead me out, some shots by the Super of this place . . . ]

[More “wind growth” as we head back out!]

[Did you hear about this on the news?]

[And then Roy led us off the beaten path a bit to St. Benedict’s “Painted Church.”]

[Cute little place . . . except for this wall depiction of Hell, apparently a place one wouldn’t want to go?]

[And here’s St. Benedict.]

[OK, first it was the assemblage of power lines again . . . ]

[But then it was also the product, about which I have no clue?]

[Back “home” to the backyard and sunsets.]

[A couple of backyard shots by the Super to end the day.]

I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places. He told me to quit going to those places.  ~ Henny Youngman

Up next:  Aloha!