Sports

My personal Facebook page has exploded in the past few days with comments from a few of my liberal friends (yes, I admit I still have a few) who are jumping on the irrational bandwagon with screams of banning AR-15s and “What are our legislators going to do?” in light of the Florida school shooting.

Nobody disputes the tragedy of the situation. I have a 12-year-old daughter in sixth grade, and I can’t fathom the pain of losing a young child. It didn’t help that the FBI admitted it had received tips about the killer, but failed to act.

There’s no place for emotion when it comes to potential legislation that would affect millions of ordinary gun owners because one mentally ill 19-year-old boy blew a gasket and shot up a school. We need to approach the solutions logically.

“I want everyone to listen to what I have to say and if you disagree with me, I will unfriend you,” one of my friends proclaimed.

All three of Bonduel’s wrestlers that competed on Thursday in the first round of the WIAA Division 3 state tournament won their respective matches.

Freshman Isaac Banker (41-7) defeated Boscobel’s Chase Beinborn (38-11) in a 9-2 decision at 170 pounds. Banker faces Dodgeland’s Ryan Neu (41-0) in the next round on Friday.

Senior Jacob Banker (36-2) dominated Mondovi’s Bryce Johnson 6-0 at 182 pounds, however Banker suffered a knee injury in the third period of the match. Head coach Chris Rank said he will likely not continue wrestling in the tournament.

“I give him a lot of credit, because he continued to wresle through the pain,” Rank said. “I asked him when it was time to decide if he wanted to finish the match, and Jacob said he wanted to finish it up and got back out there.”

Banker had a 6-0 lead 4 minutes, 30 seconds into the match when the injury happened. He was able to hold off Johnson for the remainder of the third period.

All three of Bonduel’s wrestlers that competed on Thursday in the first round of the WIAA Division 3 state tournament won their respective matches.

Freshman Isaac Banker (41-7) defeated Boscobel’s Chase Beinborn (38-11) in a 9-2 decision at 170 pounds. Banker faces Dodgeland’s Ryan Neu (41-0) in the next round on Friday.

Senior Jacob Banker (36-2) dominated Mondovi’s Bryce Johnson 6-0 at 182 pounds, however Banker suffered a knee injury in the third period of the match. Head coach Chris Rank said he will likely not continue wrestling in the tournament.

“I give him a lot of credit, because he continued to wresle through the pain,” Rank said. “I asked him when it was time to decide if he wanted to finish the match, and Jacob said he wanted to finish it up and got back out there.”

Banker had a 6-0 lead 4 minutes, 30 seconds into the match when the injury happened. He was able to hold off Johnson for the remainder of the third period.

Shawano’s Sam Tourtilott was pinned by Sparta’s Hayden Krein in 1 minute, 30 seconds during a 170-pound first-round match at the WIAA Division 1 state tournament in Madison on Thursday.

“Krein got some moves on Sam right away, and Sam pulled some good escape moves,” head coach Mike Homan said. “Ultimately, Krein got Sam’s legs tied and was able to get him on his back.”

With Krein posting a 40-6 record on the year and ranked No. 4 in the state in his weight class, Homan and Tourtilott (21-15) knew the first round would be a battle.

“Sparta’s a great team and has been dominating all year, and we knew (Krein’s) rankings and that he would be a very tough matchup to start the state tournament,” Homan said. “I think we did everything right coming into this match — we had a good practice this morning, good pre-match practice, good mindset — he just ran into a better wrestler.”

When the Bonduel and Coleman girls basketball teams squared off on Dec. 19, Bonduel had little trouble in scoring a 70-36 victory.

Two months later, the Bears had to fight off the Cougars in a WIAA Division 4 regional quarterfinal.

Coleman clawed back from a double-digit deficit early in the second half to go up by two points. Bonduel regained the lead and scored 19 of the game’s last 20 points to earn a 52-32 victory at home on Wednesday.

“A win is a win when it comes tournament time,” Bonduel coach Jerry Reinke said. “They think about earlier in the year when we beat them pretty good, and you can’t think that way when it comes tournament time. They’ve improved a lot and I don’t think we necessarily played our best, but certainly having a couple days off with the weather here didn’t help. But I’m sure everybody had the same situation.”

Bowler 61

Tigerton 48

Reanne Kietlinski scored 27 points to lead No. 4 Bowler over No. 13 Tigerton on Wednesday in Division 5 play. Jodi Wolf added 11 points for the Panthers. Monika Minnescheske led Tigerton with 22 points.

Bowler hosts No.5 Columbus Catholic for the regional semifinal on Friday.

“Tigerton came ready to play and gave us a very competitive game,” Bowler head coach Ted Kietlinski said. “We need to sort some things out in our one day of practice in order to give ourselves a chance on Friday night.”

Weyauwega-Fremont 36

Menominee Indian 32

Fifth-seeded Menominee Indian suffered an upset by No. 12 Weyauwega-Fremont in Division 4 play on Wednesday.

The Eagles scored 23 second-half points after just nine in the first half, but couldn’t overcome W-F.

Senihseah Wayka scored 10 points, all in the second half, and Faith Munson added eight for the Eagles.

Port Edwards 52

Marion 32

Wittenberg-Birnamwood 54

Tomahawk 21

No. 5 Wittenberg-Birnamwood defeated No. 12 Tomahawk to advance to the Division 3 regional semifinal at No. 4 Fox Valley Lutheran on Friday.

Vicki Dombeck led the Chargers with 13 points and Emily Norrbom added 11. Emma Herb grabbed 12 rebounds, Abi Fraaza added eight and Dombeck six. Emily Norrbom secured six steals.

“We did what we needed to do,” Witt-Birn coach Nick Mechelke said. “Vicki Dombeck stepped up tonight coming in as the sixth man. At this point in the year everyone needs to make plays, and tonight it was her night.”

Xavier 67

Clintonville 30

No. 9 Clintonville ended its season with a loss to No. 8 Xavier on Tuesday.

The Truckers held a 9-3 lead to start but was outpaced by Xavier for the remainder of the game.

The Milwaukee Brewers have been told to get a move on this season.

Not that the Brewers are being singled out for slacking last year. To the contrary — they led the National League in stolen bases in 2017.

The chop-chop edict was issued league-wide.

In a bid to reverse the growing indifference to the game that once held the nation’s undivided attention, Major League Baseball hung out the “No Loitering” sign to all 30 teams, announcing a series of rules tweaks designed to speed up play and hopefully bring back the casual fan.

It’s a laudable effort, but one that probably won’t produce the desired result.

Baseball’s unique and once-charming aspect of having no game clock has worn thin over the years, largely because people have too much on their plates these days. The average time to complete a nine-inning game last year was a slowest-ever 3 hours, 5 minutes.

Shawano broke away from a one-point lead in the final eight minutes to clinch the WIAA Division 2 regional quarterfinal 60-52 against Antigo on Tuesday.

The No. 6-seeded Hawks held a close lead for the majority of the match, but struggled turning the ball over early in the second half to allow No. 11 Antigo to close the deficit 40-39 with under 8 minutes to play.

Shawano answered with a 9-0 run, capped by five points by senior Brandi Gueths, to create a 10-point lead. Antigo came back to trail by four, but Shawano was able to maintain its lead and a steal and layup by Hannah Wendorff with 10 seconds left sealed the Hawks’ victory.

Wittenberg-Birnamwood 54
Tomahawk 21
No. 5 Wittenberg-Birnamwood defeated No. 12 Tomahawk to advance to the Division 3 regional semifinal at No. 4 Fox Valley Lutheran on Friday.
Vicki Dombeck led the Chargers with 13 points and Emily Norrbom added 11. Emma Herb grabbed 12 rebounds, Abi Fraaza added eight and Dombeck six. Emily Norrbom secured six steals.
“We did what we needed to do,” Witt-Birn coach Nick Mechelke said. “Vicki Dombeck stepped up tonight coming in as the sixth man. At this point in the year everyone needs to make plays, and tonight it was her night.”