Last minute free throws aid Cardinals last night

By Tom Obert
Roundup Cub Reporter

Whew!! Our girls almost proved two old adages last night - you can't sit on a lead and it's hard to beat the same team three times in one season. Alex (the #2 seed) took a 37-23 lead into the 4th quarter against Rocori (the #3 seed). [An aside here: somewhat akin to the BCS ratings for college football, Willmar was the #1 seed even though Alex won the conference title and split with Willmar during the season, and Rocori beat Willmar twice?]

But Alex got tentative trying to maintain the lead and Rocori hit a hot streeak that pulled them within two points with less than two minutes to play. Fortunately, Alex made three free throws in the final 40 seconds (though usually a good free throw shooting team, they only made 3 of 10 for the game) to hang on for a 42-37 victory. Undoubtedly they were a little nervous, and because it's the playoffs they played at a slower pace than usual and with a shorter bench (one of their regular starters is about halfway through a 6-game suspension, and the girl who would have been their starting point guard has blown out a knee each of the last two seasons and has yet to play at all).

So now it's off to St. Cloud Apollo to play 8:00 Saturday night against a team unknown as of this writing. I'm sure there will a large caravan of alums coming up from The Cities (being there is little else to do there on a Saturday night). By the way, our starting five is 6'1", 6'1", 6'0", 5'11", and 5'10" - I believe that makes them at least as tall, if not taller, than the starting five for the 1965 boys team? It's mostly a senior team, so this year is their best shot.

As the girls' basketball team begins tournament action (after having just won their 7th conference title in the last 9 years), our Cardinals have now won 88 Central Lakes Conference (CLC) titles over the last 10 years. Tied for second with 53 titles over that span are Brainerd and St. Cloud Tech (the rest of the conference includes St. Cloud Apollo, Little Falls, Willmar, Sartell, Sauk Rapids, and Rocori). Of course, during our era we concentrated mostly on academics.

Earlier, in hockey action
Our girls' hockey team just finished playing in their second state tournament in a row (only noticed Sue Graves Seltz as a fellow 65er there (although Greg Johnson, who was there last year, had a medical excuse) and should be there again next year.
Incidentally, Dave Harris, who broadcasts Cardinal games on KXRA, logged 1,000 miles that weekend - he broadcast the girls' hockey game from The Cities Friday at noon; drove back to Alex to broadcast the girls' basketball game that night - we beat Willmar for the conference title; drove back to The Cities to cover the second girls' hockey game on Saturday morning; then drove to Moorhead to cover the boys' hockey game that night. We expect the girls' basketball team make a good run in the tournament (we may be back to The Cities again this year).