SPORTSSECTION C • NOVEMBER 28, 2013PREVIEW

Jackson County Central gymnasticsHead coach: Dastinee Vancura

12-3 at New Ulm12-10 vs. St. James12-14 at Blue Earth tournament (in Winnebago)12-19 at Blue Earth Area1-6 at Marshall1-11 at Martin County West tournament1-16 at Luverne1-18 Sweetheart Invitational1-21 at Martin County West1-28 vs. Windom1-30 vs. Redwood Valley2-3 vs. Worthington2-7 at Pipestone2-15 Section tournament2-21 — 2-22 State tournament

Photo by Dan CondonReturning letter winners for the Jackson County Central wrestling team are (front, from left): Caleb Will, Wyatt Cleberg, Jack Ziemer, Ryker VanderWoude and Dalton Wagner. Back: Scott Ringquist, Paden Moore, Luke Norland, Dakota Rossow, Luke Pygman and Nate Jones. Missing: Jordan Biehn and Keegan Moore.

Photo by Dan CondonReturning letter winners for the Jackson County Central gymnastics team are Brooklyn Schuett (from left), Bailey Schneekloth, Abby Schneekloth, Riley Schneekloth and Haley Bass. Missing: Michaela Vancura.

Jackson County Central wrestlingHead coach: Randy Baker

12-6 vs. Pipestone and Fargo Davies12-7 JCC tournament12-10 at Hayfield12-14 at Emmetsburg tournament12-19 vs. Blue Earth Area12-20 — 12-21 Christmas Tournament (Rochester)1-3 — 1-4 Rochester tournament1-9 vs. Worthington and Marshall1-11 at Sioux City East tournament1-16 at Luverne and Redwood Valley (in Luverne)1-18 at Hutchinson tournament1-21 at Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial1-24 vs. Adrian1-31 at Windom/Mt. Lake Area2-1 at JWP/WEM tournament2-7 at Sibley East2-13 — 2-15 Team section tournament (NRHEG)2-21 — 2-22 Individual section tournament (Blue Earth)2-27 — 3-1 State tournament

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Huskies feature new faces aiming for same goalNew coach has to replace three of JCC’s best gymnasts

by DAN CONDONSports Editor

Huskies return four state place-winners

by DAN CONDONSports Editor

A few fixtures of the Jackson County Central gymnastics team are gone, but some familiar faces are

hoping to take the Huskies back to state for the third season in a row.

The Huskies are with-out head coach Tammy Handevidt, who resigned last season after taking the team to the state tour-nament for the second straight season.

Also gone are three gym-nasts who were in the var-sity lineup for six seasons:

Brandi Sether-Hassing, Sydnee Donnelli and Ari-ane Rentschler.

But the Huskies return six gymnasts with varsity experience and have a few familiar faces as coaches.

Back is longtime as-sistant Tim McConnell and the new head coach is Dastinee Vancura, who had a successful gymnastics career for the Huskies.

Vancura has been coach-ing since she was a sopho-more in high school, help-ing with the Jr. Huskies. She also judged gymnastics during college.

“I have some big shoes to fill,” Vancura said. “Tam-my is a great coach and has set the bar high. My biggest challenge is that I am a young coach with my gymnasts not being much younger than me I also see this to be beneficial because I can relate so well with the gymnasts.”

Vancura said her experi-ence as a JCC gymnast will help her transition into the team’s coach.

“Being a gymnast myself from JCC will be very ben-eficial,” she said. “I know our program well and have seen all of the gymnasts compete when they were younger. I am very familiar with all of them and their capabilities.”

Having McConnell — as well as former teammate Brittany Hassing — on her side helps, as well, she said.

“It will also be nice hav-

ing Tim and Brittany in the gym because Tim was my coach and Brittany was my teammate for many years,” she said. “We all work well together and know the sport of gymnastics very well.”

Vancura said it will take a number of gymnasts to replace the graduated trio, but the Huskies have plen-ty of girls to choose from.

Returning letter winners are juniors Bailey Schneek-loth, Riley Schneekloth and Michaela Vancura — the

latter a cousin to the head coach. Sophomore Haley Bass and eighth-graders Abby Schneekloth and Brooklyn Schuett are also returning letter winners.

Schuett made it to state as an individual on floor last season and all six par-ticipated in at least one team event at state as the Huskies finished sixth as a team.

Also competing for var-sity spots this season are sophomores Jadin Bez-dicek and Makenna Don-

nelli; freshmen Sophie Johnson and Mady Van-cura; eighth-grader Brielle Scheepstra; and seventh-graders Hachelle Carson, Madyson Hamlett, Hailey Handevidt, Kendell Kap-plinger and Kenzie Lueb-ben.

Coach Vancura said the lineup hasn’t been set yet and won’t until just prior to JCC’s first meet Dec. 3 at New Ulm.

Despite quite a few new faces on varsity, Coach

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While the team hasn’t come up with its yearly list of goals yet, there’s no doubt the Jackson County Central wrestling team has its sights set on winning a fifth straight state cham-

JCC wrestlers going for fifth straight state titlepionship.

The Huskies rolled to a 24-2 record last season and state title, but graduated nine seniors — including a pair of individual state champions.

Head coach Randy Bak-er said despite the huge expectations put on the team, the focus right now is simply on getting better.

“We set our own goals and work hard to achieve them,” he said. “Certainly we know there are expec-

tations for us and we have had some success. But each year brings a new set of challenges and we will try to become the best team we can and have great in-dividual success as well.”

The Huskies will be led by a group of four wres-tlers who placed at the individual state tourna-ment last season, including captains Paden Moore and Luke Norland.

The pair of juniors were both section champions last season, with Moore fin-

ishing second at state and Norland sixth despite deal-ing with lingering injuries.

Moore went 39-6 last sea-son and has a career mark of 137-46. Norland was 27-6 a year ago and brings a record of 83-25 into this season.

Also returning as sec-tion champions and state place-winners are senior Jordan Biehn and sopho-more Keegan Moore.

Biehn finished fourth at state after posting a 30-12 record. He is now 74-44 for

his career.Keegan Moore was third

at state as a freshman and was 34-4. He enters this season with a career mark of 95-32.

Paden Moore, Norland and Keegan Moore will provide a nearly unbeat-able stretch in the Huskies’ lineup, as the three are penciled in at 160 pounds, 170 and 182, respectively. Biehn will bolster the low-er half of the lineup, wres-tling at 132.

Eighth-grader Dalton

Wagner and freshman Ryk-er VanderWoude return af-ter posting 13 and 18 wins, respectively, last season. Wagner will battle Zach Poelaert for a spot at 113 and VanderWoude is bat-tling junior Scott Ringquist at 126.

Also returning with double-digit wins are se-nior Jack Ziemer (15) and junior Nate Horn (11). Ziemer is in the mix at 220 pounds, along with sopho-mores Michael Miller and

C2 Thursday, November 28, 2013Sports Preview

Photo by Dan CondonReturning letter winners for the Jackson County Central boys’ basketball team are Brady Place, Darnell Taylor-Breck, Jon Harmening, Zach Schwarting and Joe Brinkman.

Photo by Dan CondonReturning letter winners for the Jackson County Central girls’ basketball team are Kaylee Burmeister (from left), Rachel Johnson, Sarah Brandt, Julia Schumann and Sydney Eddy.

by DAN CONDONSports Editor

by DAN CONDONSports Editor

A trio of seniors — in-cluding one who could end as the school’s all-time leading scorer — will be counted on to lead the Jackson County Central boys’ basketball team this season.

Forward/center Jon Har-mening enters the new campaign four points shy of 1,000 for his career and is just 164 away from Ty Schwarting’s school re-cord.

Harmening has already shattered the school re-bounding record, entering his final season with 724 — nearly 300 more than any other Husky in team

Trio of seniors to lead JCC boys’ basketball teamHarmening nearing 1,000 career points and JCC’s career scoring record

history — and his 75 games played are three short of Patrick Garvin’s record.

Last season, Harmening averaged 17.5 points and 12.2 rebounds per game.

Guard Darnell Taylor-Breck has 471 career points and averaged 7.9 points and 2.9 rebounds last season.

Guard Brady Place av-eraged 1.8 points and 1.1 rebounds per game for JCC last year.

The trio will be count-ed on this season, head coach Trent Sukalski said. “All three of those guys are seniors and we’ll rely on them heavily,” he said.

Also returning are junior guards Zach Schwarting and Joe Brinkman, who both got some varsity ex-perience last season.

New to the team are ju-nior guard Andrew Hesse; junior forwards Freeman Scott, Scott Christopher and Brody Anderson; soph-omore guard Ryan Salzwe-del; and sophomore guard/

forwards Bodey Behrends and Colton Timmer.

Most of those kids are coming off a long football season in which the Hus-kies made it to state. Be-cause basketball practice started three days after the football season ended, Sukalski gave those guys some time off. Most didn’t take it.

“I gave them a week off and most of them were there the first day,” Su-kalski said. “That was re-ally nice to see. The kids are excited. They’ve been working hard and their at-titudes have been great.”

That excitement and commitment to basketball has Sukalski hoping for big results this winter.

“We’ve got a good shot at winning the section; that’s our goal,” he said.

To do so, the Huskies will have to continue their improvement on three basic areas: defending, rebounding and pro-tecting the basketball.

“Right now, we’re work-ing hard on being a good defending and rebounding team — that and taking care of the ball,” Sukalski said. “We’re working hard at getting better at those things.”

If those things happen, JCC should be in good shape because Sukalski said the team — and Har-mening in particular — can score.

“I think we’ll be able to put the ball in the basket,” he said. “We’ve got Jon, who I think is the best post player around.”

But besides Harmening, Sukalski thinks the team has plenty of other good pieces.

“We’ve got a lot of depth,” he said. “There are a lot of kids competing for spots. We should be a pretty solid team.”

Sukalski lists Marshall and Redwood Valley as teams to contend with at the top of the Southwest Conference. The Huskies

host the Cardinals Dec. 12 and play at Redwood Falls on Feb. 14. JCC is at Mar-shall Dec. 17 and hosts the Tigers Jan. 21.

The season opens Dec. 2 with a home game against Granada-Huntley-East Chain. The conference opener is Dec. 5 against Luverne.

Sukalski has plenty of help in the gym this season,

with Charlie Clarksean a volunteer assistant for the varsity and Rafe York a volunteer at all age levels.

Mike Wierson is the B squad coach and Keith Eggink is coaching the C squad. Blaise Jacobsen is coaching the eighth-grade team and Mark Kocak is coaching the seventh-grad-ers.

Jackson County Central girls’ basketballHead coach: David Wrightson

11-29 — 11-30 at Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s tournament12-3 vs. St. James12-5 vs. Luverne12-10 at Worthington12-12 at Redwood Valley12-17 vs. Marshall12-20 vs. Windom12-27 — 12-30 at St. Clair tournament1-3 at Pipestone1-6 vs. Fairmont1-13 vs. Estherville Lincoln Central1-14 vs. Redwood Valley1-17 at Luverne1-21 at Marshall1-28 at Windom1-31 vs. Martin County West2-3 at Spirit Lake2-7 vs. Pipestone2-8 vs. St. Peter2-11 at Blue Earth Area2-17 vs. Worthington2-25 at Tracy-Milroy-Balaton3-3 — 3-13 Section tournament3-18 — 3-22 State tournament

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Jackson County Central boys’ basketballHead coach: Trent Sukalski

12-2 vs. Granada-Huntley-East Chain12-5 vs. Luverne12-6 at Mapleton12-12 vs. Redwood Valley12-14 vs. St. Clair12-17 at Marshall12-20 vs. Windom12-27 — 12-28 at Blue Earth tournament1-2 at Martin County West1-3 at Pipestone1-6 vs. Fairmont1-7 vs. Worthington1-13 vs. Estherville Lincoln Central1-17 at Luverne1-20 at Mt. Lake Area1-21 vs. Marshall1-28 at Windom2-1 at St. James2-3 at Tracy-Milroy-Balaton2-7 vs. Pipestone2-11 at Worthington2-14 at Redwood Valley2-17 at Blue Earth Area2-18 vs. Spirit Lake2-25 — 3-6 Section tournament3-12 — 3-15 State tournament

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A disappointing end to the season last year has the Jackson County Central girls’ basketball team go-ing back to the basics as a new campaign begins.

Teaching those funda-mentals is an entirely new coaching staff, led by head coach David Wrightson.

Wrightson brings 27 years of coaching experi-ence to the Huskies and his staff has more than a decade of coaching under its belt.

“We’ve got a lot of expe-rience,” he said.

Back to the basics for JCC girls’ basketball teamWrightson has the Huskies aiming high this season

The same can’t be said for his team, which returns five letter winners, but is all new after that.

“We have to develop some depth,” Wrightson said. “We have to develop a bench.”

With no seniors and sev-en juniors, Wrightson is digging into the younger grades to complete his varsity roster — something he’d rather not do.

“I hate to bring up kids to fill out a team, but that’s what we’re up against,” he said.

The Huskies bring back juniors Julia Schumann, Kaylee Burmeister, Rachel Johnson, Sarah Brandt and Sydney Eddy. Other juniors are Blaney Markman and Jade Holthe.

Sophomores Ana Dun-lavey and Emmalie Ben-son are also on the team, as are freshman Natalie

Neal, Jayni Anderson, An-nika Lilleberg and Hunter Wrightson.

Neal, Anderson, Lille-berg and Hunter Wright-son will all play both halves of B squad games and be available for one half of varsity each game.

“We’ve got a very good junior c lass ,” Coach Wrightson said. “They’ve worked hard; they’re just ready to play.”

Burmeister led JCC with 11.2 points per game last season and averaged 7.4 rebounds a game.

Eddy averaged three points and 4.2 rebounds per game last season after returning from a knee in-jury and Brandt averaged 2.1 points and 3.4 boards per game.

Wrightson wants Bur-meister, Eddy and Brandt to dominate the glass for the Huskies.

“My goal for those three is to grab eight rebounds a game each,” Wrightson said. “Sydney, Sarah and Kaylee have to do an out-

standing job of rebound-ing every night for us to compete.”

Johnson and Schumann — both guards — combined to average 11.1 points, 5.6 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game last season.

“I think the guard posi-tion will be pretty strong with Julia and Rachel,” Wrightson said. “Julia has probably one of the best shooting forms I’ve ever seen. She’s a great leader. If her and Rachel can stay out of foul trouble, our guard position will be very strong.”

Staying out of foul trou-ble is a key for all the Hus-kies, Wrightson said, as they are already limited in what they can do because of numbers.

“We’ve got to p lay smart,” he said. “We’re not going to be able to get in foul trouble.”

The inexperience will also slow the pace of the Huskies on offense.

“I’d like to run a little bit,” Wrightson said. “But

we’re not going to be able to run as much as I’d like until we develop some depth.”

The JCC coaches have spent a lot of early-season practice working on shoot-ing fundamentals.

“We’re working on shoot-ing form,” he said. “Keep-ing eyes on the rim and not the ball. We’re also working on ball handling. We’re just working a lot on fundamentals.”

Those fundamentals are necessary, as Wrightson said every player on the court needs to be ready to contribute.

“In my offense, all girls are responsible,” he said. “The offense is geared to make sure all five girls have a chance to get the ball and score. All these girls are capable of con-tributing offensively.”

Wrightson said Marshall and Worthington are the favorites in a tough South-west Conference and said JCC better not take a night off.

“This is a tough sched-ule,” he said. “There are no confidence-builders at all. This conference is tough anyway, then we play Estherville, Martin County West and Spirit Lake.”

Regardless, Wrightson is aiming high.

“I have a goal to finish no lower than second in the conference,” he said, add-ing he knows that’s going to be tough to accomplish. “I always like to set goals that are a little bit out there. If you don’t set them, you have nothing to shoot for.”

Wrightson’s experienced staff includes Neal Brandt (B squad), Todd Schumann (C squad), Carol Wrightson (eighth grade) and Teresa VanEpps (seventh grade).

The Huskies open the season tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday at the Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s tournament.

Their home opener is Dec. 3 against St. James and the conference opener is Dec. 5 against Luverne.

C3 Thursday, November 28, 2013Sports Preview

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by DAN CONDONSports Editor

Jackson County Central competition cheerHead coach: Jordana Thompson

12-12 At JCC during boys’ basketball game12-14 at Apple Valley1-4 at Minnetonka1-11 at Edina1-13 at JCC during girls’ basketball game1-18 at Coon Rapids1-24 at JCC during wrestling match1-25 at Mall of America2-2 at MCCA state tournament

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Photos by Dan CondonMembers of the Jackson County Central competition cheerleading team are (front, from left): Kassidy Timmer, Miranda Timko and Jayde Price. Middle: Madison Cregeen, Kortney Porter and Kiana Nyborg. Back: Annie Gee, Stephanie Sauter, Aubry Salberg, Jessica Jandera, Josie Horn and Clair Smith.

Members of the Jackson County Central wrestling cheerleading team are (front, from left): Kassidy

Timmer, Annie Gee and Jayde Price. Back: Kortney Porter, Madison Cregeen and Kiana Nyborg.

Jackson County Cen-tral’s competition cheer-leading team returns nine girls from a team that fin-ished second at the MCCA state meet last season.

Three of those returners are seniors Jayde Price, Miranda Timko and Kas-sidy Timmer. JCC’s three juniors are also returners in Madison Cregeen, Jes-sica Jandera and Kortney Porter. Also returning are sophomores Annie Gee and Kiana Nyborg and fresh-man Josie Horn.

New to this year’s team are sophomores Aubry Sal-berg and Stephanie Sauter and freshman Clair Smith.

Most of those girls were cheerleaders for the foot-ball team this fall so have been in front of large crowds for several months already.

Head coach Jordana Thompson said this year’s team is already off to a good start.

“The girls are very hard working and have learned some difficult skills al-ready,” she said. “We have a stunt group of girls that are mostly new to the team and are already able to do advanced stunts.”

With nine girls back from last year’s successful team, Thompson said there’s no reason to think the team won’t have another impres-sive season.

“We’d like to be able to perform a clean routine at each performance and competition,” she said. “They’d also like to be able to learn several new

Experienced group of cheerleaders back for the HuskiesJCC has comp and stunt teams, as well as wrestling cheerleaders

advanced stunts. We hope to come home with a top-two placing this year at the state competition, es-pecially since they have revamped the classes at state.”

Along with that, Thomp-son hopes the girls enjoy their time in their cheer uniforms.

“My overall goal for the team is that every girl has a great experience and learns new skills,” she said.

The cheerleaders will perform at JCC’s boys’ basketball game Dec. 12 and will also perform in front of the home crowd at a girls’ basketball game on Jan. 13 and wrestling match Jan. 24.

The first competition of the season is Dec. 14 at Apple Valley. Meets fol-low at Minnetonka, Edina, Coon Rapids and the Mall of American before the MCCA state tournament on Feb. 2.

Thompson is assisted this season by Ellen VonOhlen.

New stunt groupFor the first time, the

Huskies will have a stunt group performing in some competitions this season.

The group performs a stunt routine for one min-ute and is judged on their performance.

Making up the team this year are Price, Timko, Timmer, Porter and Cre-geen.

Wrestling cheer squad re-turns four

Wrestling cheerleaders this season are Price, Tim-mer, Cregeen, Porter, Gee and Nyborg. Timmer, Cre-geen, Porter and Nyborg were wrestling cheerlead-ers as JCC won the state championship last season.

The squad will cheer at JCC’s matches and tourna-ments this winter.

C4 Thursday, November 28, 2013Sports Preview

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by DAN CONDONSports Editor

New coach leads young hockey team

by DAN CONDONSports Editor

First-year Windom Area girls’ hockey coach Nathan Boler knows his team could be in for a long season. But he knows there are much brighter days ahead.

The Eagles are coming

Eagle girls looking for improvement on the iceoff a one-win season, but already have a tie under their belt this season and have shown improvement.

Boler hopes that’s a trend that continues all winter.

“Our goals are basically to get better every single game,” he said. “We were 1-18-1 last season. We un-derstand that we’re not go-ing to be a state contender this year. We’re just work-ing to get better.”

Half of the Eagles’ roster

is made up of seventh-and eighth-graders, which pro-vides Boler with plenty of teaching points.

“I ask them all the time, ‘Why did you do that?’” he said. “I try to get them to do everything with a pur-pose. I want them to say, ‘I did this because…’ instead of just doing something. I think that really helps for them.”

One young Eagle with plenty of experience is eighth-grade goalie Em-ily Steen, who returns af-ter making 794 saves last season.

On defense for the Ea-gles are senior Angela Pat-terson and eighth-graders Molly Boyum, Porsha Po-rath and Jolyssa Higley-Purrington.

Forwards are senior Ar-ica Svoboda; junior Eliz-abeth Schoenenberger; sophomores Kaylee Rosen-kranz, Kaylee Janssen and Alexis Jellema-Baerg; freshman Faith Willard; eighth-graders Emily Stub-be and Addison Beaty; and seventh-graders Abagail Turner, Anna Volk, Katrina LaCanne and Madison Wil-lard.

Madison Willard is the team’s backup goalie.

Beaty led the Eagles with 12 points last year and Higley-Purrington, Jans-sen and Rosenkranz all had nine. Janssen scored a team-high six goals and Beaty, Higley-Purrington and Rosenkranz all had five.

Because the full roster hasn’t yet been available due to injuries and other commitments, Boler said the lineup has changed

through the early stages of the season.

He hopes that changes soon and the team can start to see everyone get on the same page.

“We’re working on mesh-ing as a team with all the younger girls,” Boler said. “Getting used to each oth-er’s tendancies, trying to read each other’s minds on the ice.”

Another thing the Eagles are working to improve is power plays, whether on one or trying to kill one.

“If you send someone to the box, you can’t give up a goal every time,” Boler said. “When the other team makes a penalty, you have to put the puck in the net.”

Scoring, period, has been an aspect Boler has

stressed so far.“If we can crash the net,

start pounding out a few rebounds, good things will happen,” he said. “Against Waseca, we did not beat their goalie with a single shot; our second and third shots beat them.”

Assisting Boler this year is former head coach Dean Drahota. The two basically switched jobs, as Boler was Drahota’s assistant last season.

That time as an under-study helped immensely, Boler said.

“That was a great thing,” he said. “I was able to see how the system worked. It gave me a chance to be a fly on the wall to make ob-servations ahead of time.”

And having Drahota still

on the staff is a bonus.“I think that’s huge hav-

ing that experience with the program,” Boler said. “He has that relationship with a lot of the girls. It’s important to have that per-son to fall back on.”

Also assisting Boler are Brooklyn Drahota, Sally Oltmanns and Samantha Harrold.

Together, they’re trying to get the Eagles back to being a winning team.

“The biggest thing is we’re trying to get better every single week, un-derstanding that this is a building process,” he said. “If we can keep getting bet-ter every week, in the end we’re going to be happy with our results.”

Photo courtesy of Dave Fjeld/Cottonwood County CitizenReturning letter winners for the Windom Area boys’ hockey team are (front, from left): Alex Leopold, Zach Steen, Garrett Schumacher and Devin Nielsen. Back: Mitchell Macek, Zach Bartosh, Ryan Clark, Andrew Hirsch, Dylan Pigman and Ryan Evers.

Photo courtesy of Dave Fjeld/Cottonwood County CitizenReturning letter winners for the Windom Area girls’ hockey team are (front, from left): Arica Svoboda, Addison Beaty, Jolyssa Higley-Purrington and Elizabeth Schoenenberger. Back: Angela Patterson, Porsha Porath, Emily Steen, Alexis Jellema-Baerg and Kaylee Janssen.

Windom Area boys’ hockeyHead coach: Tim Mellstrom

11-26 at Redwood Valley11-29 at Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato11-30 at Hutchinson12-5 vs. Worthington12-7 at Morris/Benson12-10 at Marshall12-13 vs. Sioux Falls Flyers12-17 at Luverne12-19 at Fairmont12-26 — 12-28 at Richfield tournament1-3 at Kasson-Mantorville1-4 at Becker1-9 vs. Redwood Valley1-11 vs. Morris/Benson1-13 vs. Marshall1-18 at LeSueur-Henderson1-21 at Worthington1-30 vs. Waseca2-3 vs. Luverne2-6 vs. Fairmont2-8 vs. Willmar2-14 at Achiever Academy2-18 — 2-22 Section tournament3-5 — 3-8 State tournament

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Windom Area girls’ hockeyHead coach: Nathan Boler

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The Windom Area boys’ hockey team has a new coach, but he hopes things don’t change too much for the Eagles.

Tim Mellstrom takes over as the head coach of the Eagles after former

Eagle boys plan on picking up where they left offNew coach likes where hockey program is headed

coach Jon Ammerman re-turned to Moorhead, where his now the head coach of the Spuds.

Mellstrom, who started the girls’ hockey program at International Falls and coached the Broncos for seven years, said the tran-sition so far this season has been a smooth one.

“I think Justin and Ja-son Espenson returning as assistant coaches, they’ve been able to bridge any gaps that there have been,” he said. “It’s been a smooth transition. We’re running

a lot of the same systems.” Mellstrom said there will be changes made as the season goes on, but he likes what he has seen so far.

“The kids come with really positive attitudes and work ethic,” he said. “If you have that, you can tweak the little things and do the things you need to do.”

Mellstrom said he isn’t set on certain lineups yet; rather, he’s taking a wait-and-see approach as the Eagles get into game ac-tion.

“It’s going to change throughout the year,” he said of his different lines. “Right now we’re in a feel-ing out process for who fits well. Defensive partners, things like that, will be worked out the first couple games. It’s kind of a pro-cess of figuring out where

we best fit as a group.”Windom Area was 13-10

last season and went 6-4 in the Southwest Conference. Mellstrom said hitting those marks are a good place to start as far as goals for the season.

“The No. 1 goal is to continue off of last year,” he said. “Have a winning season and compete every night to be able to win the game. Toward the end of the season, we want to be vying for the conference championship and section championship.”

The Eagles return three skaters who had at least 16 points last season, led by a pair of 21-goal-scoring forwards.

Senior Zach Bartosh had 21 goals and 24 assists last season to finish with 45 points. Sophomore Devin Nielsen added eight assists

to his 21 goals.Also back is senior for-

ward Mitchell Macek, who tallied five goals and 11 as-sists last season.

Other forwards for the Eagles are senior Ryan Evers; juniors Jack Mell-strom and Botond Kerek-gyarto; and sophomores Ryley Espenson, Curtis Pell and Zach Steen.

Eagle defensemen are seniors Ryan Clark, Dylan P i gm an an d A n dr e w Hirsch; junior Alex Leop-old; and sophomore Brady Haberman.

Goalies for the Eagles are junior Garrett Schum-acher and sophomore Nate Monson. Schumacher made 31 saves for Windom Area last season.

Nielsen, Bartosh, Macek, Evers, Steen, Leopold, Clark, Pigman, Hirsch and Schumacher all let-

tered last season, giving the Eagles plenty of experi-ence to rely on.

Another thing the coach said will help is the team’s fire.

“What you can’t take away is this group plays with passion,” Coach Mell-strom said. “That’s a nice X factor to throw into the mix.”

The Eagles got their first test of the season Tuesday night as they opened the season at Redwood Val-ley. That game was also the conference opener for Windom Area.

The Eagles have their home opener Dec. 5 against Worthington.

Windom Area plays a majority of its games on the road in 2013 before having a surplus of home games once the calendar flips to a new year.

C5 Thursday, November 28, 2013Sports Preview

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by DAN CONDONSports Editor

SWU girls hope to build on strong finish to last season

by DAN CONDONSports Editor

Photo by Dan CondonMembers of the Southwestern United girls’ basketball team are (front, from left): Alaina Klingenberg, Gabi Stenzel, Courtney Place, Kailey Wendland and Megan Haberman. Back: Sonja Peters, Sarah Schmid, Kristin Liepold, Hailey Schumacher, Autumn Hinkeldey, Rachel Mathias and Andrea Hinkeldey.

The Southwestern Unit-ed girls’ basketball team finished last season strong and head coach Keith Place hopes that trend continues into the new season for the Wildcats.

SWU brings back most of its players from last year’s

Wildcats young, but bring back experiencenine-win team, but is still a relatively young squad.

“We’re experienced, but we’re still very young,” Place said.

What the Wildcats lack in age, they make up for in depth.

A dozen Wildcats will dress this season and al-most all will see action every game.

“We’re going to be eight to 10 deep,” Place said. “That’s a huge advan-tage that we have that we haven’t had in the past. That will allow us to do a few more things; we might be able to press.”

Place hopes his defense is able to create turnovers, whether in the press or playing hard-nosed man-to-man defense.

“We have to try to con-tinue to run our transition game and score in transi-tion,” he said.

The Wildcats return their leading scorer and rebounder from last season in junior guard Courtney Place. She averaged 22.1 points and 9.4 rebounds a game last season.

Also back is junior for-ward Kailey Wendland, who averaged 8.1 points and 5.4 rebounds last sea-son.

Senior forward Sonja Peters averaged 4.8 points last season and sophomore forward Andrea Hinkeldey (3.5 points, 3.5 rebounds)

and senior guard Autumn Hinkeldey (1.1 points, 2.4 assists) also return to the SWU lineup.

The Wildcats also have senior guard Alaina Klin-genberg, senior center Kristin Liepold, junior for-ward Sarah Schmid, junior forward Rachel Mathias, sophomore guard Hailey Schumacher, sophomore forward Megan Haberman and freshman guard Gabi Stenzel looking for play-ing time.

“We’re fairly athletic,” Coach Place said, pointing out Mathias, who is just in her second year of basket-ball. “Hopefully we can keep progressing her and some of the younger kids.”

Place said his team is stressing rebounding early, especially on the offensive

end.“We need to work on re-

bounding,” he said. “We’ve got to continue to get more aggressive attacking when the ball hits off the glass. We’ve got to get some cheap shots. You can win games by getting repeat baskets.”

Place said defense is also a point he’ll be working on all season.

“We’re working on our team defense,” he said. “We’ve got to develop an aggressiveness in one-on-one defense situations and translate that into our team defensive concept.”

Place said the Red Rock Conference is wide open again this season, list-ing Southwest Minnesota Christian, Fulda, Mt. Lake Area and Murray County

Central as teams likely to finish near the top.

“It’s very deep and very balanced,” he said. “We can beat every team in our conference this year and every team can beat us.”

Place is assisted by Katy Hattendorf, who is also the B squad coach. Lisa Thiel-en is coaching the junior high team.

With numbers on the rise, SWU has a full B squad schedule and has about a dozen games scheduled for the C squad team to play.

The Wildcats open the season Monday at home against Harris-Lake Park and have their conference opener Dec. 12 at Ells-worth.

Photo by Dan CondonReturning letter winners for the Southwestern United boys’ basketball team are Zach Schumacher (from left), Walker Crocker, Brandon Thurk and Aaron Fest.

Toward the middle of the season last winter, the Southwestern United boys’ basketball team started playing some pretty good ball and went on a win-ning streak. Unfortunately for the Wildcats, the hot stretch ended late in the regular season and the

Wildcats hoping to finish strong this seasonFour return from 10-win season

Wildcats didn’t win in the playoffs.

This season, head coach Lon Eichenberger wants the Wildcats to again hit their stride as the season goes along, only this time, he wants them to keep it going.

“I’d like to make a run in the tournament at the end of the year,” Eichenberger said, adding other goals are to improve on last year’s 10-14 record and finish in the top half of the Red Rock Conference.

The Wildcats return just four letter winners from

last year’s squad, bring-ing back senior post Zach Schumacher, senior guard Walker Crocker and se-nior wings Aaron Fest and Brandon Thurk.

Eichenberger said those four would be in the start-ing lineup as the new sea-son begins, along with ju-nior guard Trey Cranston.

The Wildcats have three other seniors in guards Christian Mariscal and Skyler Sievert and post Levi Taylor. Other SWU juniors are guards Isaac Fest and Hunter Timko; posts Jon Hussong and

Austin Milbrath; and wings Jake Sydnes and Dakotah Schmid.

Eichenberger said hav-ing Schumacher and Tay-lor in the paint can help the Wildcats run a motion offense they started using in the second half of last season.

“It serves our two big post guys and, I think it also serves our guards,” Eichenberger said.

The biggest key with the offense is making sure everyone knows exactly what to do.

See SWU BBB on C6

Southwestern United girls’ basketballHead coach: Keith Place

12-2 vs. Harris-Lake Park12-9 at Martin Luther12-12 at Ellsworth12-17 vs. Murray County Central12-19 at Hills-Beaver Creek12-20 at Comfrey tournament1-2 vs. Red Rock Central1-4 vs. Canby (at SMSU)1-7 at Edgerton1-10 vs. Ellsworth1-14 at Blue Earth Area1-16 at Fulda1-21 vs. Edgerton1-24 at Southwest Minnesota Christian1-27 at Luverne2-3 at Westbrook-Walnut Grove2-7 vs. Hills-Beaver Creek2-10 vs. Mt. Lake Area2-13 vs. Adrian2-14 vs. Granada-Huntley-East Chain2-18 at Red Rock Central2-21 vs. Westbrook-Walnut Grove2-24 at Mt. Lake Area2-27 — 3-13 Section tournament3-18 — 3-22 State tournament

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Vancura said the goal remains the same for the Huskies: win the Southwest Conference and go back to state.

“Our goals for the sea-son are to win the con-ference title, win sec-tions and make it to state as a team,” she said.

To do so, she said the team will have to improve a bars routine that is tradi-tionally the lowest scoring event for the Huskies.

“We have a solid group of ladies on the team,” Van-cura said. “Each of them has their strengths on each event. Our weakness right

JCC GYM: New faces, same goals for HuskiesContinued from C1

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SWU BBB: WildcatsContinued from C5

now as a team is bars, but the more we work, the bet-ter our bars will be.”

Following the season opener at New Ulm, the Huskies host St. James Dec. 10 for their home opener.

The conference opener is set for Jan. 6 at Marshall.

On Jan. 21 the Huskies hit the road to face Mar-tin County Area, the team Coach Vancura said will be the biggest competition in the section.

The section meet is Feb. 15 and state is set for Feb. 21 and 22.

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“We’re trying to get everyone on the same page,” Eichenberger said. “There’s a lot of motion.”

Having Schumacher and Taylor will free up some outside shots for SWU.

“The potential to be both an inside and outside team is pretty good,” Eichen-berger said.

On defense, SWU will begin the season play-ing primarily man-to-man defense, but that could change.

“As soon as we start to think we’re pretty quick, we’ll see some quicker people and have to go to zone,” Eichenberger said.

Eichenberger said South-west Minnesota Christian and Mt. Lake Area are the top two teams in the con-ference.

“After that, it’s a lot of teams that can compete with one another,” he said.

SWU opened the sea-son Tuesday night with its home and conference opener by facing West-brook-Walnut Grove. Three more home games follow before the Wildcats finally hit the road for the Candy Cane Classic Dec. 20 and 21 in Ivanhoe.

The Wildcats host MLA Jan. 14 and play the Wol-verines on the road exactly a month later. SWU faces SWMNC just once, at home on Feb. 6.

Assisting Eichenberg-er this season is Jared Borquin. Lucas Kaplan is the team’s junior high coach and 2012 graduate Matthew Soto is a volun-teer assistant.

Justin Tirevold and the Schmit brothers: senior Matt and junior Bran-don. Horn and sopho-more Levi Salberg are competing at 285.

Middle schoolers Ja-cob Tvinnereim, Ean Rossow and Just in Heckard are all battling to lead off the Huskies’ lineup at 106 and senior Wyatt Cleberg, who is out for wrestling after missing a season, is in at 120.

Senior Dakota Rossow and junior Aaron John-son are competing for the 138-pound spot, with junior Jared Bakalyar at 145 and sophomore Luke Pygman at 152. Se-nior Chris Baker, junior Brady Oeltjenbruns and sophomore Caleb Will are all competing at 195.

“I’m anxious to see how improved our re-turners are,” Coach

JCC WR: Huskies going for fifth straight titleContinued from C1

Baker said. “Guys like Ja-cob, Dalton, Ryker, Luke Pygman, Michael Miller and Jack Ziemer. I know guys like Jordan, Paden, Luke Norland and Keegan want to take a big step up the podium in March; that will be fun to see. And we have some new faces out and these young men are really working hard and they will help us.”

Coach Baker said Nor-land and Paden Moore have earned captain roles already, but they might not be the only ones.

“We may add another, as there are many hard working young men in the room,” he said. “I think the returners each lead by example and help the oth-ers they have near their weight class and who they practice with.”

Baker said the team is working on the basics so far, but will know exactly

what needs to be done once the season starts next week.

“We just need to continue to get better each day,” he said. “When we get into competition, we will have many weaknesses exposed that we will address.”

The Huskies open their season Dec. 6 with a trian-gular at home against Pipe-stone and Fargo Davies. JCC hosts a tournament the next day.

Baker said Windom Area will be the biggest test in the Southwest Conference, but said Pipestone and Lu-verne could provide chal-lenges as well. The Huskies face the Windom Area Co-bras in the last conference dual of the season Jan. 31 in Windom. JCC faces Pipestone its first night of the season and wrestles Luverne as part of a trian-gular with Redwood Valley Jan. 16.

The Huskies will wrestle in several tournaments during the season, includ-ing the Christmas Tour-nament Dec. 20 and 21 in Rochester.

The team section tourna-ment is Feb. 13 and 15 and the individual section tour-nament is Feb. 21 and 22 in Blue Earth. The state tour-nament is Feb. 27 through March 1 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

Joining Baker on the varsity staff are Nate Han-son and Troy Schultz. Rick VanderWoude is the junior high coach.

“Troy and Nate do a fantastic job,” Baker said. “They have been here a while, wrestled here and are totally committed to the program. We added Rick, who volunteered last year and he has a wealth of experience and will add a great deal.”

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