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Midlakes Sports
by Ginny Konz
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The varsity girls hosted the team from Wayland-Cohocton in a first round sectional game on Saturday, February 5. Our defense was creating turnovers but our offense was not finding the net. Their defense was stifling our inside game early, and nothing from the outside was dropping in. It took nearly four minutes for us to score at all, and we were behind, 7-6, after one quarter. Whitney Dixon had missed the previous three days of school with the flu but was playing; Stephanie Groff remained sick in bed; Alex Oaks was playing with a sore leg; key people got into foul trouble early. Things didn't look good.
We managed to take a 12-9 lead in the second quarter, which was erased by a trey and we never scored again in the half. Fortunately they weren't exactly lighting up the gym, and the halftime score was 16-12. Of our 12, Alex had 8. Midlakes took the lead again in the first minute of the third period but quickly lost it and suddenly we could not hang onto the ball. Liz Donk picked up her 4th foul early in that period, and Alex was whistled for her third. Nonetheless the game was tied at 21 about halfway through the period, and from that point a 19-7 run gave us a 40-28 lead when the period ended.
We open the final period with another round of "greasy ball." It lasted for about three minutes, but they managed only 4 points in that time, all by their 8th grade phenomenon who was the high scorer by a long way. Whitney, who picked up her 4th foul with a minute to go, had finally shaken off the flu enough to get her scoring on track and scored all our points (7) for the 4th period. They only managed 8, giving us a 47-36 victory (and the "opportunity" to face Nazareth in the next round). Liz, in spite of sitting on the bench in foul trouble for much of the second half, finished with 8 points, all in the second half, and Alex picked up 6 more in the second half, for a total of 14. Unfortunately she is done for the season and unavailable for the Nazareth game.
Last Monday, Feb. 14, the 7th grade girls hosted the team from Our Lady of Mercy in the city, and they showed no mercy to us. Our first score came at the 4 minute mark, a free throw by Meghan Tillman. They made only one FT in that period also, in spite of having 8 attempts, but they made 9 field goals so led, 19-1, when the first period ended. They pretty much maintained that lead and won, 37-17. The foul shooting improved from the last time I had seen them. Missing from the ranks were several players and Coach Wescott. It's definitely flu season, and time for the midwinter break.
At that same time the modified wrestlers were hosting Marion, South Seneca and Pal-Mac. Tristen Ester, Travis Bevens and Scott Sweet each won two matches, one by decision and one by pin. Shane Wheeler decisioned both his opponents for the afternoon. Matt Barilla, Jacob DeVoll, Dan King, Jesse Festa and Nick Columbo each had one win, a pin, for the afternoon. Tyler Brooks-Lambert, Ashley Slate, Bryan Combs, and Max Peters each won a decision.
Max is new to the team, and he also won a match by decision last Wednesday, in the team's last home appearance. We were hosts to teams from Marcus Whitman, Sodus, Newark and Victor on February 16, and another newcomer, Patrick Middlebrook, won one match by decision and wrestled to a tie in the other. Tyler Brooks-Lambert won two, one pin and one decision. Tristen Ester again won two, as did Brock Smith, both by decision. Jesse Festa and Bryan Combs each registered a pin. Ashley Slate won one match, by decision, and narrowly (4-3) lost another. Aaron Burnett and Mike Iannone each wrestled one opponent to a tie.
Later Midlakes was host to the boys' varsity basketball team from Attica in a first round sectional game. We scored first and then hit a huge problem - we couldn't hang onto the ball and we couldn't hit the net, even with free throws (we missed more of those in the first four minutes of the game (4) than in the previous two home games together). They made four threes in the first quarter, and we didn't even attempt one. We were trying to get the ball inside, but we kept turning it over. Nonetheless we had a lead at the end of one quarter (18-16), and ran up a 6 point lead in the second period before it dwindled to 30-27 at the half.
We started the second half with the same problems; turnovers became a huge problem and we were still not shooting well from any spot, including the foul line. Attica took a 31-30 lead before two minutes had passed and built on it as we continued to throw the ball away. Attica's 48-42 third period lead turned into a 69-65 victory for them and an end to our season. This was a team we could have beaten if we had only been able to make our free throws. Tim Jopson, Caleb Frederick and Kevin Lowry scored in double figures, and we did get the threes to fall occasionally - Jordan Wilson had 3, Kevin 2, and Zack Marion 1.
The girls lost their second round game at Nazareth so the varsity seasons are all over, only the modified wrestlers and the girls' 7th and 8th grade teams are still playing, and they end the first week in March. Practice for spring sports begins shortly, believe it or not. (I'm still not sure how it got to be 2005, let alone the end of February, so talking about spring sports is mind-boggling.)
The cheerleaders, having won 1st place in the league competition, went on to shine at Sectionals as well and came in 4th of 15 teams in their division. Congratulations girls.
The 7th grade girls hosted Waterloo last Friday. A Friday afternoon, the day before a vacation, is no time to play a team that has played together in the recreation league and has 60 games of experience. Besides the experience advantage they were tall and solidly built, aggressive and confident. Coach Wescott was back and some of the girls who wee missing on Monday had returned while others, including some who had been quite effective on Monday, were missing on Friday. We got off to a very slow start (down 11-2 after the first period) and really didn't exhibit a great deal of energy until the final 4 minutes of the game, which ended in a 43-17 loss. Liz Maloney had 16 points for us, and no one else showed much interest in shooting very often. The girls had won on Wednesday, defeating Marcus Whitman for the second time this season, so they do know what has to happen in a game. The only game on campus this week is an 8th grade girls' game at 10am on Tuesday.
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