SHOTS from the Hip

Congratulations to Junior Izzy Matzek on placing fifth in last Saturday’s WIAA Girls 3-Point Challenge at the Resch Center in Green Bay. A total of 10 participants were selected for the event based on stats information entered by coaches into the WisSports.net database. The top two threepoint shooters (minimum 75 attempts) from each division were chosen to participate. An All Conference Middle Border selection, Matzek will be among several underclassmen returning to the hard court next season for the Cardinals.

Parker Nielsen and the West Texas A & M Buffaloes won their fifth consecutive Lone Star Conference tournament title last week and have their sights set on advancing to the NCAA Division 2 Final Eight in Evansville, Ind. later this month. Nielsen, a 2020 Prescott grad has played in 22 games for the 29-6 Buffaloes this year who are the 16th ranked team in the nation.

Jacob Doffing wrapped up his freshman season with San Diego Miramar Community College and averaged 11.2 points per game for The Jets. Members of the California Community College Athletic Association, the Jets finished 19-11 overall on the year and 10-6 conference play. Earlier this season. Doffing was named Conference player of the week for a two-game performance that saw the former Middle Border All Conference player score 43 points and pull down 26 rebounds in a pair of wins against Orange Coast College in December.

Congratulations to Troy LaValle and the Cameron Comets on advancing to the WIAA State Tournament in Division 4. Cameron overcame a 17-point second half deficit to defeat the Durand Panthers to advance to next week’s Final Four at the Kohl Center in Madison. Last month Prescott defeated Cameron 88-69 in a non-conference game. However, despite the seemingly comfortable margin of victory, some Prescott fans and other Cardinal basketball enthusiasts called Division 4 Cameron a team to watch out for at tournament time. Quite prophetic. Additionally, while perusing the state tournament qualifying field in Division 4, I was unable to locate the town of Roncali in the state of Wisconsin. Perhaps a reader out there can be of assistance.

After a slow start, North Dakota State junior Peter Brookshaw is now hitting .333 for the Bison on the season. Additionally, Brookshaw has played nearly flawless shortstop for North Dakota State who enter the week with an overall record of 8-7. The Bison continue their slate of spring break games in Florida this week taking on Florida Atlantic, Florida Gulf Coast, and Fairfield University.

Bemidji State outfielder Hunter Daymond is hitting .361 on the season for the NCAA Division 2 Beavers. A 2019 Prescott alumnus, Daymond is playing outfield for the North Sun Conference team who open league play this week in St. Paul against Concordia University.

Hats off to former Prescott Mayor Mike Hunter on volunteering his time over the last few weeks working with high school baseball players on proper arm care exercises.

St. Mary’s University junior softball player MacKenzie Carey is off to a blistering offensive start for the Cardinals. The 2019 Prescott alumnus is hitting .421 for a St. Mary’s team that is 7-4 overall on the year. Carey and her teammates will open Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play the first week of April when they take on St. Catherine’s of St. Paul.

Tickets are now available for the annual Prescott CAB Company Banquet that will be held at the Old Ptacek’s Banquet Center on Friday, April 1 beginning at 5:30 p.m. For ticket and banquet information, email [email protected] gmail.com. Former Minnesota Twin Al Newman will be the featured speaker. Raffle prizes, silent auction, and cash prize drawings will be held throughout the event.

Prescott High School track athletes have been running the high school hallways and city roadways in preparation for the 2022 track season. The hope is the coaching staff and Cardinal thin clads will be able to see the track this week with above freezing temperatures.

Headshaker of the week. Today the game of baseball is all about analytics. Years ago the stat line of a player or pitcher was much simpler. The backside of baseball cards included all the essential statistics: Batting average, runs scored, hits, runs batted in, and batting average. For pitchers it was the same: Innings pitched, wins, losses, strikeouts and earned run average. Understanding the aforementioned stats were simple and easily. Today, however, the statistical lexicon has changed and I believe not for the better. Non-user-friendly statistical acronyms like WAR, WHIP, RE24, FIP, and SIERA dominate today’s sabermetrics approach to the game and make having conversations about a player’s performance is akin to discussing the period chart of elements. Give me the back of a 1975 baseball card any day. The verbiage of today’s baseball stat line is for the birds. It’s a headshaker.

By Cripe Olson