My guess is those in attendance Saturday night will be talking about the first half three point shooting display put on by freshmen guard Jordan Malmlov for quite some time. The sharpshooting ninth grader drained six shots from beyond the arc and scored 21 points in the first half as Prescott and Somerset battled to a 36-36 tie. In the second half Parker Nielsen helped spark a 15-0 run that turned a 42-38 deficit into a 53-42 lead midway through the second half. The senior/freshmen combination scored 53 of the team’s 70 points Saturday night.

Nielsen is closing in on 700 points this season and is the third leading scorer in Wisconsin averaging over 28 points a game. The West Texas A& M basketball recruit has scored 1,624 points during his illustrious prep career.

Congratulations to Parker Nielsen and Jacob Doffing who were both named 1st Team All Conference while Mason Holte was named to the second team. It is the third time Nielsen has been named All Conference and second time for Doffing. Nielsen shared the conference player of the Year award with Joey Kidder of New Richmond. Nick Johnson and Rick Montreal were named Co-Coaches of the Year. For the girls, junior Isabella Lenz was also named All Conference for the third consecutive time and fellow junior Nicole Dalman was also named to the 1st Team. Junior guard Tori Benck was named Honorable Mention. Lenz was named Player of the Year and first year Coach Rob Radloff was named Conference Coach of the Year.

The Arcadia girls basketball team advanced to the WIAA State Tournament with a 52-49 victory over St. Croix Falls. All Division 3 State qualifiers were #1 seeds and all are public schools.

During the regular season Prescott defeated St. Croix Central by scores of 84-72 and 74-48. It was the Panthers that eliminated the Cardinals last year in the regional championship by a score of 66-62. The Panthers are the #2 seed and enter the sectional with a record of 18-6.

Altoona High School will host the sectional championship on Saturday, March 14th. Local media moguls Dallas Eggers, Paul Most, and Fred Booth raved about the treatment they received at Altoona while broadcasting the girls sectional semi-final last Thursday.

Basketball fans can always depend on getting a few laughs from some of the adult fan commentary directed at officials during games. This past weekend was no different. Along with the old stand buys of “Call the foul” and “You’re missing a good game” came a few that, although not new, garnered a few chuckles, eye rolls, and guffaws by those in attendance. “Five, six, seven, eight, nine seconds in the lane”, “make sure you pick up your paycheck in Somerset after the game”, and “Hey ref, if you had one more eye you’d be a cyclops.”

Two time World Series Champion Al Newman will be the featured speaker at the 22nd Annual CAB Company Banquet on Friday, March 27th at the Old Ptacek’s Banquet Center. Cost of the tickets is $25.00. Contact Dallas Eggers for ticket information. The CAB Company has collected thousands of dollars worth of donations and made tremendous improvements to Firehall Field. Bravo to all the volunteers over the years, especially to Dallas Eggers for all his work with the organization. And of course hats off to Scott Halverson, the person whose vision over 20 years ago created the CAB Company.

The Prescott Baseball Team is still looking for an assistant coach this spring. Cardinal Assistant Coaches Brad Matzek and Duane Miller are entering their 26th and 16th years respectively. Additionally, the Cardinals are in search of a statistician. Speaking of the 2020 Cardinals, the team will be sporting new caps for the first time in four years.

Second year Head Coach Abbie Morris and the Prescott Softball team will begin the season on Monday, March 16th. A Division 3 State Tournament qualifier a year ago, the Cardinals are picked to finish among the top in the Middle Border Conference this season. Prescott Baseball pitchers begin practice on Monday, March 16th and all positions players will start on Monday, March 23rd.

Those were the days…Although I grew up in football crazy Nebraska, we still played a lot of baseball in Hastings. One game we used to play almost non stop was “500”. One of us would throw up and hit a baseball and a group of four, five, six, more boys would try to catch or field the ball cleanly. If you caught the pop or fly ball with two hands it was worth 100 points, one hand 200 points, and any ground ball you fielded cleanly was worth 50. There weren't a lot of rules and there was always a lot of pushing and shoving when the ball was hit in the air or on the ground. Also, if you dropped the ball or made an error, you had to subtract the same amount from your score. The first person to 500 was the winner and they became the “hitter”. Today, I can’t remember seeing youngsters in this town playing 500 or some kind of variation of the game we played years ago. Those were the days.