A milestone just passed that I think is noteworthy. That would be the first in a string of state Class 3A boys? basketball cham?pionships won by the Hillsboro Trojans and coached by Darrell Knoll. A number of girls teams also won state titles following this group.
The 1990-91 boys? team won the first title 25 years ago. On that team were Craig Duerksen and Eric Jones, who led the team in scoring at 19-plus points a game. Also on the team were Nick Scharen?berg, John Vogt (known for his three point shots), foreign exchange student Fernando Gutierrez, who picked up the American game very well, Damian Ratzlaff (first of four siblings to play on an HHS state title team), Kevin Winter, Vaughn Jost, Darrin Hie?bert, Lance Hofer, Phillip Goertzen and Aaron Myers.
These guys could really play as a team, and only lost two games the entire season?to Chase County early in the season and to Moundridge by three in mid-season. They crushed rival Wichita Collegiate twice, as well as most of their opponents, throughout the season.
They waltzed through sub-state and state winning by an average margin of 25.5 points, taking out Immaculata, 74-59, in the finals at state for the championship. I?d be willing to pay whatever they ask to see them all play again.
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I don?t know if you saw the end of the Texas A&M game with University of Northern Iowa, but for A&M to erase a 12-point lead in about 35 seconds to send the game into overtime and eventually win it was a travesty in my opinion.
The refs changed the outcome of the game. The UNI player who threw the ball to the Aggie player as he was being forced out of bounds by two A&M players was certainly fouled.
There wasn?t an SEC team in the Sweet 16 yet and the refs had to do something to help make that happen.
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I really like Charles Barkley as an analyst on CBS. The rest not so much. Barkley tells it like it is and gets a rash of you-know-what for it from the others.
Plus, he?s funny, which makes it even better.
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Good friend Dave Ran?ney knows I like to laugh. When we visited them recently he gave me a big-print Reader?s Digest with lots of jokes in it.
The big print makes it much easier to read.
One of the great jokes in it was about an older woman who went to the newspaper office to place an obit for her husband and found out that it was $1 per word. She was blown away by the price. So she came up with McGregger Dies.
They told her it was a five-word minimum, so she worded it this way: McGreg?ger dies. Volvo for sale.
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In retirement, we have been thinking how nice it would be to see the world?but everything is so far away.
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If you wish to share your comments or ideas, my e-mail address is joel@
hillsborofreepress.com.
