Jock Talk

Congrats and a toast to the Kimball High girls and their coaches for winning the SPVA Conference Tournament this past week, and what a crazy and exciting championship game with the Lady Longhorns upsetting the number one seed North Platte St Pats Irish 54-53! Crazy because Kimball played poorly the first half in what coach Chauncey Pedersen said “It may have been our worst half of basketball this season” and Kimball was trailing 28-14 at half time.

After getting the score doubled on them in first half play, they came out to go on a 13 point unanswered scoring spree, and outscored the Irish 20-7 in the 3rd period, and 40-25 in the second half, and did what they needed to do to win! Read the story to get the full details but let me tell you about some of the other side lights.

Like the North Platte St Pats student body set up directly behind the Kimball bench, so tight our student managers had trouble even walking behind to get water etc. to our players. Don’t get me wrong; I never heard any obscene language or rude behavior from their students, but they were ultra loud, and stomping their feet, and making a lot of noise, which they should, but it was tough on Coach Pedersen trying to inform his players at time outs.

I didn’t think it was especially cool for the tournament announcer to treat it like a home game for the Lady Irish when he made the introductions of players and got extra loud and crazy with his intros of the Irish starters. Whatever .... the Kimball fans got to cheer the loudest and enjoyed the top honors at the end. Great job girls, coaches, and Fans!

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Saw, and talked with lots of people who came to the game to cheer the Kimball girls who don’t live at Kimball any longer. Darin Buescher and wife Lisa, who live in Lexington, had both been busy coaching some 6th grade sporting activities at different locations during the day and then met up at North Platte to cheer on Kimball. Darin came my way and talked a while. He had been coaching some 6th grade boys basketball and Lisa had been at Kearney coaching 6th grade volleyball.

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Congrats also to the Potter Dix girls for their huge win in the MAC Conference Tournament. The Lady Coyotes are GOOD! That is why they are still top ten ranked in D-2. By the way, we had some errors last week in our reporting. One bit reported Kimball ranked 7th in a wrong class and Potter Dix was listed as C-2 instead of D-2 while Kimball is C-l. Like they say, Stuff Happens, especially when it is going through different hands, and proof readers, and picture captions, etc. with different people adding their touch. Probably won’t be our last error. Not sure if this was a first, but it probably wasn’t!

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Congrats also going out to Mike Daum for the outstanding week of basketball for the former Kimball High Standout. He was selected as Summit Conference Player of the Week for his performance with the South Dakota State University Jackrabbitts.

The 6’9” red-shirt freshman averaged 19 points and 9 rebounds in a pair of road wins for the Jacks. In a 79-75 win over South Dakota he scored 23 points on 7/11 shooting making all 4 of his 3 point attempts and going 5/6 at the line, had 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals in 27 minutes of court time.

In an 86-74 win over Oral Roberts he scored 15 points and pulled 7 rebounds, was 6/11 from the field and 3/3 at the line and had 21 minutes of playing time. The rebound average doesn’t add up but that is the info the school put out.

This Saturday, Daum and company will be playing in Denver against Denver University and rumor has it there might be a lot of his former Kimball fans in attendance.

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Sorry to report that one of his favorite fans all through his playing career left us this past week. Wilma Vencill was honored by a large attendance at her funeral this past Saturday and Mike was an Honorary Pallbearer. Michael Ferguson was also. Wilma was a great Kimball High fan, especially for basketball

and volleyball. Danika Daum was another of her favorite athletes and was mentioned in the service. I always enjoyed my talks with Wilma in regards to the Kimball teams and how they were doing. She was always generous with her compliments of my coverage of the Kimball sports and teams. We will miss you, Wilma.

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Also with regrets to report that another special Kimball sports figure has left us and his funeral services are in fact being held today. Bob Barrett, a Kimball High grad of 1964 had a recent heart transplant and fought hard to make a recovery but didn’t pull through. Bob was a good athelte for Kimball High back there in the mid-sixties, and later helped out by working the press box for football and keeping books or running the clock at basketball games. Whenever and however he could help, you would find Bob. And I will always remember that sweet golf swing he had. Only wish I could copy it. You left us way too early Bob but we will all miss you too.

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In freshman basketball play Monday night, Kimball won out over visiting Burns in both girls and boys play.

The Kimball girls won 45-16 with Kaylyn Nelson high with 13 including a trey. Hailey Paxton had 8, Lacy Klinkhammer 7, Madison Wynne 6, Kennedy Lewis 5, Sheridan Magninie 4, and Guro Litlere 2.

Kimball won the boys game 59-22. Corey Travis was high for Kimball with 16, Grant Hickman 9, Jaren Winstrom 8, Izaak Reuter 10, Colton Mielke 6, Grant Golding 6, Dillon Wise 2, and Thomas Lenzen 2.

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Basketball at Kimball tomorrow night (Friday) with Kimball hosting Sutherland. JV games start at 3:30 in both gyms. Girl’s varsity and boy’s varsity follow in main gym. Interact Soup Supper being served and the freshman class is holding a cake raffle. Kimball goes to North Platte St Pats Saturday with early start time of 1 p.m. for the girl’s JV, followed by boy’s JV, girl’s varsity, boy’s varsity. Also Kimball High wrestling at Mitchell beginning at 8:30 a.m.

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Monday, February 1, The Potter-Dix Freshman-Sophomore Basketball Tournament begins at Potter. In the girl’s bracket Kimball will play the Burns freshman team at 3 p.m. and Creek Valley goes against the Burns sophomores at 6:15.

In the boys bracket, Burns and Creek Valley play at 4:45 and Kimball and Pine Bluffs tangle at 8 p.m. Play continues and will finalize on Tuesday.

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A great showing by the Kimball Federation Wrestling Team at the Bridgeport Tournament this past week. Britton Culek, Trey Schindler, and Cameron McGinnis all won championships. Kylee Kirby, Brandon Paxton, and Tyler McManigal were 2nd place finishers. Third place finishers were Ciena McKenzie, Wyatt Cook, Austin Weiss, and Trey Cook. Fourth place finishers were Matthew Johnson, Hunter Funk, James McGinnis, Damien Vandewater, Alex Newton, and Kasyn Snyder.