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For some reason the WIAA goofed up their bracket last night putting South Shore down as the winner over Siren. Well, in true "Dewey beats Truman" fashion, the powers that be had to eat a little crow this morning and revised the bracket to look like this:

Congratulations to Webster, Luck and Siren boys basketball teams… all three have advanced to their regional final games.

Webster and Luck were the higher seeds and it is not shocking that they won their respective games.

The shocker lies in Siren where the boys dismantled the number 1 seeded South Shore 54-45. Heck, even the WIAA can't believe it…

I'm very happy for the Dragons and head coach Jon Ruud. The team has come so far this season and they deserve many pats on the back. I think it is safe to say that this is the biggest win in the history of Siren boys basketball, and maybe in boys sports at that school ever.

If the Dragons and the Luck Cardinals both win on Saturday they will meet for the sectional semi-final.

Webster also looked good tonight. That was the game I was broadcasting. They played great defense and Prescott proved to be no match for the Tigers.

Here are the brackets:

Webster

Luck/Siren

The West Lakeland represented nicely for the opening round of the boys' tournament. Five of seven won their opening round playoff game (there was never a chance for a perfect 7-0 as Grantsburg and St. Croix Falls locked up for their first round tilt… SCF won 54-45).

Only Unity lost (by two to Colfax, the number 2 seed).

Pesky Frederic won by a point to beat the number 4 seed Bruce.

Here are the results:

Division 3

Division 4

In an extremely physical game, the Grantsburg Pirates were bruised, battered and finally, beaten by the St. Croix Falls Saints 54-45, ending the Pirates' season. They finished 12-11.

The punishing game went both ways, and in fact, Grantsburg was the aggressor for most of the way. The Saints finally caught up to Grantsburg's physicality and ended up pulling away down the stretch.

Grantsburg had a lot of trouble scoring in the middle quarters and ultimately that's what did them in. It was a close game through the night and Grantsburg pulled within four with about four minutes remaining. Then SCF scored six unanswered and Grantsburg was not able to make a clutch shot the rest of the night. The closest they got from then on was six points.

The Pirates end their season on a sour note (all but four teams in the state do), but the future is bright and the sky is the limit with this crew. The Pirates return EVERYBODY for the 2010-2011 campaign. IF they all work on their individual games (as in… how can I improve to benefit the team) and IF they gel more as a team, there might be nobody to stop them next year in the conference (I'm sure Siren and Webster might not agree with that).

It was an entertaining year to watch these guys mature to varsity players and I think new Head Coach Nick Hallberg is just the right guy to lead them back to a deep run in the playoffs next year.

It's that time of year… playoffs are on the horizon and I have my assignments for radio coverage for 105.7 WXCX.

Next Tuesday I'll be heading to St. Croix Falls to broadcast the SCF/Grantsburg first round tilt. It's a four versus five seed to start our coverage and I think it should be a great game.

Grantsburg has been playing very well as of late and they split the season series with the Saints.

Hopefully there will be a game on Thursday night but it just depends on the Tuesday night game results.

Game time is 7:00 (not 7:30 like the regular season).

I will also be covering Siren @ Webster girls game next Friday evening (3/5).

The Grantsburg boys will not get a home game to start the tournament. They will instead be heading to St. Croix Falls whom they've faced twice this season and have split those two games. It should be a great matchup. Webster will host an opening game as they secured a #3 seed. Division 3 BRACKET

The Siren Dragons got a #4 seed in D4 and will host an opening round game. They'll take on Northwood. Division 4 BRACKET

It's a great time of the year!

I'm not sure how our broadcasting schedule will work out, but as soon as I find out I will let you know!

My most recent Inside the Huddle column features me trying to predict the end of the season in the crazy boys conference known as the West Lakeland.

Three teams still have a chance at winning the thing (Luck, SCF and Siren). Read the story to see where I think each team will finish in the conference.

The Pirates boys and girls basketball teams both lost close games tonight to the Webster Tigers in Grantsburg.

The girls dropped their fifth game of the year by the final of 55-52. The Pirates trailed 31-21 at the half, rallied big time in the fourth with some intense defense, but they fell short putting their record at 1-5 overall and 0-2 in the West Lakeland conference.

The boys game was very similar to the girls. The Tigers built a 10 point halftime lead and escaped with the victory. Grantsburg got within one during the third quarter and within two with about fifteen seconds to go in the game, but Webster stayed calm and finished the game out with some clutch free throw shooting down the stretch.

The senior-less Pirates now fall from the ranks of the undefeated in Wisconsin and go to 4-1, 1-1 in the West Lakeland conference. Webster is now on top at 2-0.

In regards to the boys game, I feel like both teams are pretty good, but not great. If these two teams were in last year's conference there is no way they'd be contending for the top spot. That's just my humble, but accurate, opinion.

Well a new season is upon us and the schedule is out for December. We'll be doing a lot more hockey this year, which is exciting to me because there are rarely 30 point blowouts in hockey

Here's the schedule for the rest of December:

"So you're not dead" was the warm greeting I received from a Grantsburger (I don't know why Kozy or Dale's hasn't tried to cash in on that name for a sandwich. I'm going to copyright it someday) at the concession stand after Grantsburg beat Siren tonight in straight sets to finish their conference season undefeated. She was ever so subtly eluding to the fact that I've done a horrible job updating this blog. So in this post I'm going to try and recap all the news that has occurred in the week and a half I've strayed.

1. Nick Hallberg and Penny Curtin are the new coaches for the boys and girls basketball teams, respectively. I couldn't be happier as a fan of Grantsburg athletics. Both are knowledgeable, good teachers and easy to talk to. I feel like both will have a lot of success in the upcoming years.

2. Grantsburg volleyball wins the conference. It is really a testament to the program that this news is really not that surprising. Think of any other sport… go ahead… except for fast pitch, they are all a huge achievement. This conference win is a big achievement, too, but one that was very expected. Congratulations, Pirates!

(This photo of Grantsburg's seniors comes courtesy of this site maintained by the multi-talented Deb Johnson)

3. I'll definitely have more to say on the following if it passes, but the proposal of realigning football from conferences to districts is a really a bad deal for Grantsburg. It would make Grantsburg travel sooooooo far to play other teams in their division.

The closest team in the new district realignment would be Cameron which is 76 miles away and is currently the FARTHEST team from Grantsburg in the Large Lakeland conference. There would be FIVE teams well over 100 miles away, Rib Lake/Prentice being the farthest at 170 miles. To give you some perspective… St. Paul to Duluth is only 150 miles. The average travel distance for Grantsburg in this new format is 119 miles (in our current conference it is only 46 miles… which includes Cameron and Clear Lake – both over 70 miles away). Good grief.

From what I've read it seems like this proposal has a lot of momentum, as in it might be adopted this winter and may be implemented for the 2010 season.

I wonder how much more it will cost Grantsburg in travel. Where will that money come from? By the way… Grantsburg is not the only town this stinks for… northern Wisconsin is DOOMED! (OK… maybe not doomed, but definitely adversely affected).

What about JV and Middle School games? Let's look at JV. Say they play at 5:00 Monday evenings (like now)(Middle School generally plays on Tuesday or Thursday evenings). Assume it takes three hours to get to Prentice . They will have to leave school around 1 o'clock. and they won't get back home until maybe 11pm! And that's only true if the game doesn't go into overtime! A school night. Homework. Sleep. Not to mention the families who have to make the trek there and back.

I couldn't be more against it. If you're against it please write a letter to the WIAA.

The contact info is:

5516 Vern Holmes Dr., Stevens Point, WI 54482.

The WIAA phone number is (715) 344-8580.

Click on the map to be able to read it better and zoom in.

Wissports.net has this resource that shows you some of these things. And read Todd Beckmann's article from the Burnett County Sentinel which includes many quotes from Grantsburg Athletic Director, Mike Amundson. If you'd like to read the proposal in it's entirety… enjoy.

4. Eighth grade thriller against Unity. Ok, so I'm biased because I'm a football coach for the middle school team, but the game the eighth graders won (their last game in middle school) was one of the all-time best moments in a sporting event that I've been a part of.

We took the lead with about a minute and a half to go in a tight ball game. We were very excited. Then we kicked-off and Unity returned it for a touchdown. Ugh. What a bummer that was, but these guys didn't give up. Unity kicked it back to us with just over a minute to go in the game.

We trailed by six points.

We work our way down the field and have it third and goal at the two yard line. Nine seconds to go and we had just used our final time-out. We hand the ball off and score a touchdown. More jumping and yelling. Now we are tied. The two point conversion was good so we take the lead with six seconds left on the clock.

We don't make the mistake of kicking it deep this time. One of the up-men for Unity fields the ball and is tackled. Two seconds remaining.

Ball near mid-field.

They line up with trips to the right. QB drops back and unloads.

Then the crowd goes WILD as the ball is batted back and falls harmlessly to the ground. Grantsburg wins in a thriller.

Unity was a bigger and faster team, but Grantsburg had more heart!

I am still smiling about that one

5. I will be broadcasting Grantsburg volleyball on the radio starting next Tuesday as the playoffs begin. Grantsburg will be taking on Glenwood City in first round action from G-burg. Catch the action on 105.7 WXCX. I am sorry we weren't able to bring you any regular season games, but it was kind of nice for me to just go enjoy the whoopins without having to describe them. But, I'm very excited to be getting to bring you the state tournament.

That's all I can think of and care to opine about tonight. Congratulations, again, to the volleyball team. Another awesome regular season. They have a final tune up for the playoffs this weekend at the Cameron Tournament. They have won every other tournament they've entered this year and there's no reason they can't win the next two.