We are Grantsburg Subscribe

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.

How in the world do the Pirates only get four players on the all-conference team?!? Out of 23 all-conference players named, only four are from Grantsburg.

They only went undefeated in the conference.

No conference team scored more than 19 points on them and that only happened once.

The average score of a conference set was 25-11!

The four girls who were recognized as all-conference (Emily Cole, Kortney Morrin, Annie Palmquist and Lauren Romanowski) were also recognized as part of the all-state tournament team. Three of them (Emily, Kortney and Annie) were ALL-STATE.

You're telling me that this conference is so loaded with talent that there was just no room for Larissa Wilhelm? or Kallie Thoreson? or Tiff Meyer? or Sarah Wald?

It is ridiculous that some of these players are not getting recognized! All of them would start and be one of the best players on ANY OTHER TEAM in this conference.

Look at the Flyway Conference all-conference team. They have Laconia (Grantsburg annihilated them in the state semi-finals) and Kettle Moraine Lutheran. KML is a volleyball powerhouse and won the conference. Laconia finished third. That conference recognized SIX Laconia players.

This rant of mine is not intended to take away from the other 19 girls who were recognized by the coaches… it's just to say that the process is flawed when a team can have such a dominating season and have clearly superior talent yet only four are recognized.

To me it is unfortunate.

Some of the state champion Grantsburg volleyball team stopped by the WCMP/WXCX station to discuss their season with myself and Sam Klemet (sports director).

Here’s an interview with Grantsburg head coach, Bill Morrin

Here’s the play-by-play of the sectional final match with Melrose-Mindoro.

"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.

The very successful coach of the Grantsburg Pirates boy’s basketball team resigned earlier this week from that position. Danny Judd has been the head coach of the team since the 2000-01 season.

He led the team to a state berth and second place finish during the ’04-’05 season and has had several other very good teams.

There has been no replacement named for the upcoming season yet. Nick Hallberg is the current assistant coach and JV head coach. The JV team went undefeated last year under Hallberg and Judd. Without any inside info at all and purely looking from the outside it would seem to be a good fit for Hallberg if he wants the job.

Danny Judd and Nick Hallberg

Here is an excerpt from a Grantsburg softball page run by Steve Johnson…

"May 20 WIAA ruling:  Unity, St. Croix, Luck and Grantsburg all appealed the early decision on eligibility of the players who participated in the Co-ed slowpitch tournament game.  All players from these schools are reinstated. 

In my opinion, it was a good decision from the WIAA.  If a person can be turned in for drinking and only sit one game…It hardly seems fair if a player is out for season is she plays in a CO-ED slowpitch game.   And as an example of patience, the WIAA took its time before making a decision.  It is in the best interest of the athletes."

The Grantsburg Pirate fastpitch team remains undefeated as they dispatch of the Luck Cardinals, 12-2 in five innings. The girls had an opportunity to win in the top of the fifth but a couple walks and missteps allowed Luck to get one run making it 11-2.

It only took two batters in the bottom of the fifth inning to get the winning run across the plate as Tiff Meyer reached on error, stole second, moved to third on a passed ball and then scored on a passed ball.

Luck held Grantsburg scoreless for two innings, exactly once around the batting order, but the bottom of the third saw Grantsburg get the first seven batters on base and having all of them score. At that point the game was all over but the final score.

I would encourage you to check out assistant coach, Steve Johnson’s recap because it’s funnier, he has some great pictures, and you might learn something!

(photo courtesy of Steve Johnson)

I wish I could’ve been there on Saturday when the lady Pirates were able to take a pair from Amery. The first game was a 3-0 shutout the second was a seventh inning come from behind win.

This is exciting to me because Grantsburg is being tested this year… and winning. How can they help but grow together through things like that. I believe that playing these tough games early and pulling them out will do nothing but great things for this team.

The Pirates are now 8-0 on the season. Read more about each game at assistant coach, Steve Johnson’s awesome site.

The baseball team is still struggling in the W/L columns but they are playing some very good teams. The team is now 2-4 after this past weekend’s Prescott tournament. Ben Larson and Jimmy Nelson were honored as all-tournament players.

I will be broadcasting the fastpitch game versus Luck on Thursday and the following week I will be broadcasting the Pirate baseball game against Frederic on the 27th. Tune into 105.7 WXCX to hear the play-by-play!

The lady Pirates already have a lot of people thinking about Goodman Diamond in Madison. The girls are ranked third in the division three coaches poll. I have a feeling this isn’t a big deal to the girls and a lot of that is because head coach Don Bjelland and assistant coach Steve Johnson are so good at prioritizing what is and is not important. Rankings are nice for a fan like me, but for a team it usually does nothing but distract.

You can be sure that when the Pirates take the field this year you’ll get what you have in the past… quality defense, aggressive hitting and unbelievable pitching.

Interesting note: Grantsburg not lost a regular season game since the first game in 2006… the year they won state. To find out all you’e ever want to about Grantsburg Fastpitch go to their homepage which is maintained by assistant coach Steve Johnson.