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The winter seasons are complete.

Tonight the Grantsburg girls met their demise in St. Croix Falls (as their male counterparts did just one week prior).

The Pirate ladies fell 46-26 to the Saints, thus ending their season.

The girls improved upon their previous season's win total and got better this year. Hopefully the trend continues as the Pirates have a young team and would like to finish in the top half of their conference next season.

I caught up with Grantsburg's head coach Penny Curtin after the game.

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.

The girls brackets are out (Division 3, Division 4) and there are some noteworthy matchups.

In division 3, Grantsburg will be traveling to St. Croix Falls, a West Lakeland rival, to start their postseason. It's also who they play to end their regular season. So March 5th will be a playoff preview game against SCF for the Pirates. Another note… the boys playoffs also see Grantsburg and SCF with the opening game of the playoffs.

In division 4 The Siren Dragons receive a number two seed (behind Northwood). Siren lost their first conference game this past week against Luck. Both teams are now 10-1 in the conference and will most likely finish tied for first (Luck still plays Frederic and Siren has one left against Webster). Both Siren and Luck received number two seeds in division 4.

I think Siren is still a very dangerous team, although they've been shaky down the stretch here losing to Luck and getting shut down in the second half against Grantsburg. Hopefully coach Ryan Karsten can right the ship and provide another deep run in the playoffs.

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!

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.

 We have a couple games tonight with local interest. First, on 100.9 WCMP at 7:30 the Pirate Girls take on the Rush City Tigers in a border battle meanwhile on 105.7 WXCX we'll be covering the boys Blizzard taking on Pine City at 7pm.

I'm working the girls game while the wayward son, Dan Hinrichs, comes back and does the hockey game. (EDIT 4:30pm – Dan and I are switching games to make life a little easier with equipment and proximity issues)

The Blizz are coming off a nice conference win against Minneapolis East West (yes, that's a conference game). While the Pirate girls look to rebound from a 67-52 loss against Frederic on Friday.

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:

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