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Boys Standings

Results from Tuesday’s games

A bit of a surprise in the Luck/Unity tilt in Luck. Only a 15 point victory for the Cardinals (who are ranked 4th in Division 3) over the winless Unity Eagles. Brennan Olson had 23 points, nearly half the points for Luck.

Girls Standings

Results from Tuesday’s games

The big matchup with St. Croix Falls and Siren went Siren’s way giving the Dragons the clearest path to the conference championship.

The Grantsburg Pirates are headed back to state as they beat Eau Claire Regis tonight 3-1. They dropped only their second set of the year to Regis and it was a big drop as they lost 25-11. Ouch. But then Grantsburg figured things out and beat Regis 25-14, 25-21, 25-20 to become sectional champs while earning a state playoff berth. They will play Newman Catholic, who beat Mishicot in five sets on Saturday night.

Grantsburg will be making their first appearance at state since 2005 when they lost the semi-final game to eventual champs, Kettle Moraine Lutheran.

Clayton, runners up in the Large Lakeland, also won their match (def. Mellen 3-1) and have earned a berth in the state playoffs in division 4.

Grantsburg is the only remaining undefeated volleyball team in the state because Sheyboygan Lutheran lost tonight in four epic sets to Shoreland Lutheran.

The final four in division 3 are: Grantsburg, Wisconsin Heights (def. Cuba City, reigning D3 champs), Shoreland Lutheran and Newman Catholic.

Well it is going to be a good one in the Sectional Final game hosted by Osseo Fairchild. Grantsburg will lock horns with Eau Claire Regis who won tonight over Melrose-Mindoro 3-0.

Tonight’s match was very, very good and although Grantsburg won 3-0 it really could have been closer than that as you can tell by the finals of each set (25-22, 25-21, 25-22). The difference between the Pirates winning instead of the Castle Guards this year was finding a way to finish.

We saw Grantsburg come from behind in the third set of the Regional championship game against Colfax and they had to do it again tonight coming from behind in the first and third sets.

Grantsburg and Sheboygan Lutheran are the only two teams left in the state which haven’t suffered a loss. I’m not sure what Sheboygan Lutheran’s set record is, but Grantsburg still only has on set loss all year.

The Sectional Final match will be broadcast on 105.7, WXCX at 7 pm.

By the way… second place finishers in the Large Lakeland conference, the Clayton Bears, are still alive in division 4 volleyball. They defeated 3-1 and move on to the sectional final match versus Mellen. Oh, and the match will be played in Clayton. Congratulations, Bears!

It looked like another day at the office for the Grantsburg Girls volleyball team, but what looked like another easy three set victory turned out to be an exciting three set victory for the lady Pirates.

The Colfax Vikings dropped the first two sets to the Pirates 25-15, 25-14, but the third set saw the Vikings ahead by as much as 5 and holding onto a lead until Grantsburg tied it up at 22-22. Then Grantsburg got three straight points and won 25-22.

It was an exciting finish for the Pirates and they showed the Grantsburg partisan crowd that they are able to overcome a deficit, which they haven’t played with very often this season.

So Grantsburg continues to dominate the Regional tournament claiming their 16th straight championship.

Now onto Cameron where Grantsburg will again lock horns with rival Washburn. In the past ten years of Grantsburg volleyball, Washburn has ended the Pirate season three times.

The Webster Tigers are conference champions.

I’m not talking about track or cross country. I’m talking about football.

By beating the previously undefeated St. Croix Falls Saints 7-3 on Thursday night, Webster secured a tie for the conference championship with the Saints. They would also tie Clear Lake as all three teams finished with 5-1 records in the conference. Webster beat St. Croix who beat Clear Lake who beat Webster. Got it?

Grantsburg almost wins. But falls short.

I was broadcasting the SCF/Webster tilt tonight but was receiving scoring updates via text messaging during the game. I saw that it was a see saw battle, but in the end Cameron (who still had a very outside chance of making the playoffs) was victorious 31-21.

It has been a difficult year for the boys in Purple, but when something ends something else begins… bring on basketball.

Random thoughs…

I’ve been able to broadcast all around this area for a couple years now and have seen a lot of press boxes and met a lot of scoreboard operators and PA guys. All of them are nice, but I always look forward to heading to St. Croix Falls because they always go out of their way to make me feel comfortable. Heck, one year they even gave me some homemade nachos (are you listening, Webster?).

Tournament time is the best time of the year. WXCX will be covering Gransburg volleyball and Webster football as far as they go (or Webster volleyball if they pull an upset Friday night). There is a potential conflict (which has happened before) next Saturday because that would be the sectional final round and it would also be the day of the second round of football playoffs. If that were to happen we will do everything possible to get the two games on the air.

Grantsburg received two votes from bloggers picking them to win the state championship in volleyball on this blog. Out of 18 voters the overwhelming majority chose Wisconsin Heights to win it all, then Grantsburg and Eau Claire Regis each received 2 votes (but word is that Regis recruited those two, so by all rights Grantsburg is better than Regis, as if you didn’t already know that).  Racine Lutheran garnered one vote, probably from their coach.

Last year the Grantsburg Pirate football team missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade managing only 2 wins. This year might turn out worse.

The Pirates are not running the ball nearly as well as years past and have started to rely on the arm of Trent Bonneville. He has done a very good job after taking over as quarterback the second game of the season. But, in the past two games Grantsburg has pased way too much because of the deficits they find themselves in.

This past game was particularly frustrating as Grantsburg faced winless Unity. The Pirates twice had the ball inside the five yard line, once only 6 inches from the goal line, but were unable to score, getting stopped on fourth down both times.

Grantsburg seemed to be the better team on Saturday, but big plays and penalties against the Pirates were enough to keep the Pirates out of the win column.

On what turned out to be the game winning scoring drive for Unity, Grantsburg had stopped the Eagles twice on fourth down only to have pass interference called against them. Both were very, very suspect. I don’t like to blame officials for things, but those two calls were unacceptable.

Grantsburg lost 28-26. Both teams scored four touchdowns. Unity made every extra pont, Grantsburg was 1 for 4 in that department as they scored on a two point conversion with their last touchdown.

It is a frustrating season for the Pirates, but they are looking to get a victory this Friday night for Homecoming. You can hear the game on WXCX – 105.7 starting a little before 7pm.

What a crazy game tonight with Grantsburg dropping their fourth loss of the season — this time to the Luck Cardinals.

It looked like it was going to be a long night for the Pirates as the Cardinals easily scored on their first drive and almost as easily on their second. But then Grantsburg stiffened and allowed only one more score the rest of the half.

The score at halftime was 21-0.

Then something happened at halftime. I’m not sure what was said during that short intermission, but it worked. Grantsburg came out and had a great half.

The third quarter was scoreless so it was still 21-0 heading into the fourth. Grantsburg was driving at the end of the third and were able to punch it in quickly in the last frame. They missed the extra point and the score was then 21-6, still Luck in control.

Then Luck began hurting themselves. On the second play of the ensuing drive the Cardinals fumbled and the Pirates fell on the ball inside Luck’s 20 yard line. They quickly scored and cut the lead to 21-12 as the two point conversion failed. It was still a two score game.

Grantsburg needed a stop and it looked like they had one. Luck was able to drive into Grantsburg territory but then a huge loss on first down made it 2nd and 22 at the Luck 45 yard line. It looked like the Pirates were going to get the ball back. Instead Carson Giller kept the ball on the left side where David Larsen seemed to have him wrapped up. Calling the game on the radio, I had already said the QB was down and third down was coming up when all of a sudden the kid runs out of the pack past everyone into the end zone. I still don’t know how that happened. It looked like he was stopped, but he kept his legs churning and was able to score a touchdown.

I felt at the time that the game was over. The Cardinals had a 16 point lead with less than 7 minutes left in the game.

I was wrong.

Grantsburg came back through the air and was able to score again. This cut the score to 28-20 when the two point conversion was good.

Grantsburg then stopped Luck forcing them to punt. They punted to the 20 yard line forcing Grantsburg to travel 80 yards with no time outs and about two minutes left to play. Grantsburg made it 60 yards, but then threw an interception with about 36 seconds remaining.

Luck eventually was able to kneel on the ball and claim a road victory.

Grantsburg has come out flat in the first half of every game they have played, with the possible exception of Clear Lake. I wonder what they could do if they started their games the way they end them?

Trent Bonneville is the player of the game tonight. He was something like 19-35 for 234 yards and 3 touchdowns. He also had three interceptions. He also had, by my count, about 9 dropped passes (of varying difficulty) from his receivers. I hope Grantsburg continues to air it out because it looks like they’ve found a guy who can do it.

Grantsburg takes on Unity who is winless as of this writing. They took on Webster tonight, so they could easily be winless next week. You can hear that game on 105.7 WXCX at 1:00 pm Saturday afternoon. I will also be broadcasting the Webster/Luck tilt on Friday night.

We are hoping to get volleyball on the air as well next week… so stay tuned and watch for updates here on We are Grantsburg.