November 27
Alexandria Area High School
We momentarily interrupt Spain for the Cardinal girls’ basketball team’s seasoner opener . . .
[I arrived in time for the last few minutes of the JV game. Always nice to see what’s coming up in the pipeline . . . ]
[Then the varsity came out for warm-up drills . . . ]
[OK, who do I remember from last year?]
[Here’s senior center McKenzie Duwenhoegger – she has signed with the ‘U’ to toss around the discus and to put the shot for the track team . . . ]
[In mid-photo, junior guard Mia McGrane . . . ]
[McKenzie “putting” the basketball . . . ]
[Looks like senior guard Kaye Paschka with the flying hair . . . ]
[And the shoot around . . . ]
[Richie and Marlene Braun, famed in song and story . . . ]
[Starter introductions . . . ]
[Kaye (3) . . . ]
[Mia (5) . . . ]
[Ella Grove (11), junior forward . . . ]
[Emily Jones (55), senior forward . . . ]
[McKenzie . . . ]
[Boom Shakalaka (well, you come up with something) . . . ]
[McKenzie gets the opening tip . . . ]
[And I just noticed her dad, high school principal Chad, high in the stands in the black long sleeved shirt . . . ]
[And just below Chad, Dave Harris, the retired Voice of the Cardinals . . . ]
[McKenzie scored the first 7 points of the game . . . ]
[I was glad to see Kohler’s assessment of the game was the same as mine. First game jitters undoubtedly contributed to a rather sloppy game with poor shooting and lots of turnovers . . . ]
[But those are the kind of games in which the Cards excel. Except for a few minutes at the start of the second half, their fullcourt, all-the-time pressure defense created havoc. And havoc leads to easy baskets at the offensive end. Here’s Ella at the point of the defense with her six footedness . . . ]
[Sophomore guard Cate Bloom (21) on the ball . . . ]
[And here’s Kaye, the gnat to beat all gnats. Her quickness always a thorn in the opponent’s side . . . ]
[And here likely another steal by her . . . ]
[Well, our aggressive defense does lead to a lot of fouls . . . ]
[Here Jonesie chases down a Warrior . . . ]
[Maybe a good spot for a little live game action . . . ]
[Here’s Mia on a breakaway . . . ]
[She was fouled . . . ]
[A shoots a freebie accordingly . . . ]
[Kaye: Oh, yeah . . . ]
[Kaye and Cate as backcourters. Because of the pace of play, the Cards play a lot of players – coming in in groups of 3, 4, 5 . . . ]
[I believe this is junior center Larissa Lamb . . . ]
[At the half – the Cards spurted to the end . . . ]
[THREE!!]
[Cards inbound under their basket . . . ]
[Mia inbounds; Ella again gets caught in the camera’s wrong focus point . . . ]
[Kaye and Ella bring it up . . . ]
[The energizer . . . ]
[And shooting a freebie . . . ]
[Then Jonesie . . . ]
[We played to our strengths, three 6-footers on the front line rebounded well, and the whippet guards create turnovers. As I recall, McKenzie had 19 points with good inside position, Kaye and Mia had 12 and 11, respectively. We’ll be a tough out this year.]
[p.s. Did we ever tell you about Thanksgiving dinner in a champagne flute at the winery?]
Upon hearing this is Kohler’s 33rd year at the helm of the Cardinals, several subpoenaed her Kenyan birth certificate for verification . . .
Up Next: Back to Spain . . .
alexandriacardinals2.wordpress.com 