Dickinson State Basketball Recruit

The men’s basketball program at Dickinson State has announced it’s 2008 recruiting class and one of the incoming players is from northeast Montana.  Plentywood High’s Andrew Rickett signed his letter of intent to play for coach Ty Orton starting next season.  A 6-1 shooting guard, Rickett averaged 19 points and 4 and a half rebounds and 4 assists a game for the Wildcats.  He was named to the Class B All-State team as a senior and last year as a junior he was the MVP of the state tournament as Plentywood finished second to Huntley Project.  Orton says he’s very excited to have a player like Rickett joining his program. 

Hi-Line Hoops Basketball Camp

Summer brings basketball camps to schools across the region. The 11th annual Hi-Line Hoops Camp is coming to Culbertson June 2nd, 3rd and 4th. It’s run by Hinsdale native and current Rocky Mountain College Men’s coach Bill Dreikosen. It’s for both boys and girls in grades 1 through high school seniors. The 1st through sixth graders will have their sessions from nine to noon while the junior high and high school players will run from 1 to 4pm. If you need more information contact Coach Dreikosen at 406-860-3133 or dreikosw@rocky.edu or Kris Dreikosen at the Culbertson School at 787-6241.

Camp registration forms are available at schools in Culbertson, Bainville,  Brockton, Medicine Lake, Froid, Fairview and at the Sidney Elementary & Middle Schools.

Plentywood seeks coach

The Plentywood Wildcats are searching for a new head coach to guide their boys basketball program.  Rob Peterson has stepped down after guiding the team for the past several years and doing it very successfully.  His 2006-07 team finished 2nd at the State B, losing in the championship game to the Huntley Project Red Devils.  Peterson is also the principal at PHS and his administrative duties required too much time to do justice to continuing as the head basketball coach.

Eagle 93 Sports – Tuesday April 8

The Memphis Tigers had a nine point lead on Kansas with 2 minutes left to play in regulation last night at the NCAA men’s basketball championship.  Seemed like it might be party time on Beale Street, but the Jayhawks had other thoughts.  They battled back and Mario Chambers hit a three with under 3 seconds to play to force the OT.  Kansas dominated in the overtime period to win the school’s third NCAA National Championship 75-68.  Tonight, the women take the court as Stanford and Tennesee battle it out in Tampa. 

Speaking of college basketball, freshman Eric Gordon of Indiana is going to end his college career and enter the NBA draft.  Gordon’s father says the 6-4 guard intends to sign with an agent which would officially end his college eligibility.  At a news conference, the younger Gordon says he’s making the move to compete at the highest level, not for the fame or the money.  He’s been projected by some as a top-10 pick in the June NBA Draft. 

The Montana Class B All-State boys and girls basketball teams have been announced.  The Plentywood Wildcats landed two players on the boys list.  Both are seniors, Zach McCoy and Andrew Rickett.  No girls from our area made the honors list. 

The Sidney Eagles softball team is on the road this afternoon.  The Eagles are heading south to Glendive to take on the Red Devils in both varsity and junior varsity games at 4 and 5:30pm.  Friday the girls head to Laurel for two more Eastern A conference games, one against the Locomotives and another against Billings Central. 

The Eagles Track teams are heading to Billings Friday after school.  The Billings Invitational will be held all day Saturday. 

The Sidney Chamber’s Sports & Rec Committee is bringing a fun show to Eastern Montana later this month. The Harlem Ambassadors will take on the Sunrise City Slammers Tuesday April 15th at the Sidney High School Gym at 7pm.  The Ambassadors promise that this won’t be your grandfather’s basketball show! Advance tickets are available at the Sidney Chamber Office or at Super Pumper in Sidney.  The Chamber is using this game as a fundraiser to help finance bringing more high school tournaments to Sidney and Richland County. 

American League  

12:05PM

Baltimore (5-1) at Texas (3-3)

Detroit (0-6) at Boston (3-4) 

2:10PM

New York Yankees (4-3) at Kansas City (4-2) 

5:07PM

Oakland (3-4) at Toronto (4-2) 

5:10PM

Seattle (2-5) at Tampa Bay (3-3) 

8:05PM

Cleveland (3-4) at Los Angeles Angels (5-3) 

National League 

11:10AM

Philadelphia (3-4) at New York Mets (2-3) 

6:05PM

Cincinnati (4-3) at Milwaukee (5-1)

Saint Louis (5-2) at Houston (3-5) 

6:35PM

Atlanta (3-4) at Colorado (2-5) 

7:40PM

Los Angeles Dodgers (4-3) at Arizona (5-2) 

8:15PM

San Diego (5-3) at San Francisco (1-6) 

 

Jayhawks Horoscope

I wish I had found this before the game, but it’s still interesting.  Apparently the stars aligned for the Kansas Jayhawks tonight.  Monica at AstrologyMundo says she predicted last week that KU would win tonight’s NCAA Championship.

I’m just reporting what she says.  You decide if you believe her.

Dave

What’s up with this Rock Chalk Jayhawk stuff?

If you watched the Jayhawks beat Memphis tonight you might have wondered where did they come up with this “Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk” cheer.

The answer goes back to 1866…the KU Science Club was returning to campus at Lawrence after a trip to Wichita. To pass the time, the advisor suggested they devise a cheer. Now this is 4 years before there was a Jayhawks football team and basketball hadn’t been invented yet, so what they were going to cheer, I’m not sure. But they came up with “Rah, Rah, Jayhawk KU” repeated three times. It caught on and later the English professor suggested they replace “Rah, Rah” with “Rock Chalk” because it rhymed with Jayhawk and it brought up images of the limestone bluffs the school was built on that were called “Chalk Rock”.

That’s the short version, there’s a little more to the story if you click on the link above. It will open another window to a website maintained by some big time KU Jayhawks fans.

Rock, Chalk, Jayhawks Champs!

The Memphis Tigers had a nine point lead on Kansas with 2 minutes left to play in regulation.  Seemed like it might be party time on Beale Street, but the Jayhawks had other thoughts.  They battled back and Mario Chambers hit a three with under 3 seconds to play to force the OT.  Kansas dominated in the overtime period to win the school’s third NCAA National Championship 75-68.

Final Four Prediction Update

About 5:15pm today I was listening to Rocky Erickson’s sportscast on Eagle 93 and he made his championship prediction.  I wasn’t in a position to post anything at the time and I just remembered that I had said to myself that I should include Rocky’s pick on the Eagle 93 Sports Blog.  So now that the game is almost over, I’m doing just that.  I also forgot what score Rocky predicted, but I distinctly remember he picked Kansas over Memphis and he claims to have picked Kansas from the start of the tournament.  Rocky is a pretty honest guy so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

I’m sure if Rocky is right he’ll be talking about it in the morning.  You can hear him at 10:41am & 5:15pm daily on Eagle 93.

PS:  Hey Rocky, I blogged about you just like you asked.  What are you going to do for me in return????

Harlem Ambassadors

The Sidney Chamber’s Sports & Rec Committee is bringing a fun show to Eastern Montana later this month. The Harlem Ambassadors will take on the Sunrise City Slammers Tuesday April 15th at the Sidney High School Gym at 7pm.

The Ambassadors promise that this won’t be your grandfather’s basketball show! Advance tickets are available at the Sidney Chamber Office or at Super Pumper in Sidney.

The roster has been announced for the Sunrise City Slammers. Leading them will be Captain Jeremy Norby of Seitz Insurance. The rest of the roster is as follows:

John Skinner – Sidney Middle School

Rick Haraldson – Sidney Health Center

Jennie Shriver – Fairview High School Girls Basketball Head Coach

Kara Watson – Lambert High School

Mary Leibach – Sidney Grade School

Brian Milne – Interstate Engineering

Benji Berg – Geo Drilling Fluids

Bob Christie – Old Dominion (Formerly Bob’s Pickup & Delivery)

Brad Baisch – Richland County Sheriff

Rev. Josh Magyar – Pella Lutheran Church

Bart Raflich – Savage High School

Tickets will also be available at the door.

Here’s a taste of what the Ambassadors show is like.  The video comes from a performance last fall in York, Nebraska.

Irony at the library

Today (Sat. 4-5), I was relaxing a bit and took a trip to the library.  I picked up a copy of a magazine called “Montana Quarterly”.  It’s a slick publication out of Bozeman…lots of color photos and well written stories.  In the Spring 2008 issue on the stands now is a feature article on former University of Montana Grizzly basketball player Mike Chavez.

His story is one that is inspiring.  Growing up in a very dysfunctional family on a couple of Montana’s poorest reservations, he was able to maintain a B average in high school, lead Heart Butte and then Browning to state titles and earn tournament MVP honors in both the Class C and Class A ranks.  He didn’t drink until just before starting his freshman year in college, despite what his peers and family was doing.  But once he took his first drink, it wasn’t long before he had spiraled out of control, eventually getting booted from the Grizzly team and losing his scholarship.

But after spending six months in a rehab program in Washington State, Chavez came back to UM and regained a spot on the team, although he didn’t receive any scholarship money from either the school or the tribes.  He’s now got his life back on track.

A story for the big screen?  Or maybe at least a Lifetime movie of the week?  I don’t know, but it is heartening to read of successes in athletics after hearing stories of all the prima donnas out there.

The ironic twist I hinted at in the title of this blog posting comes now.  As I finished reading the story on Mike Chavez, I turned the page and what do I find?  A feature story about “Moose Drool” beer.  I kid you not.  The editor of the Montana Quarterly must have laid out the magazine after coming back to the office following the Super Bowl Party.

It’s not the end of the world, but I did have to shake my head a bit.  I just had finished reading a story about one man’s triumph over alcohol in his life and the next article is about a local brewery’s triumph at the taps.

I’d link you to the story, but apparently Montana Quarterly doesn’t post any of their content online.  There’s just a basic website where you can subscribe or write a letter to the editor.

If you would like to read a little more about Mike Chavez, check out this article by Jody Rave of the Lee Newspapers.  She had a nice piece on Mike that appeared in the Missoulian.