A day before our last school game of the year, we found out that due to a few injuries and a couple of academic ineligibilities, all five of our eighth graders were going to be moving up to the C Squad to play with whatever players they had left for the last two games of the year.  They were very exited to hear this news and are anxious for the experience.  There are a couple of them that deserved to be given a chance to move up at the beginning of the year, as they were talented enough to do so.  RTR is one of the few school districts around this area that does not allow seventh and eighth graders to be moved up to varsity level sports, except in special circumstances such as this.  I have spoken to a number of coaches of teams we have played this year, and just about all of them lost at least one, if not multiple players to the varsity teams.  I applaud all schools that allow this to be done at the discretion of a good coaching staff.  If a player is good enough to play at the varsity level as an underclassmen or even a middle schooler, then they should be allowed to.  Teams only hurt themselves by doing otherwise.  Some of the promising athletes that go through our school, do not get varsity experience until their later high school years, which steals valuable experience and limits potential.  Sports are supposed to be competitive and if someone is better than you, then you should not be upset that they are playing in front of you, age aside.  It is about who works the hardest to become a better player and has the superior skills, at least at the varsity level.  The older you get, the more cutthroat sports are.

    On Thursday night of last week, I decided to travel the whole seven miles down Highway 14 to Lake Benton, MN where the Elkton/Lake Benton boys basketball team was taking on Arlington, SD.  This team plays a South Dakota schedule and playoffs because their main school is in Elkton, SD, but they play a few home games a year in Lake Benton, so I figured with my busy schedule, this would be a good game to watch them play.  It took a little bit to get used to playing four quarters instead of two halfs, as it is played in Minnesota.  They have a very good squad that also has some depth off the bench, which tends to pay off around playoff time.  They rely heavily on about four players for a majority of their scoring and rely on basically two people to handle the ball.  They differ in that way from my hometown RTR team for those reasons.  I would really enjoy being able to watch those two teams play each other, because I feel that it would be a very competitive game and fun to watch.  The game was a back and forth affair with neither team taking a commanding lead in the game, but a late surge by Elkton/Lake Benton along with some good shooting from the foul line, gave them a ten point victory. 

    Last night, I attended the boys high school basketball game in my hometown of Tyler where the RTR Knights played host to the Canby Lancers.  RTR was 19-1 on the season going into the game and Canby was 15-3.  I have attended many of the games played since I graduated and have felt that the competition has been somewhat down in recent years.  I graduated in 2007 and was a member of two state title teams and two teams that lost close games to Ellsworth to go to state.  Both of those years, Ellsworth went on to win the title.  The game last night, however, had an atmosphere that I have not felt since I was on the floor.  Canby is a physical team that can shoot the lights out at any second and also has one really good player down low.  RTR has a very strong starting five, and any or all of them can score a ton on any given night.  When it was all said and done, RTR notched another victory with a final score of 75-66.  The score does not even describe how close this game was all the way through.  Canby got off to a hot start with five early three pointers and took an early lead.  By halftime though, RTR had built its way back into the game and took a five point lead to the locker room.  Canby came out strong in the second half and cut down the lead and from there the lead see-sawed back and forth.  With little over nine minutes still left in the game, Canby's best threat at post fouled out of the game, which was a huge blow to the team's comeback chances.  They never gave up though, as they mounted a late comback that saw the game down to two points difference late.  After a timeout, that should have been taken when the lead was cut to six at the very latest, RTR came out strong and composed and finished off their opponent by knocking down a few late shots and hitting all their free throws down the distance.  The game was very physical, with three players fouling out and as many as seven more with three or four fouls.  The atmosphere was very intense and the refs had a very tough job and I thought they made a few bad calls against both teams, but they were only trying to keep the game from getting out of hand (which they did) and calls were made fairly both ways, good and bad.  I will likely have a blog later completely about reffing, as I have done that as well as coach for seven years. 

    I have been extremely busy these past two weeks with basketball.  We have played five games in the past six days and have another game against Canby on Thursday.  Three of those games were played on Saturday up in Dawson in an eighth grade tournament against Minneota, Lakeview, and Milbank.  Last night, our seventh and eighth grade teams played against Tracy-Milroy-Balaton and we were handed a loss in the seventh grade game, but were able to pull away late and beat them in the eighth grade game.  The RTR girls varsity basketball team and coaches came to watch the the games, which I think may have made a number of the girls on both teams quite nervous and their play showed it at times.  I am hoping for two victories tomorrow against Canby, although I know they will be tough games.  After that, we have a few practices scheduled for next week, as we are playing in the eighth grade tournament in Marshall on February 17th.  I am certain that we will see some tough competition there as well.