Eagles see good teams at tourney

NEW ULM -- "Our only disappointment in the (Blake Tournament) was that we did not play as well as we felt we could against Blake (a 7-1 loss by New Ulm in the first round)," said New Ulm High School head hockey coach Tom Macho.

His team went on to defeat Orono and St. Thomas Academy to capture the consolation title in the tournament. "We kind of fell apart a little bit in the third period of that (Blake) game."

Macho commented that both goaltenders, Isaac Forstner and Gary Wurtzberger, "played solid. We used them both and they played well. That was nice to see."

Macho was also very happy with the first line of Jamie Hoffmann, Travis Thorson and Brent Clyne. "They really had some good games."

Macho said that his Eagles, now 7-1 on the season, "stayed with Blake for quite a while. We made some mistakes, and we learned that if you make some mistakes against good teams you will pay for them."

The Eagles bounced back to top Orono. "We learned in that game that we had to adjust to the physical part of the game; that (physical) part of the game wa something that we were not familiar with. After the Blake game, we made that adjustment. We learned to play that physical game that is played in the Twin City area as compared to out here."

Macho said that his team was "not intimidated by Blake. It was more excitement of playing in a tournament of that caliber and I think that we kind of got ourselves in pushing too hard. They (Blake) scored two shorthanded goals in that third period and part of that was that we were pushing and gave up some easy goals. But we learned from that and kept on going."

Against Orono and St. Thomas, Macho commented that "even if they did score and we had a little adversity, we learned to come back from that."

HOFFMANN ,CLYNE PLAYING WELL: Macho was pleased with the play of Hoffmann, who scored a hat trick in the win over St. Thomas Academy. "He is playing well. Both he and Brent Clyne played well. Clyne had three goals against Orono and Hoffmann had all the assists, and against St. Thomas, Hoffmann had three goals and Clyne had all the assists ... those two work well together."

Macho was pleased with the play of Chris Reinarts in the tournament. "He had a goal against St.Thomas and he is getting to feeling more comfortable now," said Macho. "No matter what it is, if you are a sophomore coming up from playing bantams, it takes a while to adjust to that. We put him in the frying pan right away. He is beginning to find the openings now and he is learning both sides of the game. He is coming along well."

BIG GAME THURSDAY: Macho felt that this tournament prepared the Eagles well for a huge game this Thursday at 7:30 when New Ulm hosts Rochester Lourdes, who is ranked fourth in Class 1A.

"It will be a battle," commented Macho. "We had two people (Brandon Rolloff with a knee and Kyle Marti with shoulder problem) who were injured for that last game and we kept them out of the game with St.Thomas because we want to have everyone healthy for that (Lourdes) game."

Macho feels that his team has to "play a very close checking game. They have a couple of kids who can really handle the puck. We cannot play the wide-open style that we have been playing. We learned that against teams in the tournament. We need to stay close to the players and play closer to the vest and backcheck. The key is if our defensemen can slow them down so that our forwards can do some backchecking."

HOUNDS TAKE FOURTH IN BETHANY: Cathedral head basketball coach Dan Wolfe was pleased with some aspects of their play in the Bethany Tournament, where CHS finished fourth.

"Against St. Clair (a 76-39 win by the Hounds), we did a nice job of putting a lot of defensive pressure on a young ballclub and forced a lot of turnovers which generated a lot of offense for us," said Wolfe. "Against Loyola (a 47-37 loss), a team with a lot of quickness, I thought that we did a nice job of slowing down the tempo and keeping them in a half-court game and holding them to 47 points. Unfortunately, we could not put the ball in the basket."

Wolfe said that carried over to the Maple River game (a 56-45 loss). "We have not shot the ball well all season. We will work on that this week; we need to work on the timing of our offense."

DEFENSE SOLID FOR HOUNDS: Wolfe said that the first part of this season his team has stressed defense. "We feel good about our defense," he said. "We have established ourselves defensively. We are only giving up 49 points a game in the first seven games. Now, we need to work on our offense. One of the things that we need to work on is our free-throw shooing. That has not been our strength this year. Generally, we are solid from there but this year, it has been a place where we have struggled. We are shooting only 54 percent ... we need to improve that."

Wolfe felt that senior guard Will Moeller, who made the All-Tournament team, played well in all three games "both offensively and defensively. He was in double figures all three games and did a good job on the defensive board and had his fair share of steals and assists."

But Wolfe said that his team needs more consistency out of his post players, but feels that that will come along when they stress that more.

PLAYED MORE ZONE: The Hounds, now 3-4 on the season, played more zone defense in the tournament "because we wanted to save some legs because of the three games in four days. The first thing to go when your legs are tired is your shooting, and the last two games showed that. We were competitive in all games.

"We are not far away. Nine of our 11 players have not played a lot of varsity ball so it was a good chance for our coaching staff to evaluate going into the strength of the (Tomahawk) conference."

BIEBL MOVES INTO STARTING LINEUP: Wolfe said that they have moved Hans Biebl into the starting lineup. "I think that he has responded very well," said Wolfe. "He does a lot of intangible things that do not show up in the box score. He has a real good presence around the court and is a very bright player. He does a lot of things to help make plays. His confidence level has improved."

MORGAN LIKES DEFENSE: MVL head coach Craig Morgan, who saw his Chargers win the consolation crown at Bethany and improve to 5-2 overall, was happy with the play of his team's defense especially against Le Sueur-Henderson (a 59-47 win). "I was happy with that defense, especially in the fourth quarter (a 21-5 MVL advantage). The guys pressured the ball more and played all-around good team defense."

Another aspect of the Charger game that pleased Morgan was the balance scoring of the Chargers as three different players (Danny Liggett, who was named to the All-Tournament team, Tom Metzger and Jason Lohmiller) led the team in scoring.

"I think that we have gotten back to what happened last year in that no one cares who scores now and any night any guy can step up," commented Morgan. "Danny was very consistent for us and Jason has come on well and given us some rebounding."

Morgan felt that Metzger "did a nice job in the tournament, especially defensively. Between him and Liggett, they are doing to get the opposing team's better players. They step it up nice."

Dan Unke saw his first basketball action this season, playing a minute or so in each quarter the first game and getting 2-3 minutes in the fourth quarter. "He got more each game and he is looking stronger each game."

Morgan was also happy with the rebounding of his team. "This tournament for us, I have seen a lot of improvement. Our rebounding was better and we limited (opponents) to one shot. We are ready to come back to conference play."

Column by Jim Bastian, Journal sports writer