Lots O’ Stuff

Holiday tournaments are back

This week’s edition of Lots O’ Stuff is brought to by the Miller High Life Gingerbread Dive Bar Kit. This is a real thing, complete with a sticky floor.

After a one-year absence, holiday tournaments are back this week for wrestling, basketball and hockey teams in Minnesota.

Last year’s events were not held as the start of the winter sports season was delayed until after the first of the year.

Jackson County Central’s teams will head to familiar locations to compete during winter break.

The wrestling team will head to Fargo for the Rumble on the Red, while both the girls and boys basketball teams have a shorter trip to Blue Earth for the Buccaneers’ annual holiday tournament.

Both of those events are being held on Wednesday and Thursday.

The only Martin County West team in action this week is the boys basketball team, which goes to a new venue as the Mavericks play in the Russell-Tyler-Ruthton tournament Tuesday and Wednesday.

Also, the Windom Area boys hockey team plays in a three-day tournament at Little Falls Tuesday-Thursday.

Rumble on the Red

This will be the 15th Rumble on the Red at the Fargodome. It’s billed as the largest high school sanctioned event in the country with 65 teams from five states scheduled to compete.

Wrestling on 22 mats starts at 10 a.m. Wednesday and 9 a.m. Thursday.

The event was founded by and continues to be directed by Pipestone native Steve Saxlund.

He won the 160-pound Class A state for the Arrows in 1996 and went on to win three NCAA Division II titles at North Dakota State. Saxlund won at 167 pounds in 1998 and at 184 in both 2000 and 2001.

Steve was inducted into the Minnesota High School Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame with his high school coach and father, Dick Saxlund, in 2017.

Jackson County Central won the team title at the Rumble in its second year, 2007.

Here’s the list of teams scheduled to compete in the Rumble on the Red:

Minnesota

• Aitkin

• Albert Lea

• Big Lake

• Byron

• Coon Rapids

• Crookston

• Dassel-Cokato/Litchfield

• Delano

• Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton

• Eagan

• Faribault

• Foley

• Forest Lake

• Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted

• Jackson County Central

• Kimball

• Lakeville North

• Mahnomen-Waubun

• Mankato West

• Medford

• Moorhead

• Mounds View

• New Prague

• Perham

• Pine Island

• Prior Lake

• Royalton/Upsala

• Sartell-St. Stephen

• Stillwater

• St. Cloud Tech/Apollo

• St. Francis

• Thief River Falls

• Tri-City United

• United (Dawson-Boyd/Lac qui Parle Valley)

• United North Central

• Waconia

• Wayzata

• Windom/Mountain Lake

• Woodbury

North Dakota

• Bismarck Century

• Bismarck High

• Bismarck Legacy

• Bismarck St. Mary's

• Central Carrington

• Dickinson

• Ellendale/Edgeley/Kulm

• Fargo Davies

• Fargo North

• Fargo South

• Grafton

• Grand Forks Red River

• Hettinger/Scranton

• Jamestown

• Kindred

• Minot

• Oakes

• Rugby

• Watford City

• West Fargo

• West Fargo-Sheyenne

South Dakota

• Custer

• Rapid City Stevens

California

• Carter

• Fountain Valley

Nebraska

• Grand Island

After the Rumble on the Red, the Huskies go to a large dual-meet tournament as they head to Rochester Jan. 7-8 to compete in The Clash National High School Duals XIX.

That event draws 32 teams from nine states. Pairings have not been determined. Look for more on that tournament in a future newsletter.

BEA basketball

JCC’s basketball teams return to the Blue Earth Area tournament.

Both teams face United South Central in the opening round Wednesday, with the girls playing at 1 p.m. and the boys at about 2:30.

The championship and third-place games are scheduled for Thursday.

There is also a B squad tournament played at Pemberton Auditorium at BEA Middle School, where a lot of District 5 and Region 2 tournaments were played back in the day.

VARSITY SCHEDULE
Girls
Wednesday, Dec. 29
First round
United South Central (0-6) vs Jackson County Central (6-2), 1 p.m.
Blue Earth Area (2-5) vs. Truman/Martin Luther/Granada-Huntley-East Chain (3-2), 5 p.m.
Thursday, Dec. 30
Third place
First-round losers, 1 p.m.
Championship
First-round winners, 2:30 p.m.

Boys
Wednesday, Dec. 29
First round
United South Central (2-4) vs Jackson County Central (3-3), 2:30 p.m.
Blue Earth Area (3-2) vs. Truman/Martin Luther/Granada-Huntley-East Chain (4-2), 6:30 p.m.
Thursday, Dec. 30
Third place
First-round losers, 5 p.m.
Championship
First-round winners, 6:30 p.m.

RTR tournament

The Martin County West boys basketball team will go to Tyler, where Russell-Tyler-Ruthton is hosting a tournament in its new school facility.

MCW will be involved in a matchup of ranked teams in the opening round at 2 p.m. Tuesday when the seventh-ranked Mavericks face ninth-ranked Hancock.

The Mavericks are 5-0, outscoring their opponents 61.6-39.6.

The Owls are 3-1. They lost their first game of the season to No. 2 Central Minnesota Christian before wins over Parkers Prairie, MACCRAY and Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley.

In the other first-round game, the host Knights take on Benson. The championship and third-place games are on Wednesday.

There is also a B-squad tournament.

Incidentally, thanks to Darren Baartman for the information on the RTR tournament.

The hard-working Baartman emailed that info at 11:23 on a Saturday night. He has a busy schedule as he is Dean of Students/Athletic Director/Community Education Director, head softball coach and assistant football coach at RTR.

Baartman was head football coach for the final year of Jackson High School in 1996 and the first two years of Jackson County Central in 1997 and 1998. Each of those Huskies teams advanced to the Prep Bowl.

RTR TOURNAMENT
Tuesday, Dec. 28
First round
Hancock (3-1) vs. Martin County West (5-0), 2 p.m.
Benson (2-3) vs. Russell-Tyler-Ruthton (4-1), 4 p.m.
Wednesday, Dec. 29
Third place
First-round losers, 4 p.m.
Championship
First-round winners, 6 p.m.

Little Falls hockey

The Windom Area boys hockey team will play in a four-team round-robin tournament Tuesday-Thursday at Exchange Arena in Little Falls.

The Eagles, 5-4 on the season, will play Wadena-Deer Creek at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Northern Lakes at 5 p.m. Wednesday and the host and Class A third-ranked Flyers at 7 p.m. Thursday.

WDC is 6-3, Little Falls is 9-0 after advancing to the semifinals of last year’s state Class A tournament, and Northern Lakes is 4-2.

The Northern Lakes Lightning is a cooperatively sponsored program involving students from Pequot Lakes, Aitkin, Crosby-Ironton, and Pine River-Backus.

LITTLE FALLS TOURNAMENT
Tuesday, Dec. 28
Windom Area (5-4) vs. Wadena-Deer Creek (6-3), 3 p.m.
Little Falls (9-0) vs. Northern Lakes (4-2), 7 p.m.
Wednesday, Dec. 29
Windom Area vs. Northern Lakes, 5 p.m.
Little Falls vs. Wadena-Deer Creek, 7 p.m.
Thursday, Dec. 30
Wadena-Deer Creek vs. Northern Lakes, 3 p.m.
Windom Area vs. Little Falls, 7 p.m.

Jackson holiday tournament

Writing about those holiday tournaments brought back memories of the Jackson Holiday Basketball Tournaments of the 1980s and 90s, although those were completed the weekend before Christmas.

That was the largest high school basketball tournament in the state with 32 teams as there were varsity and B-squad girls and boys tournaments with eight teams in each division.

First-round games were played at home court sites.

The final three days were then played in Jackson, with varsity games at the high school and B-squad games at Jackson Middle School, which was the former high school and would later become the Jackson County Resource Center.

The 32 teams would play 32 games in Jackson over those three days.

Then there would be eight games (two varsity girls, two varsity boys, two B-squad girls and two B-squad boys) on Thursday and Friday, followed by 16 games on Saturday (four varsity girls, four varsity boys, four B-squad girls and four B-squad boys).

To get all the games in, the Tyrone Wacker Speedup Rules were used although they may not have always greeted warmly.

Teams were occasionally limited to 10 minutes between games and halftime breaks were generally seven minutes and I’m pretty sure sometimes only five depending on the time of day and score of the game.

In the couple years I was in town for the tournament attendance varied. The gym would be pretty full at times, especially for the last two games.

At other times, not so much.

There was a seventh-place girls game between Jackson and Martin Luther scheduled for a 10:00 start on a Saturday morning that Tyrone had ready to tip off at 9:55.

When the game started the only people in the gym other than players, coaches, table workers and officials were me, taking pictures for a local newspaper; and Larry Anderson, doing play-by-play for a local radio station. A few parents did trickle in after tip off.