Intensity

I LOVED these hair scrunchies the Le Mars wrestling cheerleaders were sporting at Thursday's double dual in Cherokee.

The Gehlen girls collected a 36-32 WEC win over St. Mary's in the first game of the evening.

Rachel Tilley was 3-of-4 from the charity stripe in the last 12 seconds to seal the win. The senior grabbed a steal after scoring her first two FTs to return to the line.

After the game, as I waited patiently for the girls to shower and get beautiful, I observed one of the most hilarious things ever - a crowd of St. Mary's students (boys and girls) singing at the top of their lungs and dancing along to the Miley Cyrus song "Party in the USA". Pretty funny stuff.

But not as funny as when Tilley walked out of the locker room a few minutes later. Seeing me waiting with my recorder in hand, she asked me who I wanted to talk to and when I said, "You" she replied, "If I would have known that, I would have stayed in the locker room!"

I'm pretty sure the two things Tilley hates the most are 1) me interviewing her after games and 2) having her picture in the paper.

She asked me to put an equally "awful" photo of Tyler Meyer in the paper, but I didn't have the heart to tell her that boys aren't quite as self-conscious about their facial expressions in sports photos.

In the boys game, the Hawks poured in 7 3-point baskets in the first eight minutes - including three from senior Skyler Higgins - and clawed out a 47-44 win in the waning seconds of the game.

First year coaches Scott Ruden and Joe Schroeder were giddy as I tried to interview them after the win. Ruden told me it's been two years since the Hawks have garnered a War Eagle Conference win and now they have two. They also have five wins on the season - that's two more than last year's regular season and one more than their overall record from a year ago.

Roughly translated, this means that the CYO tournament will be quite a thriller as RSM and Gehlen square off in the first round and Storm Lake St. Mary's is receiving votes (as is Gehlen) in the AP poll.

One final note - I covered my first wrestling of the year last night in Cherokee. The Bulldogs split the double dual, defeating the hosts.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Moville with Jesse to cover the Hinton basketball teams as they take on Woodbury Central.

And I'm forcing Jesse into some shopping first :)