SPORTSBEAT with Peter Jakey

Onaway — With the football tournament trail ending in Marquette last Friday, another starts with the girls basketball district tournaments being played throughout Michigan. “What?” my wife Lisa said Tuesday. “I’m going to lose you again on Friday?” “Yes,” I answered. “If Posen wins its game, I’ll be in Atlanta. That’s not far.” It’s not like Rock, Marquette, or Pickford, I explained. She wasn’t hearing any of it. The tournament trail is starting to wear on my wife. Although she went with me to Marquette over the weekend, we wished each other “Happy Anniversary” from the charter bus traveling home from Rock on November 5.

The lady Hurons hope to be playing on Friday night for a district championship. They had to get by a tough Mio team (Wednesday) that didn’t lose any of its conference games. Rogers City should have a size advantage against the Thunderbolts and advance. The tough team appears to be Whittemore-Prescott. Coach Karl Grambau said W-P has some good athletes who like to turn up the defensive pressure. On Monday W-P upended Inland Lakes, who got by the Hurons last Thursday. Rogers City got off to a tremendous start in its opening-round game, stifling county neighbor Onaway, 53-11. The defense limited the Cardinals to the second-lowest point output in the state Tuesday.

I scanned the scores from all four classes on M-Live Wednesday morning and found only one game with a wider point margin and a lower scoring output by the losing squad. Beal City defeated Big Rapids Crossroads Academy, 58-6. Onaway’s 11 tied with Arenac Eastern, which lost to Bay City All Saints. Onaway didn’t break into double digits until the fourth quarter and that was with the Huron starters watching the action from the bench. I like Onaway coach Marty Mix, and hope he can turn that program around, but 2004 was another long season for the Cardinals in basketball.

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Marquette — In the Yooper Dome, where the Dome Dogs are worth every penny, there was quite a scene following Posen’s regional championship loss. The image I can’t get out of my head is coach Glenn Budnick talking to his players after the game, as he traditionally does. What made this post-game huddle different is that family members and students were on the dome turf to console their gridiron heroes and gathered around Budnick, like one big family. That’s the way it is with a school like Posen. Forest Park coach Bill Santilli, who played on the 1975 state champion team and was the star running back against Posen 29 years ago, showed a lot of class. After his players had shaken the hands of all the Viking players, he saw Matt Ponik emerge on crutches and told his players to run over and shake his hand as well. They all did.

Matt Ponik is healing his strained knee. He was injured in the second quarter of the regional championship game while trying to score a two-point conversion. He looked to have a step on the defense, but was hit out of bounds one yard short of the goal line. Ponik, who doesn’t remember how he strained the ligaments in the knee, didn’t return. He has had an MRI earlier this week, which brought reassuring news, as there are no tears. The boys basketball season doesn’t start until December 7, so he plans to rest it until then. Winning the last Kromel Award of the season is Richie Kroll with 11 solo tackles. The defense spent a lot of time on the field and worked hard. James Sobek had eight tackles and earns the maximum of four defensive stars. Continued next week…

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With all the quarterback changes in the NFL, why haven’t we heard anything about the Lions? Other than Eddie Drummond’s punt returns, the only excitement I found Sunday w

as waiting to see if a new quarterback was going to come from the sideline. It never happened. The Detroit passing game has been struggling for a while, in part due to injuries. Will head coach Steve Mariucci make a change at quarterback if the passing game doesn’t improve? “We expect a certain level of competence and performance at any level that is continuously evaluated, so we are doing that. We’ve seen Joey (Harrington) play better than that; we’ve seen our team play better than that. We’ve got to figure out how to get him playing at his optimal level,” the head coach said.

I think he’s been given enough chances and Mike McMahon needs to be given a shot at shaking things up.

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