A brief word on high school sports

This is a great time of year for a lot of things - like when Will goes out later today and brings home a lot of candy for me, er, him to enjoy - especially high school sports. I realize most of you won't care about the next four paragraphs, but I wanted to get them down somewhere.

-Our Iola-Scandinavia Thunderbirds rolled to the third round of the football playoffs with a 43-7 win over Manitowoc Lutheran. For those of you who don't know, I live right down the street from the football field, which is set in a beautiful location for high school football - a forest beyond the north end zone, Silver Lake beyond the east sideline - and yesterday was an atmosphere out of a movie script. Little drama - we've got some really talented skill players - but a great game nonetheless. Next up is a matchup with Stevens Point Pacelli, which, like most private school teams that have success, hears lots of grumbling about its money and recruiting. Should be a great game next weekend.

-Waupaca, the defending Division 3 state champs, lost to Mosinee 21-16 yesterday, burned by turnovers. Last year Comets' state championship win had one of those TV-type endings, with a last-second touchdown pass. Not in the cards this year, but another nice year (9-2) for a great program.

-West Bend East's season ended Tuesday with a loss to DePere. Seems the Suns entered the fourth quarter with a 26-25 lead and lost 62-26. Ouch. But it's good to see East back in the playoffs under Tony Michels, who was my eighth grade coach.

-Finally, and this one makes me smile more than the others: the West Bend East volleyball team is going back to state for the first time since 2001. Awesome! I think anyone our age or a little younger can tell you that being around that program in the '90s under Lynn LaPorte and then Kurt Shermacher was pretty cool. The girls were ranked nationally by USA Today, seemingly played for the state title every year.

Of course, Andy and I had a closer view than normal, what with Sara being a three-year starter. One of my fondest high school memories was in 1993, Sara's sophomore year, when the school turned out in Oshkosh for state, awesome crowd. Much like the baseball program, there were better teams that followed, but that '93 team set the tone.

One cool side note: Sara is now the JV coach at Menomonee Falls, which is also headed to state after being the #1 team in the Milwaukee area most of the season. Maybe a road trip to Green Bay is in the cards this weekend.