The Austin boys avenged an early January loss to Mankato East last night with a 60-51 win over the Cougars.
It was senior night, in a matter of speaking, as Max Coffee, Jay Ettinger, and Andrew Kaiser each scored 9 for the Packers, while Zach Fadness added 8. Joe Aase led the scoring with 14, Zach Wessels had 6 and Tom Aase 5.
Here’s the Austin Daily Herald story.
To the highlights:
The Packers travel to Mankato on Friday to take on West.
Here’s our next voyage in the way-back machine, to March 26, 1981. As we left off, the Packers were down 31-24 at halftime to Minneapolis North, the undefeated defending state champions who were riding a 41-game winning streak.
Unfortunately, I can’t show you the first four minutes of the second half, because during halftime of our game the coverage switched to Williams Arena, where the Class A quarterfinals were being played. I’m confident that on March 4 when we have our 30-year reunion we will hear wildly differing recollections of how we clawed our way back into contention, but as we pick up the action below, we had scored three unanswered buckets (no such thing as a trey in the day) to close the gap to 31-30.
Here’s all the good stuff from the rest of the action, and some shots from the crowd that will bring back memories, too:
Next week we’ll have highlights from the 1981 state semifinals against another undefeated team, Chaska.
We look forward to the reunion of the 1981 team on March 4, which coincides with this year’s Packer team playing its last regular season game against Rochester Century before starting its tournament run.
The Austin Packers’ bid for a sweep of the week fell short when they dropped a 57-47 contest to Rochester Mayo on Friday night.
The Packers led by one at the half, but fell behind with a few minutes gone in the second half and couldn’t catch up. The Mayo coach said it was his team’s best performance of the year.
Joe Aase, Zach Wessels and Tom Aase were all in double figures for the Packers, with 16, 14 and 12 points respectively, while Zach Fadness had 3 and Andrew Kaiser 2.
Here are the video highlights:
The Packers are back in action Tuesday night at home against Mankato East.
It wasn’t their best win of the year, but the Packer boys completed their season sweep of Rochester John Marshall last night with a 58-43 win at Packer Gym.
Turnovers and cold shooting plagued the Pack, but strong defense kept them ahead by double digits most of the game. Joe Aase and Zach Wessels each had 14 points, while Matt Duren chipped in 13, Tom Aase 8, Max Coffey and Zach Fadness 3 each, Jay Ettinger 2 and Andrew Kaiser 1. Let’s go to the film:
The win boosts the Packers’ overall record to 9-8, and they are 8-4 and alone in fourth place in the Big Nine. They return to action at home Thursday night against Waseca, and then travel to Rochester to take on the Mayo Spartans.
The Packer boys had trouble in River City last Friday, as they fell 49-41 to Winona.
The Winhawks’ defense was difficult for the Packers to penetrate, as they managed just 13 points in the first half and were down by 21 at one point in the second. A late surge brought them to within six with two minutes to go, Austin could get no closer.
Zach Fadness led the Pack with 12 points, while Tom Aase had 10, Joe Aase 7, Jay Ettinger 6, Zach Wessels 4 and Andrew Kaiser 2.
Here are the highlights:
Packer Fast Break Club 