Athletics and Activities Update January 15th Posted on January 15, 2018 in Activities, Press Releases Nordic Skiing Coach Bob Ellenbecker Prep Results from 2018 PB n’ J Invitational On Friday, January 12th, Prep hosted its home invitational under difficult weather and snow conditions. Because of a lack of snow on campus we were forced to move the race to Riverside Park in St. Cloud. While skiable, the course at Riverside was icy and difficult and the weather was frigid! The skiers from Prep were courageous and skied hard! Here are the results: Girls’ Junior High: Holly Hansen ’22 was once again our top girls’ junior high finisher, coming in 7th place. Coming in a very respectable 12th place was Clare Duffy ’21. Boys’ Junior High: In perhaps our strongest showing of the season, Prep Junior High boys occupied four of the top ten places, with Will Taft ’22 finishing an impressive 2nd, Sam Hoover ’22 coming in 6th, Sam Meyer ’22 coming in 8th and Luke Pittelko ’22 finishing 10th. Oscar Cheeley ’23 was close to the top 10, coming in 12th. Nick Hansen ’24 continues to improve, finishing 15th. Cameron Thompson ’23 had his best race of the year and showed a great deal of improvement in his uphill technique while finishing 17th. George Vedder ’23 skied well and finished 18th and Kane Bauman ’23 put in a great effort, finishing 19th. Girls’ Junior Varsity: Beca Muntifering ’21 skied her best race yet, finishing 8th in the girl’s junior varsity. Boys’ Junior Varsity: Sawyer Engholm ’20 skied a great race for his best finishing position to date, 14th in the boys’ junior varsity. Girls’ Varsity: I am very proud of four very young girl skiers who I asked to form a varsity team for our invitational. 9th graders Catie Sikes, Sabella Akre and Margeaux Wenner, and sophomore Sabrina Wuolu and took on the challenge and went up against the older and very strong competition in the girls’ varsity, finishing in 17th through 19th place. The girls’ team score of 330 points allowed them to put up a complete team and finished fourth in the team competition for varsity girls. These four girls have a great future ahead of them! Robotics Coach Glenn Holt The two SJP Robotics teams participated in the Kimball Mega Meet on Saturday, January 13th. The meet began in -15 degrees cold, and Team A’s robot started cold as well. Team A’s members Joel Kissela ”19, Alexis Akre ’19, Kamso Onyemeh ’18, Jeremiah Weber ’20, Nate Salzl ’18, Ben Jolkovsky ’18, Will St. Hilaire ’23, Oliver Hennen ’20, and Levi Posch ’20 worked furiously throughout the day to improve their robot, making substantial improvements. Their work paid off as by the end of the qualifying rounds they were routinely scoring stacked goals. The Kimball Cubs took notice, and despite Team A’s record (2-5) selected them as their final alliance partner. In the quarterfinal elimination round, however, they faced a very tough Sauk Rapids Storm alliance and fell in two hard-fought matches. The competition for Team B’s members Martin Nelson ’21, Lucy Cheeley ’21, Sam Craft ’22, Tori Grandy ’23, Sophia Kapoor ’24, and Kai Martinson ’22 was almost a mirror image of Team A’s. Team B started hot, and at one point stood in 12th place (in a field of 40 teams), with a 3-1 record. Their afternoon, however, was filled with hardware and navigational glitches, and they ended the day 3-4. Like Team A, they too made continuous improvements throughout the tournament, with Martin, Sam, and Lucy improving their autonomous code between matches. Despite their rank of 24th, they were not chosen for the elimination rounds. This meet ends the VEX “regular” season for SJP Robotics. Team B, however, qualified at the Apollo meet for the Minnesota State VEX tournament, which will be held Friday and Saturday, February 2-3, at the St. Cloud Convention Center. Please come and join us, it’s an amazing event! Girls’ Basketball Coach Mary Jo Leighton & Pat Bechtold With the start of the second semester, seven additional 7th graders joined fellow seventh grader Nora Miller and eighth grader Jaedyn Nydeen (who have been practicing since November) with the girls’ basketball team. Coaches Mary Jo Leighton and Pat Bechtold also came on board adding energy and enthusiasm to what has been a great season so far. Unfortunately, icy roads prevented Onamia from traveling on Thursday so the Johnnies didn’t get a chance to play last week. Thus, the Middle School girls’ will open their season at Swanville on Tuesday; while the varsity hosts the Saint Cloud Christian School, also on Tuesday. Boys’ Basketball Coach Michael Moen After a long layoff for Christmas break, the Prep Boys’ Basketball team was in action last week with a couple of Prairie Conference games against Swanville and Royalton. Tuesday’s matchup at Swanville was one of the team’s better performances of the season so far. Hard work on defense and patience on offense helped the boys take control of the game in the second half and put up an 18-point victory. Andrew Moen ’18 led all scorers with 21 points while adding 7 rebounds. Kevin Stark-Haws ’18 also had a strong game adding 15 points to the victory. The JV squad also showed up to play on Tuesday and just came up short down the stretch against Swanville’s solid team, dropping the game 46-53. Mekan Mamedov ’20 put in a stellar performance with 27 points and Nick McGee ’18 added 10 points and some tough defense to help keep the Johnnies in the game right up to the end. On Friday the Johnnies hosted the Royalton Royals, and for both the JV and Varsity it was a tale of two halves. The JV team took a one-point lead into halftime before facing a tough full court press by Royalton in the second half that proved to be a bit too much to overcome, causing the boys to fall short in the end. Drew Richter ’18 led the way with 10 points. The Varsity squad also posted a small lead after the first half of their game. Unfortunately, the second half found the Johnnies shooting to be as cold as ice. That, combined with strong post play from Royalton, proved to be too big a hurdle and the boys found themselves on the short end of the score at the end. Nick Foss ’18 led the way with 11 points. The Johnnies will be in action this Thursday when the travel to Osakis to face the Silverstreaks. Knowledge Bowl Coach Charles Miller The KB team traveled to Sauk Rapids on Saturday where 73 teams from the region competed for the coveted Super Hero trophies. With several competing activities for SJP, less than half the team was in attendance, but the 20 that made it competed well. In the end, varsity finished in 9th, 14th, and 28th, and the JV finished in 5th, and 20th. This week, the team gets a rare Saturday off, and we return to competition on January 27th at Elk River.
