Rod's Thursday thoughts

Like the song of the 70's said It never rains in California, but it sure does here in South Dakota. Three more events cancelled today due to (in part) the rain, wind and cool tempretures. The Pierre Legion Relays Track and Field meet. The Huron Invitational girls golf tournament that Pierre was to play in and the tennis duals with Aberdeen Central and Roncalli in Aberdeen. All cancelled, All that will not be rescheduled. While for Track and Field, cancelling a meet at this time of the spring is unfortunate but not an essential evil, cancelling the tennis duals and the golf tournament is another thing. Spring is such a short season for sports in this part of the world and you can not make up lost matches on the court or the course. Hopefully the Lady Govs can play on Tuesday in Aberdeen, the tournament that was made up after last week's rain out, but the forecast does not look promising. In tennis, the Sioux Falls and Rapid City schools will gain the advantage once again because both cities have indoor courts that the players can go to and continue to play, something that is not allowed in Pierre.

The High School Activities Association Board of Control voted to change the Class AA football playoffs beginning next year. Instead of all 16 teams automatically qualifying for the playoffs, only the top 12 teams will qualify putting more emphasis on every regular season game now. The top 4 teams will get a first round bye meaning that all 4 Sioux Falls schools have a chance to get a first round bye more years than not. At a minimum, at least 3 schools should recieve byes on a yearly basis. That is how much the Sioux Falls schools have taken over the sport of Class 11AA High School Football in the state. Perhaps a Watertown might get a bye once in a awhile but the fact of the matter is the Sioux Falls schools will continue to dominate so changing the playoff system won't do anything to change that. Now next year the Activities Association is expected to split up the 11AA ranks a bit and create 4 11 man divisions and 2 9 man divisions of football in the state. With the top 9 or 10 teams in the top division, teams like Pierre may actually have a chance to make the playoffs, do well in the playoffs and play for a state championship, something they have not done since 1988.

Also, money worries continue in sports and teams are left to try to raise as much money as they can for things like going to camps, purchasing T-Shirts and eating money for the players at State Tournaments. So when a team is having a fund raising event, please help them out and attend. The Lady Govs basketball team will be having one such fund raising opportunity Monday evening at the Pizza Ranch in Ft. Pierre from 5 to 8 pm. Proceeds from that 3 hour event will go to the Lady Gov basketball team. Also, school only will be going on for 4 weeks or so and then it is summer and basketball camps will pop up all over the place. Pierre boys and girls from high school to middle school to elementary school can go to the Pierre Park and Rec Departments website and sign up and be registered for coach Kannegeiter-Bahe and coach Becker's summer camps in Pierre. It is www.pierreparkandrec.com. And five members of the Governor boys basketball team will be playing summer basketball against in state and out of state competition. Lane Severyn and Zach Hanson along with Conrad Adam and Matt Monfore will be playing with the Dakota Schoolers program and Austin Christopherson will be playing with the South Dakota Wildcats organization this summer.

That is all for now. Have a Happy Easter.

Rod