Bold Predictions of the Tween Decade

It's time to break out our crazy skills and predict what will happen in the world of West High sports in the new decade.

Of course, these are all going to happen.

• The 2013 Call of Duty team wins at nationals after coaching legend Neil “Maddawgdiesel6” Madsen gets thrown out after a domestic dispute
  


• Virtual Frolf becomes a high school sport in 2019
  


• As does this
  


• In 2017, a West High athlete shaves points in a major game, doubles up at West’s new Neil Flynn Memorial Casino
  


• 2018 is the first year with the “belly flop” as an event at a swim meet
  


• West High basketball wins state in 2015, anarchy takes over in the celebration

• In 2016, West High Basketball goes winless but only because the basketball team encouraged the student body to storm the court every game and screw Big Bergman over.

• In 2012, Marv realizes that the little gym is pretty much useless and turns it into a swimming pool....but soon realizes that too is useless..so he builds a gentlemens club in order to raise money for charter buses

• In 2017, they change the name of the basketball gym to the "Green House" and the motto is "Where we plant our seeds and wait for them to grow"

• West Football wins state championship in 2018 but thats only because they find out thru some clause that Jacob Gannon has one year of eligibility...but with every Batman there is a Robin

• 2015....all ipods stolen during the game at Kingston stadium are returned...turns out it was this guy who had them the whole time

• 2013... IHSAA catches Big Bergman recruiting new born babies at the UI for his future all-star basketball team.... surprisingly most the babies are white?

Video for the Week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9ZkddHsdpA

From David and Stan.............Stay classy!!

Trojan Wrestling 09-10 - 1/2 Preview, 1/2 Review

I apologize for the timing of this post, as my lack of ability to think during wrestling season combined with an early case of senioritis has led to some procrastination. Never the less, here it is, half way into the season. The wrestling team has started off the season extremely well. Varsity was ranked third in the pre season, but soon proved themselves by defeating No. 1 ranked Waverly and No. 2 ranked Bettendorf. They've also had some setbacks, including injuries resulting in a loss to Ballard. But perhaps our biggest battle has been fought in the stands. We have had to compete with girls basketball, rollerblading (what?), CoD Modern Warfare 2, and VH1 reality TV for spectators, and the seats remain student-free (Jersey Shore? Really guys?). However, we have a home meet this week against Kennedy. This is a chance for all of you to redeem yourselves for your stubborn negligence. Alright, enough scolding, lets break it down.

103 - Kegan Wakefield
Kegan, aka Tiger Woods, is a freshman beast, although he is suspected to have some brain damage (he is an Illinois fan). He continues to win dominantly even with an injured shoulder.

112 - Jack Hathaway
Jack placed third at state last year. Holy sh*t. He will return to the tournament this year with an eager eye for gold. In his spare time, Jack is a gang leader and a drug lord, but we won't get into that right now.

119 - Jon Skarda
Jon is one of the only wrestlers I have seen look pissed off after winning by tech fall (that's when you are beating some one's ass by 15 points so they end the match, ouch charlie. The other guy is left to do what is right). The high standards he places for himself will no-doubt lead him to the stand at state this year. When Jon is not wrestling, he enjoys listening to Taylor Swift and kicking other peoples' dogs. He also considers himself to be a beautiful animal.

125 - Griffin Weihe
Griffin is a master of the headlock. He is undefeated on JV, but the high point of his year so far was lasting 51 seconds against a ranked varsity opponent. He came off the mat showing 51 on his hands, and continued to celebrate by gaining 17 pounds.

125 - Sam Chalkley
Sam is a sophomore and is doing very well in his first year on varsity. Although he is from Finland and does not speak any english, he will be an asset during his remaining years at West.

130 - Colin Lord
Every once in a while, Colin takes a break from eating candy and playing Wii to wrestle for the Trojans. When he does, he usually has success. When the season is over, Colin looks forward to eating candy and playing Wii without interruption.

130 - Tracy Bowers
Tracy Bowers, aka Stacy Flowers, has wrestled all his life, and hopes to continue doing so after he is dead. If you come to the meet on Thursday, you will witness the unleashing of this fearsome beast. Also, if you have some stairs that need building, Tracy is your man.

135 - Gradey Gambrall
Gradey, aka Slim Gradey, has had great success in his two years on the varsity roster. Instead of being breast fed as an infant, his parents fed him Mountain Dew. He is now a part of Mountain Dew Addicts Anonymous (MDAA) but his counselor doesn't see an end to the addiction in the near future. He is also addicted to THAT.

135 - Ben Goerdt
Ben, aka Me, gets varsity time whenever someone is injured of decides they don't want to wrestle someone good. This has resulted in losses to several ranked wrestlers in higher weight classes, including a national champion. Ben plans to use this story as a way to get chicks in college, and therefore considers this year a success thus far.

140 - Garrett Hathaway
Despite a nagging elbow injury, Garrett has done well so far this year and hopes to continue this success in the post season.

145 - Jon Stegal
Jon is ripped. Don't mess with him.

152 - Justin Koethe
Justin had a confusing start this year. No one could find his when the first week of practice rolled around, and everyone thought that he had either moved away or died. It turned out that he had taken a nap that lasted exactly one third of the season. Since waking up, he has been kicking ass and taking names, and will continue to do so in the state tournament.

160 - Nick Moore
Nick is probably the most worthless wrestler to have ever cracked the varsity line-up. He won wrestle-offs at the beginning of the year because the rest of our wrestlers at 160 mysteriously died a week before. I have considered moving up to his weight class to take his spot many times, but haven't managed to gain enough weight to qualify.

171 - David Solis
David surprised everyone last year when he placed 6th at state as a junior. This year he knows he can place even higher and I pity the fools that stand in his way.

189 - A.J. Bailey
A.J. has gained 60 pounds since last year and has found success at his new weight. Apparently Miracle Grow can be used on humans too.

215 - Mickey Pelfrey
Mickey seems to blow peoples' minds with his level of fineness. He is an outstanding freshman wrestler and West is lucky to have him for the next three years.

Heavyweight (285) - Jamal Thompson
Jamal is back. After a two-year hiatus from wrestling, the J-Train decided to come out his senior year for some good old fashioned fun. Weighing in at about 200, Jamal takes on Goliath with no fear, and boasts a winning record.

So that's it. Thanks for reading and be sure to come to the meet this Thursday (JV at 6:15, Varsity at 7:30)


Ben "why are there quotes if I don't have a nickname" Goerdt

Swimming "The reason I hate my life" Preview

As fall sports came to a screeching halt....Now starts the winter sport season full of excitement and rivalries....To kick off the sport previews, I have chosen swimming as the sport of choice to talk about.

Swimming is probably one of the most popular activities for Americans during the summer and seems like one of the easier sports too. While in actual fact its one of the most annoying sports ever. The idea of swimming back and forth seems easy then you realize that most times you will have to swim more than 50 or 25 yards at a time causing you to wonder how it is to be a fish and having nothing t0 do but swim. In the time that you think about how much your life sucks, chlorine starts getting soaked up into your pores and when you start heating up people around you start wondering what smells like chlorine, something that you would never need to worry about if your were on land...pretty much swimming sucks and the only benefit is when you race and when practice is over.

We bring back a core nucleus of senior leaders that include: Mike Missen, "Hot Karl" Rosenquist, Keyan Zarei, Mark"The Shark"Wieneke, Brian Lentz, Alan Choi, John "Jabba the Huff" Zhang, and Stan " The Man" Kamande. We added two seniors: Nick Nielson and Matt "China" Kelsay. Why they came out for swimming, I have no idea. We also added about 30 new freshmen and also embarrassed about 30 freshmen in our poster this year by leaving them in the cold with speedos.

We start the season againist Lin-Mar, which sound like a good team but need some breaking down to understand their talent.

Lin-Mar

They are probably one of the nicest teams in our conference other than Cedar Falls, but being nice only takes you so far. Last year we had an invitational at City High and about half of Lin-Mar's team under a water polo goal reading twilight. They also graduated all there non-harry potter/North Korea Scientist lookalikes and now are stuck with their yamanashi/harry potter lookalikes. Seeing as how we also dominated them in a meet last year winning 11 out of 11 varsity races, it will be hard for their yamanashi/harry potter lookalikes to muster the courage to be men and win a race against us.

With the way the team is developing, we predict that we could win the conference meet and bring the MVC trophy back to West. Also, a few funny meet flyers and t-shirts around the school so be aware!

Video of the week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGsoMbvHU50

West High Volleyball...SO GOOD!

First off: Go Hawks
Now down to business

This post has been a long time comin, mainly because the volleyball team deserved to have something written about how they dominate, and since their season just ended (fast forward to 40 seconds for hilarity), I'd like to put some thoughts on the blog.

So for those of you who aren't aware, West High volleyball is dominant. They made it to the state finals this year before losing to last year's winner Ankeny. I'm gonna go ahead and call foul play on the IHSAA, because they obviously rigged the match. But that's neither here nor there.

West has a few D-1 players on the team. Most notably seniors Jessica "Air" Gehrke and Christiana "Un" Fairfield. From what I could tell they were the leaders of the squad and provided the leadership on the court. Gehrke makes the opponents court look like Baghdad while Fairfield is apparently the setter or something (obviously, I'm one of the volleyball experts).

The Women of Troy played extremely well this year, and deserve the crown of "Best Fall Sports Team" narrowly edging out girls cross country, who also had a super season and have alot of talent coming back (note: the girls cross country team also deserves some respect, I've been nagged by a certain someone to write about them, but since I have 0 knowledge about the sport of cross country, I'm not even going to try and persuade you that I do).

So here's how I'll sum things up:
Volleyball=amazingly good
Girls XC=very good
Toy Story 2=ok
Dane Cook=not so great
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

With Love,
David "Lights Out" Rachke

Quick West High Season Review

Note: To get the full effect of this entry, you have to imagine that Green Day's "Time of Your Life" is playing in the background while you read this. Or Fire Burning by Sean Kingston, either one, it's up to you.

Well, it had to end eventually. Teams just can't play forever. As many of you know, the West High Football season ended at City High, in the first round of the playoffs. The game was a tough one, in which early turnovers created a mountain our team couldn't climb.

Now despite the playoff game, this season was a large success. Last year we had 0 wins, and although our offense was great on paper, we just couldn't win. This year, we improved vastly. Here are the things we need to look back on and smile.

1. We won THREE GAMES! That's like going from this to this. And the team covered all the types of wins too. A nail-biter, a blow-out and a third type of win that I haven't thought of yet. It's nice to win isn't it?

2. Some individuals really shined: Jamal "J-Train" Thompson, "Tayler-Time" Bontrager, Charlie "And the Chocolate Factory" Rogers, Jacob "Smash" Gannon, and Brandon "A Bay" Bay. If you're not listed, it's not because I don't like you, it's cause I couldn't think of a nickname.

3. Faith has been restored.

Not to say the turnaround is complete. Far from it. But the program is heading in the right direction. All the hard work is paying off and eventually West will turn back into the late 90's teams who dominated life.

It will be interesting to see how this team changes next year. I won't be around, so I won't care as much, but still. GO WEST!

With Love,
David "Lights-Out" Rachke

"Playoffs! We're talking about playoffs!"

With the West football team in the playoffs for the first time in 4 years. Many people are as optimistic as ever for tomorrow nights game, due to late knowledge that our team is actually good. We walk into game with a few things going against us:

1) Brandon "A Bay" Bay, defensive threat and Jacob Gannon's Sidekick on the line, is sick with Swine Flu/Pneumonia (Get well big guy!). Meaning we will lack the usual aggression that comes with having The Hurricane on the line

2) Xavier likes to pass the ball and have a big time QB/WR tandem, which could be a big problem for us because we have showed some susceptibility to covering the pass

3) They also have one of the best defenses(using a lot of wrist control) in the conference, they give up an average of 11.4 pts per game

With the way things have been going with the football team amidst the controversy surrounding theft and drugs, they have been able to overcome such controversy with the leadership of its seniors. Which has shown true team spirit, with that said I believe that tomorrow nights game will be a win. This is based on the fact that I don't think they have faced the type of speed that we bring to the table and with Charles"Hit ya with the okie doke" Rodgers, his ability to pass and run the ball might just put Xavier in total confusion. Also we must not forget our heard of good receivers including Taylor"Big Time"Bontrager so this game will be an explosive one to watch.

For your pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W45DRy7M1no

From your favorite blog,

Stan "The Man" Kamande

West vs. Wahlert...They Were REALLY Bad

So basically here's how I'd describe Dubuque Wahlert's football team:
180 pound unathletic teenagers try to pound the ball against bigger, faster, stronger teams and end up losing very badly.

West should've won this game, and they came out and dominated. It's that simple. Brandon "A Bay" Bay along with the other line members deserve credit for the victory, dominating the trenches most of the night. An early TD pass from The Rogers to "Tayler-Time" Bontrager was basically all West needed on a night where Wahlert's best chance to score was a 57-yard field goal.

To realize how crazy that concept is, I'll say this: Most NFL kickers can't make 57-yard field goals. So why would an acne faced teen be able to hit it? Exactly...

If I'm not mistaken, West is now eligible for the playoffs. Yes, playoffs. Now we might be seeded very low, but this is a huge accomplishment for a program that didn't win a game last year. Our turnaround was faster than Britney Spears at Peking Buffet. So West fans, acknowledge this feat.

On a separate note, the student section was kind of weak. USO's (Unidentified Sophomore Objects) were dangerously close to me in the first couple of rows. Always a bad sign. So attention all students..go to the games! Rock n' Skate became stupid after 7th grade! There isn't much to do.
That is all

With Love,
David "Lights Out" Rachke