Bits & Pieces

By Kim J. Harmon

M

ark Twain once wrote, “There are three types of lies – lies, damn lies, and statistics,” but these statistics – the records of the eight Newtown High School fall sports team – are not lying about how well this passing season has gone (here’s a test: can you match the record with the corresponding sport?):

 

    W-L-T           Pct.

       19-1-0               .950

       13-2-0               .867

       12-2-0               .857

       14-5-0               .737

     11-10-0               .524

        5-8-0               .385

        2-5-1             .313*

       3-10-3               .281

   87-43-4           .664

 

*- still in progress

 

All but one team – save for just one game – is finished now. But we have seen one conference champion; two teams reach at least the quarterfinals of the conference tournaments; and three teams reach the quarterfinals of the state tournament. And we have already learned of one All State athlete . . . and will no doubt learn of more.

Members of the field hockey and football teams may be licking their wounds a bit, especially since most people expected better fortunes for both programs (and wouldn’t that have made things even better), but it is hard for anyone – even Mark Twain – to deny the truth of what those bunch of numbers are telling us.

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Just an aside: When I punched up Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics on YAHOO! to make sure it was an exact quotation (the Mark Twain quote sites were of no use), I found 7,750 web pages that have subjugated that comment for their own personal use – as the title of internet columns, as a company title for specific stat tracking, and as tags for competitions and other special events.

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Rifling through my Professional REPORTER’S Notebook looking for I don’t know what, I came across an obscure email address – lash.blackfoot.com – and, at first, it didn’t click with me. But after I punched up Blackfoot.com on YAHOO! (and found some telecommunications outfit), it came to me.

Larry Ashmore.

Last year, we found out that coach Ashmore – who led the Newtown High School boys’ soccer team to a CIAC Class L state championship in 1990 – led Sentinel High School in Missoula, Montana, to a state championship win over Kalispell High School . . . the school that had beaten Sentinel on the final day of the regular season.

Now this year, we find out from former Newtown High School volleyball coach Russ Weiss that coach Ashmore – who now lives in Seeley Lake, Montana, about 55 miles from Sentinel High – was just named Coach of the Year.

Marvelous work.

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I found another thing in my Professional REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK – an exclamation about something I had seen in a Newtown High School volleyball match. Usually, I just jot down numbers and names in my own sort of mutant form of shorthand (which sometimes I am unable to decipher no matter what type of codebreaking software I can pirate from the United States government), but this one instance I wrote –

 

Wow – Jaime Lindquist JUMPED out of the gym on that one. Jeez, I don’t think I ever saw her get up that high . . . and then she SLAMMED the ball down! Man, these girls are fired up!

 

It was during the CIAC Class L state tournament second match between Newtown and Masuk. There were a couple of moments like that one, but when Lindquist had her turn on the left corner, I – seriously – had to blink because I wasn’t sure I had seen what I thought I saw. Lindquist is a good volleyball player, alright, but – come on!.