ola-Scandinavia High School alumni got together Easter weekend to play a little basketball and raise some funds for the Thunderbird baseball team.
“This used to be an annual event run by the BABA basketball teams,” I-S baseball coach Pete Timdal said. “Once that league folded, so did the alumni basketball weekend tournament.”
Timdal and the T-Bird baseball team hosted this year’s tournament at the school.
“We are hoping to continue to run this in the future,” Timdal said. “It is always great to see old friends and players you remember watching while you were a kid.”
“It’s a lot of fun,” I-S 2000 graduate Nick Trepasso said. “It was definitely a physical game.”
Josh Loken, a 2009 graduate, agreed.
“A lot of the guys take the game very seriously,” he said. “It was a lot of fun and very physical. It’s definitely hard to work with people that you have not played with for a long time.”
The sideline bantering that took place was equally as entertaining as the game itself.
“I didn’t think we were going to have anyone show up tonight,” 2000 graduate R.J. Rosenthal called out to group of players,
“Neither did I,” Timdal replied. “I think they are all too sore.”
John Harris (class of 2000) appeared to be quite winded while coming out of the game.
“Man, I don’t know how I got suckered into playing this,” he said to a teammate.
The teammate laughed and said, “I think the court got longer since we played in high school.”
The 2003-08 team won the tournament with a win over the 1993-and-older team March 30. The winning team included Dustin McAloon, Mike Griffin, Chad Gunderson, Josh Hardel, J.J. Jones, Jordan Mortenson and Kasey Morgan.
Approximately 45 players took part in the event and raised a little over $500 for them baseball team.
“Joe Opperman gets most if not all of the credit for approaching the school with the idea and generating the plan to make this happen,” Timdal said. “Considering that we pulled this together in a little less than two weeks, we did great. Thank you to everyone that participated.”