dated February 10, 2008

Sasko Earns TRAC-8 2^nd Team All-Conference Honors

If the EHS academic bowl team was asked how to spell all-conference, they may say, “S-A-S-K-O.”

Or perhaps they would just defer the question to Jes Sasko.

Sasko spelled out TRAC-8 2^nd-Team All-Conference honors for himself at Saturday’s conference tournament at Riverdale High School. The EHS junior had 14 toss-ups for the day and alone tallied at least 50 points for the team answering spelling bonus questions.

Sasko currently has 44 toss-ups for the season, while junior Matt Swanson is not far behind with 33. Swanson had five toss-ups on Saturday and as captain had some key “educated guesses” on some math bonuses that helped the team out. Senior Sam Berk added two toss-ups to bring his season total to 10.

Other players who contributed on Saturday were seniors Matt Armstrong and Kody Olsen; juniors Joe Bright, Ashley Heppner, and Brittany Schmidt; sophomore Sean Leeds; and freshmen Shelby Howard and Hannah Sauer.

Despite all their efforts, the team struggled to come up with wins, however. Their lone victory came when the quintet of Swanson, Sasko, Bright, Heppner, and Leeds defeated Riverdale 107-25 in the fifth round.

The team lost to Fulton 108-87, Amboy 66-48, Prophetstown 84-35, Newman (co-champion) 152-64, Bureau Valley 104-55, and Morrison (co-champion) 155-77.

Against both Amboy and Bureau Valley Erie had the lead at half, then went completely scoreless the rest of the match. In three other matches, Erie could only come up with one toss-up in the second half. Their current record is 9-18.

The varsity team hopes to improve their play as they go into the Illinois Masonic Regional tournament at home on Saturday. Erie opens up with West Carroll at 9:45 a.m. in room 104.

The fresh-soph team will be competing Feb. 23 at the Orion F/S tournament, beginning at 8:45 a.m.