Boys team checks all the boxes
This year. 2019-20.
For the past few years, when his freshmen and sophomores were taking their lumps on the floors of the various gymnasiums throughout the Black Hills Conference, Custer High School head boys basketball coach Paul Kelley pointed to 2019-20 as the year his young players would be more men than boys and ready to compete for a conference championship.
Or, maybe something even loftier than that.
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Girls team should be much improved
Coming off a season where it finished 7-14, the Custer High School girls basketball team is a year older and wiser, and expects to be much improved when the ball gets thrown into the air for the first time Friday evening.
While the team is still young—only four seniors are on the roster—head coach Mick Patzlaff enters his second year at the helm expecting girls who were forced in varsity action last year out of necessity to be much better prepared for games this year thanks to the experience they got under their belts last year and over the summer.
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Custer wrestlers fewer but tough
As the Custer High School wrestling team prepares for its first matches at the Custer Invitational Tournament this week, coach Jared Webster says he is working with a smaller but still tough team this season.
Webster says only 16 to 17 wrestlers are practicing on the high school squad but adds "everyone we have in is just a solid wrestler...very tough. Every one of them is just a heck of an athlete and very well-rounded."
The coach says everyone on the team "has experience and can place."
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'Cats lose to 'Diggers in Region 8A play
The Custer girls volleyball team closed out its 2019 season Tuesday, Nov. 5 by losing to Lead-Deadwood in first-round Region 8A tournament play.
The Wildcats had faced the Golddiggers on two previous occasions this season coming up short both times, so they knew it was going to be a tough match going in.
In the first matchup Oct. 3 in Custer the 'Diggers dropped the 'Cats 3-2, and in the second game just a week before the final confrontation the 'Cats lost in 4 sets.
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Girls cross country takes second at state
All of the hard work put in by the Hill City Rangers cross country team paid off as the girls team took second place in Class A at the 2019 South Dakota State Cross Country Meet held in Huron on Saturday.
The team finished with a total of 69 points, while eighth-grader Abby Cutler came in second place with a time of 19:00.93.
For the boy's team, Luke Rupert, also an eighth grade student, came in 41st place as the school's lone male runner.
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Girls cross country retains Class A crown
For the second year in a row the Custer girls cross country team was crowned state Class A champion at the state cross country meet in Huron over the weekend. The boys team, fresh off a second-place finish at the Region 5 meet in Pine Ridge on October 17, took fourth in the boys race which qualified the Wildcats to receive the Combined Team Champion award for the second year running.
"I was impressed with how they came through," said coach Karen Karim. "They all had great performances. That's hard to have happen."
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Wildcat football team squeezed out of playoff bid
Despite blasting the Pine Ridge Thorpes 70-6 in one half of football last Thursday evening, the Custer High School football team will not participate in the Class A state playoffs when they kick off tomorrow night.
The reason for that goes back to two more dates—Aug. 30 and Sept. 20—the team's games against West Central and Belle Fourche, respectively, two games the Wildcats led at different points in the game and let slip away.
For head coach Dave Williams, the 27-24 loss to Belle Fourche looms especially large.
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Cheer places ninth at state meet
Coming off their big win at the Black Hills Conference Cheer and Dance meet, the Custer competitive cheer team had high hopes going into the state A competition in Aberdeen on Friday. However, as has so often been the case in this roller coaster of a season, their hopes were disappointed.
Earning 169.5 points from the judges the Wildcat cheerleaders finished ninth in the small group cheer category and 15th overall.
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'Cats end regular season at 16-15
It looked like the Custer High School girls volleyball team might be headed for an upset against 27-3 Hill City last Tuesday night at the Armory. The Wildcats came out strong in the first set and, aside from several tie scores, led the Rangers most of the way to a hard-fought 25-21 win.
"That first set we came out and played Wildcat volleyball and it was awesome," said co-head coach Miranda Jaure following the game. "They just caught on to our offense and we had trouble mixing things up after that."
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