George Alexander Abell, 82, Luverne, died Friday, March 28, 2003, at Minnesota Veterans Home in Luverne.

Services were Monday, March 31, at Dingmann Funeral Home in Luverne. The Rev. David Jahn officiated. Burial was at Ft. Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis.

George Abell was born April 19, 1920. He was raised by his stepparents, Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Lang. He grew up and attended school in the St. Paul area. He served his country as an American Merchant Marine in oceangoing service during World War II. After his tour of duty in the military, he drove a truck for the majority of his life.

He married Melva Stevenson in July 1954. They later divorced. He also had a significant friend, Pearl Olds, later in his life.

Mr. Abell enjoyed fishing, hunting and the outdoors.

Survivors include three sons, Gary (Pam) Abell, Luverne, Terry (Gerry) Abell, Newport, and Rick (Pat) Abell, Hopkinsville, Ky.; two stepdaughters, Cheryl (Leon) Peterson, Cottage Grove, and Cherie Halberg, Newport; 12 grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.

Mr. Abell was preceded in death by his parents, one sister and three brothers.

Dingmann Funeral Home, Luverne, was in charge of arrangements.

By Sara Strong
Rock County Sheriff candidates are both long-time members of the local department, current sheriff Ron McClure and sergeant Mike Winkels.

Luverne City Council will see two new faces after the first of the year. Pat Baustian, 283-4180, and Bob Kaczrowski, 283-9261, will replace Keith Erickson, 283-2497, and Jim Kirchhofer, 283-2415, respectively.

Tom Martius, 283-4679, and David Hauge, 283-2065, are the other two council members.

Mayor Glen Gust, who was re-elected to another two-year term, can be reached at 283-8761.

Members of the Rock County Board of Commissioners include:

Kenneth Hoime, 442-4913

Wendell Erickson, 962-3785

Ron Boyenga, 967-2104

Bob Jarchow, 283-2469

Jane Wildung, 283-4691

In January, Richard Bakken, 597-6378, will replace Erickson, who did not seek re-election. Bakken ran uncontested for the seat.

Lucinda Ecker, 84, Duluth, formerly of Rock County, died Sunday, March 9, 2003.

Memorial services were Thursday, March 20, at Hope United Methodist Church in Duluth. Burial will be at a later date in Worthington Cemetery.

Lucinda Jensen was born to Andrew and Zula (Bowen) Jensen of Kanaranzi Township, on Sept. 14, 1918.

She married Ray Ecker in 1940 at her parent’s home.

Mrs. Ecker was a Methodist Church member and an Eastern Star member.

Survivors include one daughter, Karen Thompson, Detroit, Mich.; one son, David (Sue) Ecker, New Mexico; grandchildren; two sisters, Winifred Wessels, Ellsworth, and Alice Hurst, Mesa, Ariz.; and two brothers, Bertel Jensen, Luverne, and Roger Jensen, Slayton.

Mrs. Ecker was preceded in death by her husband.

Hills-Beaver Creek guard Cassi Tilstra led the Patriots with 10 points during a season-ending loss to Adrian during the South Section 3A Girls’ Basketball Tournament semifinals in Worthington Tuesday.

By John Rittenhouse
A hot-shooting Adrian team played its way into the South Section 3A Girls’ Basketball Tournament championship game by gunning down Hills-Beaver Creek 63-40 in a semifinal-round tilt played in Worthington Tuesday.

Four Dragons reached double figures in scoring during a game in which AHS made 54 percent of its field goals.

Adrian was especially hot in the third quarter, when it missed one field goal attempt while outscoring the Patriots 20-12 to put the game out of reach.

"We shot the ball pretty well," said Dragon coach Randy Strand. "We made 10 of 11 field goals in the third quarter."

The win ups Adrian’s season record to 20-4 and sends the Dragons to their first post-season championship game since the 1999-2000 season. Adrian, which will be playing in its fifth South Section 3A title tilt, plays No. 2 Fulda for the championship 7:30 p.m. Friday in Worthington.

H-BC, which ends the year with a 15-10 mark, looked like it might be ready to challenge the top-seeded Dragons early in the game. The fifth-seeded Patriots beat AHS less than two weeks before Tuesday’s game, and they exchanged blows with the Dragons while falling behind 7-6 early.

Adrian, however, went on an 8-0 run capped by a field goal from Ashley Cox at the 3:12 mark of the first quarter to take a 15-6 lead before expanding the difference to 11 points (18-17) with a three-point shot from Kylie Heronimus with 1:15 remaining. The Dragons led 20-9 at period’s end.

The Dragons still led by 11 (22-11) when they went on an 8-0 run capped by a field goal from Maria Gengler at the 4:50 mark of the second period to open a 30-11 cushion. Adrian led by 20 points (33-13) as the period progressed, but field goals by H-BC’s Sarah Rozeboom and Cassi Tilstra allowed the Patriots to climb within 16 points (33-17) of AHS before trailing 35-17 at the intermission.

Gengler scored the first six points of the third quarter for AHS, which made 91 percent of its field goals in the period. The Dragons led by as many as 27 points in the third quarter before settling for a 55-29 advantage at period’s end.

H-BC closed the gap to 25 points three times in the fourth quarter before making it a 23-point difference when Stacy Bush capped the scoring with a field goal with 12 seconds remaining.

"You got to give Adrian credit because they shot the ball so much better than the last time we played them," said Patriot coach Tom Goehle. "They extended our defense by making some shots from the outside, and that opened things up on the inside for them. They just did a nice job of moving and shooting the ball."

Gengler, who blocked seven shots, recorded a double-double with 19 points and 11 rebounds for the winners. Andrea Lonneman scored 16 points and passed for eight assists, and Heronimus scored 10 points and recorded seven assists. Ashley Cox contributed 10 points to the winning cause, while Jenna Honermann chipped in five steals.

Cassi Tilstra scored 10 points to lead H-BC.

Box score
H-BC
B.Rozeboom 3 0 1-3 7, Bush 2 0 0-0 4, Feucht 2 0 1-4 5, Sandstede 0 0 0-0 0, Tilstra 4 0 2-4 10, S.Rozeboom 3 0 0-0 6, Hoyme 1 0 0-0 2, Boeve 1 0 2-2 4, Olson 0 0 0-0 0, Mulder 1 0 0-0 2.
Adrian
S.Henning 0 0 0-1 0, Heronimus 2 2 0-1 10, T.Honermann 0 0 0-0 0, J.Honermann 3 0 0-2 6, As.Henning 0 0 0-0 0, Kruger 0 0 0-0 0, Cox 5 0 0-0 10, Lonneman 7 0 2-2 16, Gengler 9 0 1-4 19, Strand 0 0 0-0 0, Wolf 1 0 0-0 2, An.Henning 0 0 0-0 0, Mulder 0 0 0-0 0.

Team statistics
H-BC: 17 of 48 field goals (35 percent), six of 13 free throws (46 percent), 22 rebounds, 12 turnovers.
Adrian: 29 of 54 field goals (54 percent), three of 10 free throws (30 percent), 40 rebounds, 12 turnovers.

Hills-Beaver Creek senior Dusty Seachris battles with Red Rock Central-Westbrook-Walnut Grove’s Cody Schroeder during the Section 3A Individual Wrestling Tournament in Windom Friday. Seachris capped his high school career by placing third at 135 pounds during the event.

By John Rittenhouse
A Hills-Beaver Creek High School senior came up one win short of earning a berth in the state tournament during the Section 3AA Individual Wrestling Tournament in Windom Friday and Saturday.

Dusty Seachris, a member of the Luverne-H-BC-Ellsworth team, made a bid to capture one of the two state tournament berths that were on the line in the 135-pound weight class during the weekend event.

Seachris opened the tournament by nipping Red Rock Central-Westbrook-Walnut Grove’s Cory Schroeder 13-11 in Friday’s quarterfinals.

Seachris ran into eventual section champion Justin Fruechte, of Pipestone, in Saturday’s semifinals and lost by technical fall in the third period.

The H-BC grappler recovered in the wrestle backs to pin Yellow Medicine East’s Spencer Sannerud in 1:11 before notching a 24-2 win over Windom-Mountain Lake-Butterfield-Odin’s Travis Winters in the match for third and fourth place.

Seachris then received an opportunity to square off against Jackson County Central’s Jordan Burmeister in a true second-place match. Burmeister ended Seachris’ 18-17 season with a 14-6 setback.

Kerry Fink, another H-BC member of the team, went 0-2 at 125 pounds in Windom.

Fink lost 11-3 to eventual runner up Blaine Weber, of YME, in Friday’s quarterfinals. Fulda-Murray County Central’s Loren Clarke eliminated Fink from the tournament by handing him a 14-1 setback in the first round of the wrestle backs Saturday.

By John Rittenhouse
Edgerton High School senior Zach Hadler built some relationships with Hills-Beaver students as a member of the Luverne-H-BC-Ellsworth-Edgerton cross country program last fall.

But he didn’t make many friends at H-BC with his performance in Saturday’s quarterfinal-round game of the South Section 3A Boys’ Basketball Tournament in Worthington.

Hadler, a guard for the Flying Dutchmen, drained a 15-foot jumper with two seconds remaining in the fourth quarter to give seventh-seeded EHS a 72-70 victory over No. 2 H-BC.

Edgerton’s win, which came after two losses to H-BC during the regular season, sends it to the tournament semifinals tonight in Worthington. EHS plays No. 3 Southwest Christian, a 60-46 winner over Red Rock Central, at 7:30 p.m.

H-BC ends the year with a 19-6 record.

With Hadler leading the way by scoring 19 points, Edgerton pulled off the tournament’s biggest upset to date knocking off H-BC. The game was competitive from beginning to end, with Edgerton settling the issue with Hadler’s late blow.

Edgerton sported a 54-47 lead when it converted a three-point lead early in the fourth quarter, but it seemed to lose its grip on the game when H-BC’s Kale Wiertzema drained a pair of free throws at the 4:01 mark of the period to cap a 9-2 run that knotted the score at 56.

The game was tied at 58 when Edgerton started a 10-5 surge that gave it a 68-63 cushion with 1:11 left to play, but the Patriots battled back to tie the game at 70 when Wiertzema converted a field goal with 9.5 seconds remaining.

After an Edgerton timeout, Hadler received the in-bound pass and dribbled the ball past the half-court line before being met with pressure by H-BC. Hadler proceeded to move the ball to the right baseline, where he stopped and hit a jumper with two seconds left.

H-BC took a timeout and set up a play that ended up with the ball in the hands of senior Tyson Metzger near center court, but his desperation shot clanked off the backboard without hitting the rim.

Both teams sported three-point leads in the early stages of the first quarter before H-BC moved in front 15-11 with a field goal from Trey Van Wyhe with 1:00 mark.

Edgerton trimmed the difference to one point (17-16) by period’s end, and tied the game at 19 before going on a 7-0 run to take a 26-19 lead early in the second quarter.

The Flying Dutchmen led by nine (34-25) with 2:26 left in the first half, but the Patriots sliced the margin to six points (36-30) when Zach Wysong sank a pair of free throws in the final minute of the first half.

Edgerton scored the first three points of the third quarter before H-BC started an 8-2 run capped by a free throw from Tyler Bush at the 4:58 mark of the period to bring the Patriots within three points (41-38) of the Flying Dutchmen. Edgerton’s lead swelled to seven points later in the period, but Van Wyhe converted a field goal with six seconds left to trim Edgerton’s lead to four points (51-47) heading into the fourth quarter.

Metzger scored a game-high 24 points for H-BC. Wiertzema (17 points and 11 assists) and Van Wyhe (13 points and 10 rebounds) registered double-doubles for H-BC. Bush charted seven assists.

Box score
Bush 1 0 3-4 5, Wysong 0 0 4-4 4, Roozenboom 0 0 1-2 1, Wiertzema 1 4 3-4 17, Metzger 4 5 1-2 24, Leuthold 3 0 0-0 6, Van Wyhe 6 0 1-5 13.

Team statistics
H-BC: 24 of 48 field goals (50 percent), 13 of 21 free throws (62 percent), 21 rebounds, eight turnovers.
Edgerton: 29 of 55 field goals (53 percent), seven of 12 free throws (58 percent), 23 rebounds, nine turnovers.

By Lori Ehde
Convicted meth manufacturer Cory Kelderman, Hills, was sentenced last week in Rock County District Court to nearly six years in prison.

Kelderman, 29, was convicted in January of two counts of conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine, one count of manufacturing methamphetamine and one count of possessing six grams or more of methamphetamine.

For the most serious offense, Kelderman was ordered to serve 104 months in prison, but one-third of that will be served on supervised release.

If any terms of the release are violated, he will serve the remaining 35 months as well. Supervised release is more stringent than probation in that it requires more frequent contact with a probation officer and more frequent random drug testing.

Kelderman was arrested last summer when officers executed a search warrant in his home July 19.

Local law enforcement worked with Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Department in South Dakota following the arrest of two individuals who purchased large amounts of cold medicine, pseudoephedrine in Sioux Falls.

When questioned on July 18, these individuals said they intended to deliver the supplies, which included screens and funnels, to Kelderman’s home in Hills.

They said that on July 14 they had delivered similar supplies to Kelderman in exchange for meth.

Based on that information, Rock County searched Kelderman’s home the following morning. They found numerous items used to manufacture meth, and in excess of six grams of a substance consistent with the drug.