View from the cheap seats

A weekly perspective on sports

Casey Krautkramer Reporter The Record-Review

It doesn’t seem that long ago I covered the Edgar varsity girl’s basketball home game against Chequamegon, when I witnessed Wildcats senior player Tianna Borchardt score the exact 29 points she needed to achieve her 1,000th career point.

Now four years later, Tianna and Kira Kalepp of Milan are the newly hired Athens Elementary School teachers for the 2020-21 school year. Borchardt earned her teaching degree at UW-Oshkosh, and now she’ll be teaching third grade in Athens.

I recall Betty Urmanski, who recently retired as the Edgar girl’s basketball coach, telling me after Tianna’s historic game in 2016 that Tianna was a great role model for the younger girls in the Wildcats’ program.

Urmanski said Tianna was a great example for the younger girls to follow, because she “put her nose to the grindstone” to work very hard during the team’s basketball practices to develop into a great player. It’s only fitting this year Tianna will begin being a role model for her Athens thirdgrade students who’ll surely also look up to her.

I still remember Tianna calmly sinking two free throws with Edgar beating Chequamegon, 69-11, with three minutes and 32 seconds left in the game. Her second made free throw gave her 29 points and the game was briefly paused so her coaches, family and teammates could congratulate her on reaching the huge accomplishment of scoring 1,000 career points.

Her mother, Sandy Borchardt, rushed onto the basketball court and gave Tianna a huge hug while handing her balloons, flowers and a congratulatory handmade sign. Tianna had a huge smile on her face like she normally always does, even as she introduced herself as the new Athens Elementary School third grade teacher to the Athens Board of Education during Monday’s meeting.

After graduating from Edgar in the spring of 2016, Tianna joined other Marawood Conference played in the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association All-Star game with other area star senior girls basketball players from schools in the Marawood Conference.

Tianna scored 11 points to help the Division 4 North squad beat the South, 81-54, in the All-Star game on June 17, 2016, at JustAGame Fieldhouse in Wisconsin Dells. Tianna’a teammates from local schools were Morgan Rachu of Marathon, Macie Frueh of Stratford and Taylor Gotz of Auburndale.

Marathon’s Jeff Schneider was the North All-Star team’s basketball head coach, and his assistant coaches were Beth Seubert of Marathon and Tammie Christopherson of Stratford.