The Vikings struggled through a 2-17 campaign this past season.

"He indicated it was for personal reasons," Northwest activities director Rocky Almond said. "He chose to let the program go in another direction."

Northwest went 17-40 under Moerer, who spent five seasons as a Viking assistant coach prior to taking over as head coach.

He will remain as a social studies teacher at Northwest and a familiar face in the athletic department. Moerer will continue to serve as the defensive coordinator for football coach Tony Allgood.

As always with high school coaching searches, the number of teaching openings plays a big part in how easy it is to find a new coach. As it stands now, Northwest has some flexibility in its hunt for a new girls basketball coach.

"We have four positions open as far as teaching is concerned," Almond said. "With those openings, we have had a lot of interest.

"We want to fill it as soon as we can. There is off-season stuff to take care of like camps."

The Vikings qualified for state three straight years in 2002-04 while Moerer was an assistant. But Northwest hasn't qualified the last four years and hasn't had a state tournament victory since 1994.

"Right now we'd like to inject some youth and energy into the program," Almond said. "That doesn't mean we don't want someone who is very qualified. We'll look for someone who will jump in with both feet."

Final shots

Thoughts while wrapping up the high school basketball season:

* Debate about the positives and negatives of holding consolation games at the state tournament continues.

Although I don't think they are the greatest addition, I'll defer to the wisdom of Hampton coach Jerry Eickhoff. He does have 649 more coaching victories than I do after all.

"Personally I don't like it," Eickhoff said after his Hawks won the D-2 consolation game. "The state tournament is here to play for a state championship. It's tough coming back (and playing after a loss).

"If you talk to our kids, they loved it. For the kids it's great. That's a good thing. But you're supposed to play (the tournament) to win."

While the smiles beaming from Hampton seniors Dylan Bamesberger and Brock Kohtz as they took the third-place trophy off the Pershing Center court, it was hard to not see some positives in the consolations.

* Favorite message board post related to the state tournament came from the Huskerland Preps site.

Someone wondered what it meant that five private schools were in the boys tournament finals.

One response: "God is on their side obviously. Or (it means that) they won twice in the state tournament."

* The annual Independent All-Heartland teams will be published this weekend. The top girls players in the area will be honored on Saturday and the boys will have their turn in Sunday's edition.

This and that

* All of Brett Favre's records were detailed when he announced his retirement last week.

One that is often forgotten is that his name is the No. 1 reason many sports fans have mistakenly self-diagnosed themselves with dyslexia.

* The Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat made up the final 51.9 seconds of a game in which Shaquille O'Neal had incorrectly been credited with a sixth foul and forced to the bench.

I wonder if the Phoenix Suns hope to get a redo on all the games they've played since acquiring Shaq. Prior to Sunday's win over San Antonio, the Suns were 3-6 since adding the big man to the lineup.

Some things are not meant to run on Diesel.

Dale Miller is a sports writer for The Independent