Bison
As regular seasons concluded there were many banner moments for the NDSU athletics department. The first one came early in the week as the NDSU men's Golf team claimed the conference title. They now work & wait for their trip to California for the regional. Likewise with their female counterparts who teed up for the first time in their regional in Madison today.
Back in Fargo the Softball and Baseball teams each drew ever closer to the conclusions of their regular season. The former closed it out in dominating fashion on Sunday afternoon while the latter plays on for a couple more weeks. The Baseball team may yet rally to qualify for the Summit tournament but it is far from a certainty today. What is certain is that the Softball team continued their strangle hold on the Summit League but you can read more about their great week in the debut edition of a new post!
Last but not least, the Track & Field teams each took part in a tune up that they were the host school for. With their championships taking place this coming weekend, it was a well timed exercise!
Vikings
Team Skol held their first team workout of the new season as 60+ fresh faces broke in TCO. Among them were three former Bison greats looking for an opportunity to extend their Football careers. As of now, those chances will not be coming with my favorite Football team but it's a small step in the right direction by the people in charge. The next right decision will be to have a member or five as part of the 90 man roster for training camp but that doesn't seem to be in the cards just yet. They saw enough from a few of the tryouters to sign them on as replacements, one of whom comes from the Valley so all is not lost as an FCS guy who loves the Vikings!
Twins
The hometown nine may have gotten out of their recent funk. It will take a strong showing against the always competitive Cardinals to signal that the three straight wins over the White Sox aren't them just taking advantage of an inferior team. Even if that's all it ends up being, that's still a positive. Beat bad teams, that's something that they've already failed in doing through the early part of the season so following the theme of baby steps, it could be that. I am hoping for more though!
Dragons
Track, Track & more Track. That's what the calendar held and holds for the fire breathers. Well not quite just, but mostly. The MSUM Softball team did conclude their slate on Sunday with a split at Upper Iowa. Too bad that one day wasn't able to encapsulate their season. That would have taken two losses out of three games. So they ended with a 50/50 day. Not bad.
But as mentioned, the Track team took part in the NDSU tune up and ends to Winona for the NSIC championships this coming weekend.
Cobbers
As their graduation ran it's course, Concordia maintained a fever pitch of athletic activity. Six more Baseball games, four of Softball, one each of men's Tennis and men's Golf all continued their regular seasons. The best of the bunch was the links crew who took first their latest invitational. There's no better way to finish a season, literally!
In lock step with their neighbors, the rest of the Corncobs schedule is composed of Track & Field action. While most of the athletes also took part in the NDSU tune up, there were also representatives at the MIAC Decathlon. It will peak next weekend as they face off one last time in the MIAC this school year. From there it could be onto national qualifiers, but one step at a time!
Force
Back in the ship! After dispatching of Waterloo in an exciting but abbreviated semi-final the Force are back in the championship and need only to hold serve at home to raise the cup. There are probably some out there who will root for a sweep & I won't root against that possibility but a five game series that they would win would be as good and I would contend even better. However it shakes out in terms of length, as long Fargo beats Youngstown it will have been a very successful season! Duh 😉