NDSU started with what will be the last visits by Fort Wayne for the foreseeable future. The women were first to go against the departing and got some history by Michelle Gaislerova. The junior guard started the game with her 1,002nd points, finishing the game with 18 and in the process became the leader in division 1 history for most consecutive free-throws made. Due to an early & large lead, some of the younger players saw the court that wouldn't have otherwise. Raquel Terrer van Gool was the only other Bison in double-figures with 12 off the bench as they cruised to a 74 - 53 victory. On Friday, the men got next and pushed their streak to six in a row behind Ward (22) & Shahid's (19) continued dominance. 80 - 70 was closer than the other contest but put them on the precipice of a 20 win season. They'll have to keep it rolling against South & North Dakota this week before closing out the regular season at home if they plan on being the #1 seed. Elsewhere on Friday & Saturday, the Track teams were spread across the nation but didn't let that stop them from performing on par with all the other representatives. The early portion of the more fan-appreciable Spring sports also had the Softball team in Florida and the Baseball team in Hawaii. Tough life, right! For the Softballers, they faced the highly ranked team from Gator land and lost both but in the second chance held them to one run. All three of the other challengers were convincingly outplayed. To date, the Baseball team split with the islanders but have two games remaining as of this typing. The Wrestling team also got into the act of representing well against a ranked opponent as Stanford came to town on Saturday but was dealt with 28 - 13. They followed that up today against the air academy and did even better, 31 - 6.
From Wednesday to Saturday the conference's water championships were underway in Bismarck and while Moorhead State's sixth-place finish as a team isn't great, there were some sterling efforts within the group. On Thursday the Wrestling team hosted UMary but could only manage a 13 - 31 final. The Track team spent a couple of days in Brookings which included a school-record getting reset. The Basketball teams started their last weekend away in St. Cloud and the disappointing season continued for the women as they lost 74 - 80 before getting walloped by Duluth on Saturday, 70 - 47. The men, however, started with another win, 74 - 63 thanks to a balanced output but were no more able to overcome the Bulldogs, 99 - 86. The Wrestlers had another crack but couldn't do much better against Augsburg, 9 - 35. The Tennis team finished the week in Bismarck against Bemidji St & then Crookston. They finished with 5 - 2 and 7 - 0 scores, to move to 5 - 0 so far in the season.
The corns started with a home double-feature against St. Olaf. The men came up nine points short while the women got the 89 - 85 victory with six players finishing at 10+, including 19 by Emily Beseman off the bench to finish 1 behind Autumn Thompson for the team lead. Concordia followed that with a run at the MIAC in the water but all they could manage was an 11th place finish. Also on Thursday, the Wrestling team was at Augsburg but struggled against those gies. The frozen water came into play on Friday against the Auggies but both the men and the women came up multiple goals short. The men returned with a better result as they held on to their 2-0 lead for a 2-1 win. The women were not so fortunate and got doubled-up, 4 - 2. That was close to the lowest light as the only other losers were the men's Tennis team. The men's Track team finished second at St. John's while the women got top marks at the St. Benedict invite. The ladies Tennis won 6 - 3 over St. Scholastica while the Basketball team capped everything with a four-overtime, yeah you read that right, a FOUR OT spine-tingler! It took two separate rallies by SS, including one in the fourth quarter to force the bonus-ball but then the teams deadlocked until Concordia blew out the eighth quarter 14 - 5 to seal the victory. Thompson scored a game-high 26 to pace the five-pack of top scorers for the home team. To close out the week, both of the Tennis teams were in Superior, each finished with 5 - 4 scores but only the men would celebrate theirs
Minnesota's retooled roster got another test in game 2 but couldn't quite replicate their first-game magic against Toronto. After a narrow loss to the defending champs, they dropped another one to a fellow bottom-feeder, Charlotte, in what could end up being a tie-breaker when the lottery odds are finalized.
Due to a dearth of compelling matchups this week the only first-hand action was VC at North in girls Basketball. Captured some quality images, if I do say so myself, and with the playoffs nearing, more are sure to come!
Fargo started the weekend with a prime opportunity to further congest the Western conference of the league below Waterloo. In each of the two games against Omaha they were mostly punchless, scoring a single goal on Friday while giving up four scores before being downed 3 - 0 on Saturday. They finished out the weekend with a one-off in Sioux City today and it was strong closing as they won 5 - 2 with four unanswered scores in the third period, including two by Adam Gajarsky.
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