In addition to the latest edition of the Mock-A-Thon, Minnesota made a long-rumored move this week. Cutting Kyle Rudolph was not surprising, not to anyone who has paid even passing attention to the team over the last few years. But it is a loss on the field and even more so in the community. If he finds his way to an offense where he goes back to being a 50+ reception guy with these kinds of grabs sprinkled in:
Then it will be the latest indictment against the coaching staff.
Not that they cut hit but that they didn't use him well enough over the last two years.
Time will tell
A meek start with just the women's ⛳️ team in action during the week gave way to three packed days of action! They finished in 10th out of 15 teams in Phoenix, by the way.
The weekend started early with the Softball team in Oxford, MS for an AM pair. They lost to Indiana St 10-5 and 1-0. At the same time the cross country teams were in action with the women finishing slightly better than the men at the League championships. ⚾️ took the diamond an hour past noon in Colorado but also suffered defeat, 8-4. The ⚽️ team was also on the mountain and held Denver to one goal, while being unable to get one of their own. 🏐closed out Friday with a shutout victory over Western Illinois.
On Saturday 🤼 tipped off the action - more on them later. ⚾️ wasn't far behind with their rematch against Northern Colorado. Evan Sankey got 11 runs of support, which helped him spin six innings of 11-strikeout ball. The sting of it didn't sit well as NC came back with a 14-4 whooping in game three. Softball also got back on the diamond but the results were no more positive, 8-0 & 3-1 against the host university. 🏐 made it a 6-0 brooming of Western.
And of course there was the 🏈 game.
Garret Wegner's performance earned him special team player of the year for the third time.
Softball finished their time in Mississippi with a comeback 4-3 win in the final four innings against Samford. It earned Paige Vargas her first win of the year with eight innings in the circle. Day 2 in Tulsa finished with Luke Weber as the second 12 conference champion on the mat for the Bison. In addition, Jared Franek finished second at 157. That helped them finish sixth, one point behind Northern Iowa. Back in Greeley, the hard-toss earned a split with an 11-1, 7 inning win. Their first seven runs all came by the ball going over the fence. They were ahead 10-0 before NC got on the board in the fourth but Ben Smith & Parker Harm didn't let it get any closer than that. ⚽️ rematched with UD but were once again shutout, only this time they gave up three scores.
In Sioux Falls the main event of Winter began for the Bison with the women cruising to a 79-67 final that was only that close because NDSU took their foot of the gas after being ahead by 27 with five minutes left in the game. The men got the nightcap and also finished with a much closer score than was indicative of much of the contest, 69-65. Rocky Kreuser had a block at the rim in the final seconds which sealed the win. Now both teams will face the 2 seeds from Vermillion tomorrow, 2:45 for the women & 8:45 for the men. Both games served to remind that it's survive and advance season, even though SD State's loss yesterday should have already been all the evidence that anyone needs for that.
Those games came after the announcement of the all-conference teams. Heaven Hamling was second team while Emily Dietz & Ryan Cobbins were honorable mentions. That's the most the women have had at one time since joining the League. Hamling was also on the all-newcomer list with Reneya Hopkins and the starting point guard was named the newcomer of the year. Those are the markings of an impressive turn around by Jory Collins already!
As for the men; Sam Griesel was second-team, Rocky Kreuser was first and Grant Nelson was on the newcomer list as well as being named the sixth-man of the year not freshman of the year. I contend that's a higher honor since it includes more than just the freshman. Yeah, that's kind of a 'duh' statement but don't overlook the obvious!
Away from the court, news broke today that track & field would have one more competitor at the national championships next weekend in Fayetteville, Arkansas - Jennie Baragar-Petrash. The other seven will participate in the throwing events. That concluded another banner week of recognitions for those competitors. Akealy Moton & Alex Talley were each named Midwest athletes of the year, with two of the best resumes you'll find. It naturally followed that their coach, Justin St. Clair was then named coach of the year.
As it was for their neighbors to the West, Moorhead State had a Softball heavy week of action. They opened their year with a two-game sweep of Bemidji State 6-5 & 5-4. They came from behind in game one with three runs in the sixth and then went wire-to-wire in game two.
The glow of those victories was extinguished emphatically when they traveled to Kansas for six games and were outscored 59 to 10.
Good news came for Moorhead away from the competition surface as Chris Cook & Shyrone Kemp were announced as competitors in the D2 T & F nationals in Birmingham. Cook will go for high jump while Kemp will triple jump.
Then, in the waning hours of Sunday the men's 🏀 team found out that they are in the 48-team field. They'll go against Wayne State on the 13th with the winner going against Northern State the next day. A good season, very good, now has the chance to get even better!
Another week littered with cancellations and postponements weren't able to derail the start of Softball season. In the win they scored seven while allowing two. The clinching scores came off the bat of Moorhead's own Drew Syverson. They next took the field on Sunday for their first games at home since 2019. Crookston got the opener 4-2 but the Cobbers managed another split, 1-0. The one run came after a strike-out/throw out but Valerie Kolstad managed to get home before the Catcher got the ball back. Amber Taylor finished both wins with 13 innings and six Ks to her credit.
On Saturday the track & field teams were in Collegeville for the St. John's Invitational. The men finished top 3 while the women were one spot off the podium.
Sunday also included the 🎾 team at St. Catherine's but they may have preferred to join the majority in inaction as they were swept 9-0.
Short & bittersweet
As Minnesota mixes and matched it's way through Spring Training today may have shown that the pieces are coming together. They went with an opener versus the purveyors of that strategy and held Tampa to four runs over eight innings. Josh Donaldson went yard for three in his first action this Spring. It's still too early to draw any real conclusions from the outcomes but the picture is getting more discernable.
Fargo got the weekend theme of dominating Sioux Falls started early with a two-piece on the ice at home. Friday night started out hot with five scores in the first sevent minutes. When the ice shavings settled the Bolts were up 4-1 thanks to Cody Monds, Tristan Broz, Mason Salquist & the Bear (Hughes). Aaron Huglen added to the lead five minutes later to conclude the offense for the opener. Sioux Falls got one back five minutes into the second but 17 seconds later Huglen slipped another by the goalie to crack double-digits for the season. Brennan Boynton & the rest of the defense held the rest of the way while Ryan Richardson & Kyle Smolen tacked on two more points to win 8-2, their most dominant win to date.
They kept the four-to-one advantage going as Nick Strom & Aaron Huglen jumped them out to a 2-0 lead 28 seconds into the second period. The advantage was cut in half a few minutes later but Matthew Crasa & Austin Wong put it away late in the final.
Fargo remains atop the West but Omaha & Tri-City have not allowed them to build on their lead for another week.
The trend of roster construction for the birds continued this week. The first move was by signing leftie Stephen Greenlees. As they week progressed they added Sam Dexter to help man the infield and Kevin Krause to go behind the plate. The last of their moves came in conjunction with the release of Kory Behanna. I guess they reached their quota of left-handed pitchers.
Typically Winter sports would now become a past-tense proposition but with the staggered start in Minnesota the competitions will roll on pretty close to the start of Spring activity in North Dakota. Three of the four 🏀 tournaments in ND are still ahead but out of Fargo means they go to the back burner, the consequence of limited financing.
The representatives were determined at the SHAC on Saturday with all four boys teams from the East hailing from the Fargos while Davies & Shanley are representing in the other bracket. Sheyenne repeated in the guys championship versus Davies while North & West Fargo punched their tickets earlier. They'll look to make up for last March's cancellation starting on Thursday in Bismarck.
Before their season was over, Fargo South's Adie Wagner set another record, this time as the school's all-time leading scorer. Depending on health she will push it nearly untouchable heights by the end of her senior season. A few hours later Barnesville's Adam Tonsfeldt had the same accomplishment. We may never have that accomplishment happen on the same day again in this area - and both by multi-sport stars.
It's exactly the sort of nugget that I wish I could close every post with!
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