Draft mockery continues at a daily clip and will through Thursday, then come the reactions for the moves and picks that Kwesi will execute.
It's doubtful that it will have much impact on any of the soon-coming decisions but the team also added one more body from the free agents to it's current collection of corners, 2019 second round pick Joejuan Williams (NE).
Four of the five days of competition this past week included some bat on ball action, with softball getting swept by SDSU to start the week.
Tuesday was all to men's ⛳️ as a date with Mayville by ⚾️ was cancelled. The fellas then got the lone spotlight as the two-day Bison Open also got chopped. ORU was in no mood for a tight game as they got 10 runners across to zero by the Herd. Saturday's finish created a rubbermatch as Tristen Roehrich & Skyler Riedinger pitched well enough for just two runs by the Eagles. The series-decider went to 13 innings but the top team in the conference came out on top by a slam's worth.
Softball finished the week in St. Paul with a pair of shutout wins over St. Thomas as Paige Vargas set the tone with 14 strikeouts in game 1!
At the League Championship in Lincoln women's ⛳️ is in a tie with South Dakota for second, seven strokes back from Denver with two days to play. Madi Hicks showed why she's All-Conference but her fellow A-C, Elise Hoven, is in a tie for 25th so she will need to stabilize for the team to close the gap.
The week also included announcements by a pair of current players. During the last week of Spring practice DE Tony Pierce posted that he is transferring out and immediately got offers from several schools - is up to 13 now - but of course there's no misconduct to worry about 😉. He's been around for a few years so it's a loss of experience but may well have seen his opportunity diminish as younger guys continued to work so it may be for the best.
It's less easy to say the same about the other announcement. Long-expected but now official, Grant Nelson will test the pro 🏀 draft waters. A prevailing thought is that he's completely done as a student-athlete in Fargo. Given that he gave them three years and that was regarded as the benchmark for a great run that thought may be the right one but with so much continuity, him being a state local & potentially having the chance to lead the program further than it's ever gone before, if he comes back to college, I think it's fairly-likely that the SHAC could have him back. But again, it was a very good run no matter which way he goes in the future!
Hoops also got a bit of clarity on opponents of the future as a three-year agreement was reached between the Summit & Big Sky. Rumor has it that the opponents will be based on Net Rankings of the last few years so some familiar FCS teams might be coming to Fargo for the second most popular sport at the University.
The C word was all over the week's slate of action with softball being one of the only outfits to get between the lines. In mirror-like fashion they played to splits Monday against Wayne State & Sunday against Mankato as freshman Mack Gallagher broke the school record for home runs in a season with her 10th. There are eight games before the conference tournament so the Illinois native will have plenty of chances (barring more cancellations) to cement that number between calls from schools closer to home which could use that pop!
🏃 also traveled to Bismarck for an open Sunday, returning with seven event wins and had several more high finishers.
Concordia started the week with Player Honors for Andy Gravdahl after a blistering week at the plate. The WF native then became the fourth Cobb named to the D3 National Team of the Week! In-between postponements ⚾️ was able to get back on the diamond for a pair against St. John's with each game going overwhelmingly in favor of the winner.
The other diamond added four more losses to the record as Gustavus put on a pair of routes while St. Kate's walked a tight-rope to their wins.
Men's 🎾 had their season end like so many of the previous meetings, a lopsided win by the opponent.
The guys ⛳️ team had it's first competition since early October, a 12th-place finish in New Prague.
Both of the 🏃 teams also got work in at the Carleton Relays, with mixed results by the men and women.
Can't just wash game 1 off but to their credit, the team was able to rebound with a pair of tough efforts in games 2 & 3 before breaking-through with a win in a do-or-done game four. The constant through the last three games for the Howl was Anthony Edwards, who has done all he can to validate his All-Star inclusion on the biggest stage & indisputably affix himself among the best players in the Association. He is almost single-handedly making up for the absences of McDaniels & Reid. Whatever happens Tuesday night in Denver, he's the cornerstone player for the franchise and the only way things could be significantly better is if MN was up 3-1 or 4-0.
The Dupes weren't able to maintain their 2-out-of-3 winning percentage against Boston & Washington but splashed with a 4-year, $73,500,000 extension with Pablo Lopez. As the replacement for Jose Berrios it seems as though the team won in a major way because Toronto is saddled with a 7-year deal with JB but he's averaging more than five runs given up since the start of last season and more than six/outing so far this season. If the willingness to open the vault continues by this generation of Pohlad's than all fans will have to complain about is the inability to win when it matters most, but perhaps that can end as a downstream result of the spending.
It took til the final game of the season but a home & home against Sioux Falls Friday/Saturday got the Bolts over the 40-win mark. The big 4-0 was the cherry on top as the one which preceded it netted the organization it's first Anderson Cup (regular season champion). They will face the winner of the Tri-City & Sioux City for the chance at either Waterloo or Lincoln (probably). It will be a slog but, should they need it, they will have fans on their side in final games for as long as they go, for whatever that's worth in hockey.
Reminder that scores and recruiting news are updated regularly so check back often!
It was another meager week but teams managed to get out and generate a few highlights
May/Port/C/G checked-in with a 25-0 win over Langdon/E/M it's season opener. Central Cass was clicking nearly that well as they blasted Enderlin 20 - 2. Hillsboro/CV came through with an also-respectable 7 - 2 win over Hankinson/TS/L as Serrina Klose put 17 Ks on them.
On the 🎾 court, Moorhead's boys beat Sauk Rapids 7 - 0 & Willmar 6 - 1 while Sheyenne's girls slammed Shanley 9 - 0.
On the ⚽️ field Davies opened-up a 10 - 0 can on South. A few days later, Shanley put a 4 - 0 shutout on Century.
In a unique twist, Davies recently-resigned boys ⚽️ coach Ian Costello took the same position at North high. With the assignment he will be able to check-off each of the FPS high schools, not that that factored into why he did it but is an interesting nugget.
That wasn't the only coaching news to break this week as Horace's Derek Hutchinson stepped-down from his role as the head boys 🏀 coach.
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