With only a handful of days left until the draft a lot more is upcoming!
The final countdown began with the fifth installment of this year's mock-a-thon.
The week started with Trevor Otterdahl & Kelby Anderson being recognized as the Athletes of the Week. 🏃 then went out and put itself in a position for more. They opened the weekend in Vermillion with several personal bests by both the men & women. Friday brought even better as the throwers shone again, carrying right on into Saturday as the wins piled up yet again!
Things also went well on the diamond. ⚾️ had the first crack at it, against Nebraska & only finished one run behind. They were back at it Friday in Tulsa but lost the series open 10 - 4. They responded Saturday with back-to-back wins, 2 - 1 & 10 - 2.
Softball & ⛳️ were the outliers as the former dropped both against SDSU before Sunday's game was cancelled while the latter was in eighth place after the first day at the League Championship, with two more days to improve their standing.
Beyond the lines men's 🏀 announced the promotion of Spencer Wilker to assistant coach after serving as the director of operations for the last four years.
In pro news, Bennett Hostetler picked up where he left off with his first home run of the season Wednesday.
The weekend also included the conclusion of Spring football, which you can see some of through the link.
A week which started with Shyrone Kemp being named the Conference Field Athlete of the Week did not have much else go positively.
The women's ⛳️ team finished in 11th place at the conference championship.
The exception came from the same vein it started with as five of the teams events were victories in St. Paul.
The weekend also included the conclusion of Spring football, which you can see some of through the link.
Concordia started the week with a simultaneous bang & fizzle. Their likely future hall of fame pitcher, Megan Gavin, fanned 20 of Gustavus' swingers but the offense was unable to capitalize as they fell 3 - 0 in the 11th. The second game was practically the polar opposite as GA took care of business 9 - 1 in five innings.
⚾️ hosted St. Scholastica for a pair and finished with an addition to each side of the column to move a win below 10 for the season. Via another split Saturday they got win #10, 14 - 2 over St. Olaf. Gavin helped get one more for the road with a nine-strikeout performance against Macalester, 1 - 0. Having not won a conference hame yet this season the split was welcome but could have been twice as good! They were able to pick up a second W 11 - 9 in walk-off fashion Sunday as Landry Maragos hit her first home run to split with St. Catherine's!
The weekend also included a third place finish at Carleton by 🏃, with a pair of top finishers.
A stressful week for the Pack began with the confirmation of their draft selection. As the team goes into the offseason, whenever that may be, they will have the 19th selection among their chips to wheel & deal with. That particular draft is about the last thing on the minds of fans but it could present another opportunity to add another Jaden McDaniel type slider so it shouldn't be brushed aside.
After taking the first game of the series Minnesota all but laid down before coming home. The 28-point loss was the second worst in franchise history. As meager as that history is, it's still a black mark. What happened in game 3 is at best equal to that marking as they lost 24+ point leads in both halves and lost the game by nine. The game finished with a 50 - 16 shellacking over the final 15 minutes of play. It was an epic meltdown, reminiscent of some of the worst outcomes by the Purple.
Despite that, late-night Saturday still managed to be a party. Chris Finch moved one spot ahead of Tom Thibodeau for second on the all-time playoff wins list as Karl-Anthony Towns roared back from another bad playoff showing in game 3 to join Kevin Garnett as the second member of the franchise to record a point/rebound double-double. In the process he drew 14 fouls while only having 3 against him. Ideally in his seventh year his production wouldn't be so up & down but he's still practically a rookie as far as the playoffs are concerned so the learning curve is a factor. If the same effective & smart player shows up in Memphis on Tuesday then the team will have another excellent chance to take a 3 - 2 lead. If not, well, then at least they secured the chance to play one more home game. While Towns was riding the see-saw Edwards showed consistency en route to the most points through four playoff games of anyone in the franchises history.
The so-called Boys of Summer started the week with a convincing win over Boston only to lose two of out three against lowly Kansas City in punchless fashion. The offensive doldrums continued through the first game against the Chicago Sox. Maybe a coincidence but they went the way of the temperature and turned it up Saturday with nine runs on 14 hits & four walks. The bats stagnated Sunday to a 3 - 3 tie until the 10th inning. Chicago put themselves ahead but then faced Byron Buxton with two on base. On the heels of being a triple shy of the cycle Saturday, Buxton smashed his second home run of the day to win the series. The game-winner was the longest walk-off shot in the last 15 years! It's exactly the sort of production that should come from a guy who has been said to be a MVP candidate when healthy but like Bo Jackson, his body may prevent him from reaching those high, high heights more often than a solar eclipse.
Down to the final three games of the season, the Bolts got one more lesson from the best as Tri-City thumped them 8 - 3 Tuesday. The regular season concluded with a home & home Friday/Saturday against Sioux Falls. As they closed down the Arena Fargo never trailed, rolling to a 5 - 3 W thanks to 3 third period scores by Tyler Rollwagen. Down the road Saturday they were behind 2 - 1 early in the third period but Cole Knuble, Andre Gasseau & Rollwagen rattled off the final scores of the night to put them all at or above 15 for the year.
They will be in Omaha for the opening round of the playoff Monday night with the second game set for Tuesday. If needed, game three would be Wednesday with all of them set for puck drop just past 7 pm.
The Birds began the week re-signing righty reliever Joe Jones and outfielder Will Zimmerman. They added another arm to the mix, nine-year veteran Francisco Jimenez via a trade with Tri-City. The player in exchange hasn't yet been announced but the moves prompted the release of righty Jon Ludwig. It may be low-hanging fruit but it doesn't seem like they are done making moves yet either!
Reminder that scores are added daily plus there's a new home for recruiting news, so check back often!
It was another sparse week of activity but highlights were made nonetheless
Wednesday included an 11-score performance on the pitch by the Davies girls while their keeper kept South from scoring. The Eagles had a quick turn around but were back on the field Thursday against North, winning 4 - 1. At the same time Kindred was hanging 13 on Northern Cass to win by 10 runs. Moorhead did even better in their season opener beating Alexandria 10 - 0 with a no-hitter. The softball success continued as Central Cass beat Enderlin 14 - 1 & 13 - 4 while Hankinson left the field with a 14 - 4 win over Hillsboro. On the other diamond NC beat Oakes 6 - 1, Enderlin & the Hankinson co-op split their pair, with the Eagles winning the second game 13 - 2 after coming back from an 8 - 0 deficit to lose 13 - 9. On Saturday the Taters took care of Bismarck Century twice, 20 - 10 & 12 - 2. Their boys lacrosse had their own impressive set of games, beating Grand Rapids 10 - 1 & Proctor/Hermantown 14 - 3. The Spuds speech team also got into the act, winning their sixth straight AA state competition convincingly.
The track was also good for regional competitors as Kindred & South's boys finished well ahead of the pack as the top 2 while Shanley's girls also took second behind the Vikings, with a similar margin ahead of third place Horace.
On the 🎾 court Shanley & Sheyenne both posted shutouts against South & Wahpeton Thursday. The same happened versus South & Central by 4 - 1 scores on the ⚽️ field.
Beyond the lines, Travis Hoeg was announced as the head coach for North's boys after taking over on an interim basis during last season.
The Club added several more members to it's men's roster from across the world.
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