Bison
A majority of NDSU's action this week centered around the Track & Field teams. After a sterling Indoor season, the outdoor competitors kept right on going with their Summit league and national level successes. Four days of competition means many could be individually identified but I'll leave it to GoBison for all the details. The best of the lot was once again, still Payton Otterdahl. With every competition the guy makes me more sure that he should go into some variation of Dude Perf activity once he's done competing for NDSU.
Beyond Track & Field, Baseball & Softball got series in. The guy's took one of three at Oral Roberts while the women pushed their winning streak to 14 against Western Illinois. Wins should never be assumed and losses should never be universally accepted but the results by both teams are microcosms of where each team is, relative to the rest of the conference.
Which leaves only the king of the campus. Football simultaneously ushered out the elite group of players that won nearly as many championships as it had losses with the pro day in front of more than 20 NFL teams' representation. The FCS's equivalent of Harrison Smith (Robbie Grimsley) showed out like few others, including exactly zero of the safeties that were in Indianapolis a few weeks ago. He along with Stick and Anderson and the rest of the 14 participants all looked to make their mark so that they can continue the dream of playing at the highest level. I'll do a prognostication piece again this week but wouldn't be doing it right to not include the pro day in the summation. While that was going on, Spring ball was also kicking off. It's in it's earliest stages but coach Entz isn't wasting any time putting his stamp on the program. With the need to reload all over the place, that's a great way to start the process! A close second would be avoiding injury and so far that's also been the case, unless they're keeping a Timberwolves under Tom Thibodeau level of security on every bit of information. I couldn't confirm that even if it was the case, certainly not yet. So while there's plenty more going on, Football has made it's way back to a spotlight.
Dragons
Softball got a pair of games in at Northern State, splitting the Tuesday series. A six run victory, including a pair of runs by Samantha Gjerde & Emma Dummer, preceded a 2-1 defeat. They followed that up with a split against Upper Iowa with the second of the two being a 10-9 victory for the Dragons. Which only naturally lead to a Sunday bushwhacking against Winona State. A 12-0 loss is how they will go into the month of Spring.
Elsewhere for Moorhead State, the Tennis team cleaned up against St. Cloud & Duluth. 6-1, Friday then 4-0 on Saturday was how they concluded a three loss season. The rest of the week's scheduled action was victim of the on going weather conditions.
Cobbers
The Cobbs were also subject to the slow melt this week with postponements to both Softball & Baseball games which pushed the first action of the week all the way back to Friday as the men's Tennis team jumped ranks against Augustana & North Dakota. They managed to get a couple against the D2 but were shutout by the Sioux. Both Tennis teams returned to the court against Bethel on Sunday afternoon.
Softball managed to squeeze in a couple at Augsburg on Saturday but only scored a single run over the two games. They did a little better in their Sunday doubleheader, winning 3 - 1 thanks to a two run day by Maria Pake but then got stomped 11 - 4.
In the offices, some significant news came through the feed this week. It started with the coaching staff for the Football team getting announced. Check the full release at your leisure . A couple days after that Austin Peterson signed a deal to play Soccer professionally in Germany. Not that I'm an expert or anything but I've heard that German leagues are considered some of the best in the world so that's quite a feather in the program's cap!
Twins
Through one series the Twins have a winning record. The Berrios starts are the ones I'll be most interested in this year, and you should feel the same way but maybe pitchers 2, 3, 4, and 5 won't be as much hot garbage as I thought. The depth of starts weren't special but holding the favorites in the Central to zero runs was a good start for both Odorizzi & Pineda. But if you want to see the best of the rotation, the young Puerto Rican is the one to tune in for this year while the rest could keep things interesting through April.
Force
Better late than never. They started Sunday with a win and in scenario but didn't even end up needing to win to secure their spot in the second season. Which is good because they lost again but still find themselves with the opportunity to defend their crown.
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