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Across all the levels of sports, from ages where the kids can barely tie their own shoes to the ones that provides billions of dollars of salary and entertainment there remains two constants - the drive to win and the lessons which are learned along the way.
While only a select few will know what was learned along the way, this week the Hawley Nuggets volleyball team advanced to their first state championship match, winning 3-1 over Southwest Christian!
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Lessons will need to continue to be learned up a level as Moorhead State dropped it's penultimate football game against Bemidji State.
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Concordia had even more riding on it's home finale as Bethel came to town but an uncharacteristic performance by Cooper Mattern spoiled their chance to make the MIAC championship game and possibly extend the season beyond that.
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And of course there was the performance in Jacksonville which earned nothing by negative adjectives for the offense despite the win. The lightning and thunder of the opening weeks is as far-gone as the flash and crack during July but fortunately the defense has recovered from it's late-October swoon against Detroit and LA.
Maybe Blake Cashman really means that much to the entire unit, that would be a troubling fact because the injury rate of the game is 100% so dependence of that sort could sink the ship!
But that was not a factor today
Subtract the one drive that Jacksonville scored - 9 plays, 70 yards - they ran 34 plays for 73 yards.
That doesn't save the game from being labeled as ugly as rot but is a rare level of effectiveness!
The secondary bright-spot is that the replacement long-snapper and kicker didn't miss a beat from what the all-pro pairing had done to this point in the season.
If those two-thirds can sustain then perhaps Darnold's slump can be survived against teams that won't be selecting in the first five picks next April! 🤞
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A month and half into their repeat bid, the Force are smack in the middle of a five-team log-jam in the Western Conference.
Five months to go in the regular season, no need for determinations yet but worth noting as the November slow-down continues to take effect.
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But not quite yet for Sheyenne, Davies, Horace and Kindred as they all advanced to Friday's Dakota Bowl.
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Which just leaves North Dakota volleyball, as their brackets continue to be formed.
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