Sports | Field 2 Field

January 16, 2020January 16, 2020

Wild hockey trying to break out of a funk

Wild hockey, or any hockey, for that matter. You can hear the passion for the sport in the voice of Kevin Gorg, a hockey analyst for Fox Sports North. He was a recent guest on the Minnesota Sports Weekly podcast, a voice we hadn’t heard in a while. Gorg wished he could be talking about the Wild under better circumstances.

“Unfortunately, the season is not going the way we want for the Minnesota Wild,” he admitted ruefully. “There is still time to get it turned around. Things were very promising from November through December of last year, but January has not been kind so far.”

Struggling in the new year

Minnesota was one of the highest-scoring teams in the National Hockey League from November through December when they didn’t lose a lot. What happened? First of all, Gorg said no one close to the team saw a stretch of hockey like that coming from a team built from the defensive zone on out.

“It’s not a case of the team not being able to score goals,” he said. “Those of us who cover the team thought if they were to make the playoffs, it would be with solid goaltending and good defense. The firepower up front doesn’t match up with some of the elite teams in the NHL. We thought they could defend, we’ve loved their blue line, and the goaltending’s been good for years.

“That’s what caught us by surprise,” he said. “They were outscoring teams. If you look at who the Minnesota Wild really is, that wasn’t a sustainable way of doing things. Now, goal-scoring has run dry and the team is having to play from behind, which makes things worse. You saw that the other night during a (7-2) loss at Pittsburgh.”

It’s difficult in the NHL, the highest level of professional hockey, to always be down a goal or two and playing from behind. Compounding that during the recent game at Pittsburgh was the fact that the Penguins were welcoming back their team captain and top goal scorer, Sidney Crosby. Could the timing have been any more unfortunate for the Wild?

“He’d been out for nine weeks,” Gorg said. I could almost see him shaking his head even though Gorg was on the phone. “For anyone that knows hockey, he’s a hero in that town. The crowd was amped up, the team was amped up, and Crosby got going. You thought there’d be a little rust there, but no, he put up four points in that game.”

Here’s a few high, er, lowlights from the Wild hockey game at Pittsburgh.

Back to Basics

Teams that hit a losing skid tend to try to do too much to get off the slide. Players will try to overcompensate and their desire to play outside of their roles can make things even worse. Gorg, a lifelong hockey fan and one-time coach, talked about how the Wild get out of their current run of non-winning hockey.

“They just need to get back to basics,” he said right away. “They’re not going to outscore people. Maybe that run of high-scoring hockey late last year got in their heads a bit. They’ve got to be a lot more responsible in their defensive zone, a better back-checking team, they’ve got to take fewer penalties, and be much better on the penalty kill.”

Starting goaltender Devan Dubnyk has been carrying quite a load this year. He missed a month of the season because of his wife’s serious health problems and recently came back to take his place between the pipes. Gorg says the Wild’s top goalie is hanging in there through his family challenges.

“He’s got to be a rock back there, along with (backup goalie) Alex Stalock,” Gorg said. “If you look at the defensemen in front of them, this core is as good as any you’ll find in the NHL, especially when you talk about the top four. However, they haven’t played that way.

“The forwards have to be better in the offensive zone,” he added. “This team has to win games 3-2, rather than 5-4. Score early and play good defense. We don’t have pure scorers like Crosby on the roster. We do have Zach Parise (16 goals, 28 points), who’s on pace for 30 goals, Jason Zucker (12 goals despite just coming back from a broken leg), who should score 25-30 goals, and a guy like Eric Staal (16 goals, 33 points), who’s on pace to score 25-30 goals.”

Young players

That core of young players is what will likely put the Wild into the playoffs if they can raise their level of play. Guys like Kevin Fiala, Jordan Greenway, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Ryan Donato all have to elevate their games. So far, it’s just been Fiala (9 goals, 17 assists) that’s taken that step, with Gorg calling him a potential “25-30-goal scorer.”

The guy many hockey fans are most curious (and maybe concerned) about is Jordan Greenway (5 goals, 11 assists). The one-time U.S. Olympian has been a bit of an enigma. Six-foot-six inches tall off his skates, the big left-winger can look like a freight train on skates, but many times simply disappears in long stretches.

“Last year was his first full season of professional hockey,” Gorg recalled. Between Iowa and the Wild, he played over 100 games last year. You’d think that foundation would have him set up for bigger and better things this year. We’ve seen the flashes. For a guy his size, he’s got really good hands and offensive instincts. He just can’t stretch it out four or five games. But, you don’t give up on a guy that size.”

Buyers or Sellers?

One interesting topic is the trade deadline, which is coming up on Feb. 24. Will the Wild be buyers or sellers? As of right now, it’s not looking like they’ll be buying under new General Manager Bill Guerin.

“Eight points out of a playoff spot in the standings, I think that’s still to be determined,” Gorg said. “I’m impressed with Guerin’s patience. That may be because he’s already got four Stanley Cups in his pocket, two coming as a player.”

Jesus Christ Changed A Hockey Life

January 8, 2020January 8, 2020

NDSU Bison playing for another football title

NDSU Bison football. What do you know? They’re in another title game. Here’s a preview of the Saturday matchup with James Madison University.

There’s a third certainty in life besides death and taxes. It’s the North Dakota State University football team making a deep run into the FCS playoffs. The NDSU Bison take on James Madison University for the FCS college football championship on Saturday, Jan. 11, in Frisco, Texas. Kickoff is at 11 a.m. Central time. The Bison (15-0) are the No. 1-ranked team in the land while James Madison (14-1) is No. 2.

These two teams have quite a history. First of all, this is a rematch of the 2017 national championship game. NDSU has won two straight and seven of the last eight national championship games. JMU took the 2016 national title game after they beat the Bison in the national semifinals. James Madison is making its third appearance in the title game in the last four years.

NSDU football beat writer Jeff Kolpack (@FGOSPORTSWRITER) spoke to Travis Aune on Minnesota Sports Weekly and was refreshingly honest when asked if he thought heading into the season that the Bison would make yet another appearance in the title game.

“To give you a one-word answer, it’s ‘no,’” he said with a laugh. “I wasn’t expecting it because I thought we had too many young players. It’s tough to depend on a freshman quarterback (Trey Lance of Marshall, MN) to get you back to Frisco (Texas).

Another year, same result

“That being said, there’s something about this program that just keeps reinventing itself,” he added. “One of the advantages this program has is they don’t have a lot of players leaving every year. Guys sometimes stick around for 2-3 years before they even get a shot at seeing the field. I think that’s a lot of dedication to a program that you don’t see as much of anymore.”

He says a lot of today’s kids that aren’t playing as freshmen will often bail on their program and look for opportunities elsewhere. It’s the “instant gratification” part of today’s sports and the Bison program has been able to avoid a lot of that.

Obviously, the Bison aren’t winning as much as they have without talent. “They have a lot of that,” he said. “They have a lot of support, resources, and money, as well as a university president (Dean. L Bresciani) who’s on board with the program’s success. You need all those things. Did I expect this? No. Am I surprised they’re here again? No.”

Freshman QB

Despite being a redshirt freshman, Marshall native Trey Lance has shown the ability to be an equally effective passer and runner since taking over under center for the Bison. For a young player, his accuracy is remarkable. He’s thrown for 28 touchdowns and doesn’t have a single interception this season.

“He’s 6-foot-2, 225 pounds, and is a powerful runner,” Kolpack said. “His development is coming along well. He recognizes what defenses are trying to do and gets to his check-down points. He’s much farther along mentally than anyone thought he’d be at this point. It’s sometimes hard to remember that he’s just a freshman when he’s out there.”

Matt Entz took over as head coach after Chris Kleiman left for Kansas State University after last season. Kolpack said the first year under Entz “couldn’t have gone any better.” He was the defensive coordinator under former Bison coaches Kleiman and Craig Bohl.

Dominance

The Bison have been on a remarkable run of winning football. Minnesota Sports Weekly host Travis Aune pointed out that NDSU beats most of its opponents by considerable margins. Why don’t the Bison schedule better opponents? Kolpack’s answer was a simple one; “No one will play them.” He said it might be hard to truly appreciate just how good the program has been over many years.

“It’s one of the most dominant college football programs in history,” he said. “If they win on Saturday, they may win three more. If that’s the case, the NDSU Bison program becomes the most dominant one in college football history.

“However, when you’re watching it before your eyes, it may be hard to recognize that,” Kolpack added. “It’s hard to live in the moment of a history book because technically the book hasn’t been written yet. It’ll be written 10-20 years down the road. You write it after the fact.”

This Saturday

Looking ahead to the title game on Saturday, Kolpack said the defenses could play a major role in the outcome. James Madison is No. 1 in the country in terms of yards allowed on the ground, with their opponents averaging a mere 61 yards per game and 2.2 yards per rush.

“The recent run of NDSU Bison success has been built on good defense,” he said. “They’re a good defensive team again this year. I think the first team to 20 is going to win this game. The teams will open with some basic football early on and get a feel for what each of them is doing.

“Two heavyweights like this are going to come out like boxers,” Kolpack said. “They’re not going to try for the knockout early. I’m seeing a close, low-scoring game.”

You can find the whole interview with Jeff Kolpack as part of Minnesota Sports Weekly right here.

January 7, 2020January 7, 2020

College football recruiting for a second time

College football recruiting is quite a process, both for players and coaching staffs. A Spring Grove, Minnesota, high school standout had played his first year of college ball for the University of Minnesota-Crookston and very unexpectedly found himself going through the process a second time. Here’s what it looked like when the news first broke late last year.

Spring Grove native Alex Folz enjoyed a successful first season of college football at the University of Minnesota-Crookston in 2019. After getting significant playing time as a freshman for the NCAA Division 2 level Golden Eagles, Folz was into offseason workouts and studies when he got the news that no college athlete expects. He wouldn’t be playing football for Crookston again.

The school had decided to ax its football program due to “budget concerns.” Folz was left without a team to play for, decided to open himself up to the college football recruiting process once again, and found a new team to play for. This time around, it’s going to be a much-bigger road trip from Spring Grove to his new home. The Spring Grove high school standout is now a member of the Eastern New Mexico State University Greyhounds football team. Why decide to join the team in Portales, New Mexico?

“The first few days of looking for colleges generated some interest from NAIA schools, NCAA Division 3 schools, but nothing that big,” Folz recalled. “I had a couple of offers from NCAA Division 2 schools in southern states like West Virginia. I sent some film out to Eastern New Mexico and by the fourth day of my college football recruiting process, the head coach (Kelley Lee) sent me an email saying he loved my film and thought I’d be a good fit there.

Spring Grove native Alex Folz, shown here as a freshman playing for the University of Minnesota-Crookston, found himself going through college football recruiting for a second time after Crookston decided to cut it’s football program after the 2019 season. (Contributed photo)

“Coach said they might even have opportunities for me to do more things than just offense, which I loved doing at Spring Grove and did at Crookston,” he added. “The recruiting coordinator called to talk to me, and they eventually gave me a pretty nice scholarship.”

He began to look into the team and program, including their facilities and liked what he saw. Folz said the multiple coaches he talked to “seemed nice.” Appropriately enough for the social media age, Folz followed several of the Greyhounds’ players on Twitter, who all seemed to enjoy what they were doing down in New Mexico.

“I thought to myself ‘is this what I really want?’,” he recalled with a laugh. “Minnesota is great, and I have family here, but it’s got to be nice to live in warmer weather and get out to explore the U.S. a little bit.”

Folz admits that the whole “re-recruiting” process ended a little quicker than he thought it would.

The highly decorated high school player had a successful first year with the Crookston program, more so on a personal level than in terms of team success (0-11). He felt the team had something building as a member of a large recruiting class for the Northern Sun Conference school. The team was doing offseason conditioning work when they got notified of an “emergency team meeting” out of the blue.

“I’d just finished class and was sitting with one of my roommates when he got a phone call saying a friend had heard the football team was getting cut,” Folz said. “The friend on the phone knew someone at St. Cloud State that had a meeting at the same time and their program also got cut. We initially thought it was just rumors and nothing like that would happen.”

However, after scrolling through social media reports and other online articles, Folz and his teammates slowly started to think there might well be bad news coming. A lot of his teammates had no idea what they were going to do if it was true because this was the only place they could play while going to school.

“Our coaches came into the meeting room and sat at the back, which is not something they normally do,” he recalled. “The Chancellor (Mary Holz-Clause) stepped up to the microphone and told us she was sorry we had to find out the way we did because they wanted to news to come straight from the administration. She also said, ‘as of today, we’re cutting the football program.’

“You could see it in the faces of every guy in the room,” Folz added. “The look in their eyes said, ‘are you kidding me?’”

What Folz didn’t appreciate was the fact that Holz-Clause told the team they’ve been trying to cut the football team for the previous 18 months. “That’s what got me,” he said emphatically. “Our coaches found out just ten minutes before she told us (on Dec. 10). Why couldn’t they have told us as soon as the season ended (Nov. 16)?”

That meant more than 60 players had to find new colleges by spring. That’s when coaches typically want their new players enrolled so they can get to know the team and practice in the spring. That left them less than a month to find a new home.

And, the school wasn’t prepared to offer a lot of extra help to the students. Folz said athletes who had questions could ask and they’d try to assist them. However, the former Golden Eagle football players were on their own in the college football recruiting process.

From a personal perspective, Folz was disappointed because he had a successful freshman season.

Spring Grove, Minnesota, native Alex Folz is shown here carrying the ball for the University of Minnesota-Crookston football team. Crookston decided to cut its program after the 2019 season, forcing Folz to undergo college football recruiting a second time. (Contributed photo)

“I started the season playing on all four of the special teams’ units,” he said. “I was also a running back. As the season went on, I took over the punting job, returned kicks, and was on the punt return and kickoff teams. Halfway through the season, I moved from running back to slot receiver just because their numbers were low at the position.”

The former high school quarterback also took snaps as the backup quarterback in practice, just in case of an emergency.

The biggest adjustment to college sports came in the classroom. He said Friday and Saturday were his busiest days for football. “That meant you couldn’t be as much of a typical college kid the rest of the week,” he said. “You really have to take your time to study and get your homework done. When all that’s done, you still have to pay attention to the game of football. It’s a big time-balancing exercise.”

Folz is heading out for New Mexico on Jan. 8, will move into his apartment, and then have a couple of days to adjust to the new surroundings. School starts on Jan. 13. Folz is leaving familiar surroundings and heading almost 1,150 miles from home. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when he thinks about the distance?

“I’m really excited,” he said after some thought. “I’ve always wanted to get out and see the country. The only thing I’m nervous about is meeting new teammates. We had a close brotherhood at Crookston. I felt as though I could have gone to any of the players or coaches with anything. I’m hoping all those guys down there will be the same way and I’m sure they will.

“We all just want to play football,” he said with a laugh.

December 28, 2019December 28, 2019

SEC Showcase in Rochester a Success

SEC Showcase. Just a cool name for a great day of watching high school basketball. The first-ever Southeast Conference Showcase in Rochester, Minnesota, featured a full slate of basketball games featuring every team in the league. I went down to Rochester from the Twin Cities to specifically take in the Kingsland vs. Mabel-Canton boys’ and girls basketball games.

Kingsland won the girls’ game 53-43. The Kingsland boys made it a sweep, beating the M-C boys 53-49.

Here’s a few video highlights from both games, with the articles and pictures down below.

SEC Showcase Girls’ Game

The Knights came out firing early in the game and ran off 11-straight points to start the game before Mabel-Canton would score their first points. All-SEC standout Payton Danielson gave the Cougars their first two baskets of the game, the first coming with 13:38 left in the first half.

The Kingsland and Mabel-Conference game featured a couple of solid guards. All-conference guard Payton Danielson of Mabel-Canton (in blue) brings the ball up the floor, where Alyssa Link of Kingsland awaits to play defense. (Photo by Chad Smith)

The Cougars would knock that Kingsland lead down to 15-11 with 9:18 left in the period. M-C stretched its scoring run to 15-8 with five minutes to go in the half. The Knights kept their lead around four points over the final minutes of the first half, leading 21-17 with four minutes to go.

Kingsland would head into the halftime locker room with a 26-22 lead. However, most of the half belonged to Mabel-Canton, who outscored the Knights 22-15 after being down 11-0 early in the game.

The Kingsland girls came out firing in the second half, going on a 10-4 run to take a 36-26 lead six minutes into the second half. The Knights stretched their scoring run to 15-6. Leading by double-digits at 41-30 with 10 minutes on the clock. But Mabel-Canton still wouldn’t go away.

Lauren Wyffels of Mabel-Canton looks to inbound the basketball during their matchup with Kingsland at the SEC Showcase in Rochester. The Knights won the game 53-43. (Photo by Chad Smith)

The Cougars whittled the Kingsland lead down to four points (42-38) with 4:35 left. It was 42-40 Kingsland when MaKenzie Kelly of Mabel-Canton hit a free throw to tie the game at 42-all with 3:34 left. However, Alyssa Link of Kingsland answered with a big three-point basket.

It was 46-42 Knights with 2:15 to go. Link hit a couple of big free throws late to make it a 50-42 Knights’ lead with 25 seconds left. Anika Reiland hit free throws to stretch the Kingsland lead to 53-42 with five seconds left. A Danielson free throw for M-C made it a 53-43 final.

Link, who looks completely healthy and is playing without a brace after recovering from a serious knee injury last season, led the team with a double-double, getting a team-best 15 points and pulling down 11 boards. She had three big three-pointers and went three of four at the free-throw line in the second half, coming up with big points in clutch time. But she had help on the perimeter as well.

Sam Wernimont finished with 13 points, hitting three shots from outside the arc in the first half. Meredith Farlinger provided scoring in the paint, finishing with another double-double of 12 points and 14 rebounds.

Free throws were huge for Kingsland in the second half, when they made 12 of their 16 attempts (75%). It was a marked improvement from the first half when the Knights were just three of 10 at the stripe.

On the defensive end of the floor, Kingsland finished with six steals (Wernimont 2, Audrey Webster 2) and nine blocked shots (Farlinger 4).

SEC Boys’ Game

The SEC Showcase game tipped off in the Mayo Civic Center and points were slow in coming for both teams. The Knights trailed just 4-3 with five-and-a-half minutes off the first-half clock. Just over two minutes later, Brayden Gjere of Mabel-Canton grabbed an offensive rebound and landed a put-back shot to give the Cougars an 8-7 lead with 12:16 to go in the first half.

The Knights trailed 10-9 when Luke Howard drained a three-pointer to make it a 12-10 Knights’ lead with 7:23 left in the half. However, the Cougars’ Reid Crawford answered with a trey of his own to give MC the lead back at 15-14 with six minutes on the clock.

Both teams were settling into the neutral court and were finding the range more consistently on their jump shots. As the tempo picked up, another Luke Howard trey made it 22-15 Kingsland at 3:44 to go in the half. He attempted another three as the first half buzzer sounded and was fouled. He dropped in one of three free throws to make it a 25-19 Kingsland lead at the half.

Mabel-Canton came out swinging in the second half with a 7-0 scoring run to take a one-point lead (26-25) with 16 minutes left in the game. An offensive rebound and made basket by Reed Merkel broke the streak and gave the lead back to the Knights, 27-26 with 15 minutes left.

The lead would go back and forth for the rest of the game. Kaden Rath hit a jumper to tie the game at 37 with just over eight minutes left. Another Howard three-pointer and a steal and layup from Nick Eickhoff made it 42-39 Kingsland with 7:15 on the clock.

As the game wound down, Kingsland started showing a full-court press. The Knights had shown a half-court trap before that and had some success forcing Mabel-Canton mistakes with the basketball.

Walker Erdman nailed one of two free throws to tie the game at 44. The teams traded baskets and tied the game at 46 all, when Howard hit the biggest three of the game off a Mabel-Canton turnover and Kingsland was back on top, 49-46 with 1:21 to go.

The Cougars’ Reid Crawford line up a three-point try that rolled all the way around the rim and fell away. The Knights grabbed the rebound and Erdman hit two free throws to make it a two-possession game at 51-46. However, Crawford came back the other way and drained a three to cut the Kingsland lead to just two points, 51-49 with only 4.7 seconds left.

Mabel-Canton tried hard to swipe the inbound pass and was forced to foul. Two free throws from Howard sealed the game and a Knights’ win, 53-49.

Howard and Erdman tied for the team lead in scoring, each finishing with 14 points. Howard was two rebounds from a double-double, grabbing eight missed shots and finishing with two steals. Erdman also grabbed eight rebounds and hit three of five free throws. Eickhoff chipped in 12 points on five of 11 shooting.

The team hit 19 of its 53 shots (35%) from the field. They were most effective down under the basket, making 13 of 27 shots (48%) from two-point range. The Knights did make enough free throws to win the game, but they could have given themselves a little more breathing room late. Kingsland was just nine of 18 from the stripe.

They finished with 32 rebounds, 12 offensive.

Defensively, the Knights came up with seven steals and four blocked shots.

December 19, 2019December 19, 2019

Running helps Nebraska Rancher beat the odds

Running and track are helping Nebraska rancher Kevan Hueftle of Eustice to live the kind of story that few people get to tell. He rose from the depths of a 2005 hunting accident that cost him his foot, as well as the resulting depression and subsequent battle with alcohol to become a champion Paralympic runner after recently competing.

“I was shot in the left foot during a hunting accident,” he recalled. “Six months later, I decided to amputate it right above the ankle. I was only 20 years old at the time. I was a successful track athlete and actually tried to go and run again at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. However, I hadn’t finished healing yet.”

In his words, Hueftle said he was “taking pills to get through the day” and “drinking more and more” at that time. He transferred out of UNK and went to Southeast Community College in Beatrice to get his Ag Degree in 2009. Between 2007 and 2015, Hueftle called himself a “full-blown alcoholic.” On August 7, 2015, he took control of his life and gave up alcohol. “I hit my four-year sobriety mark on August 7 of this year,” he said proudly.

In January of 2017, he started looking back at his track career, remembering how fast he could run in his prime. “I started taking a look at some of the Paralympic times,” he recalled. “I went to a prosthetic maker in Kearney and switched the old prosthetic leg over to a new one. Then, I started running again.

“My times were pretty crappy back then,” Hueftle said. “They were good when you remember I had just started running for the first time in fifteen years. As I got further into training, I went to a prosthetist in Washington that put me on a brand-new leg. I was training every single day and my times kept getting faster. Two-and-a-half years of training led to me getting a bid to the Para Pan-American Games in Peru, which were held only a month ago.”

He said it was a very emotional experience when he finally received his Team USA gear and became a part of the organization. While traveling to Peru he didn’t carry a lot of expectations with him. After all, Hueftle had never traveled internationally before. He was also running while being a full-time rancher with a couple of “side-businesses.” Plus, Hueftle was a 34-year-old runner competing against kids in their 20s.

“I think the cards were stacked against me,” he recalled. “However, I ended up placing second in the 200-Meter Dash and won the 100-Meter Dash. That was a great feeling. I was actually pretty mad at myself after the 200 because I thought I should have won it. I just didn’t quite run my best 200 of the year though.

“I wasn’t a 100 or 200 runner in college during my track days,” Hueftle said. “I was more of a 400 and 800M runner, which is a completely different style of running than the sprints. I had to learn some new running techniques and (starting) blockwork.”

Hueftle has a running coach who lives in Florida. His coach came to watch him run in Peru and it was actually the first time the two had been face-to-face. “I had five days on the track with him, which was amazing,” he said. “And having the national anthem played because you won a race was even more amazing. It was all Team USA members on the podium in first, second, and third, in both events.”

Hueftle met his coach during a trip to Arizona for competition. He does his training through videos and workouts that are sent from Florida. “My coach also works with Team USA,” he said. “He sought me out after the meet in Arizona and told me I had the skills and the mindset to do well in the competitions. I just didn’t quite have the running technique yet.”

With his win at the Para Pan-American Games in Peru, Hueftle is off to Dubai and running in the World Championship Meet at the end of the month. He leaves on October 31 for 17 days in Dubai. He has a lot of training to do between now and then, but Hueftle’s workouts can be difficult to fit into his hectic personal and professional schedule.

“I usually try to work out at 5 am,” he said, “but if that doesn’t work out, I usually head up to the high school in the evenings with my kids to do my running. I can also leave Eustice to drive to Cozad and use their track but that takes 1.5 hours or longer. If that doesn’t work out, I’ve trained in cornfields or ran on highways. With the caliber of athletes I’m trying to compete against, I can’t skip workouts. The ones that have faster times than I do are sponsored athletes, so training is their full-time job.”

He’s looking forward to being able to reflect on his accomplishments when his athletic career comes to a close. “Peru was nothing but a business trip for me,” he said. “The best thing about it was Peru is on central time, so I got to keep myself on a routine. When I’m done running, I think I’ll have more time to enjoy it.”

September 17, 2019September 17, 2019

World Horseshoe Tournament: Minnesotans do well

The 2019 World Horseshoe Tournament took place in Wichita Falls, Texas, on July 22-August 3. The National Horseshoe Pitching Association sponsors the tournament once a year in different locations around the country. Once again, this year’s tournament included a contingent of “pitchers” from the Rushford-Peterson area, who all competed well down in Texas.

Darren Chambers of Rushford usually takes a delegation of area residents to the World Horseshoe tournament once a year, with this year being no exception. “This year, we had a few more people going along than in 2018,” he said. “I took three new players this year. A total of five went from the Rushford area and I took my two grandsons from West Salem too.

“My new players this year included my niece, Donata Kitchens,” he said, “along with my granddaughter, Brielle Schneider, as well as Lucas Rasmussen. They all took part in their first world tournament. The three that I took to last year’s tournament, Isaac Rasmussen, Mason Chambers, and Noah Chambers, all went again this year too.”

Brielle Schneider, who Chambers says has “only been pitching for about five months,” won the Class C Division at the tournament. “She won the round-robin tournament with a perfect 9-0 record,” Chambers said. “Brielle actually had to beat Isaac Rasmussen at one point (18-17) to win the championship. Isaac wound up in second place with an 8-1 record.

“A total of four kids were in Class C, including Brielle, Isaac, Lucas, and Noah,” he said. “Noah took sixth place in Class C and Lucas Rasmussen finished in seventh. Mason won his class last year and took fourth in this year’s World Horseshoe Tournament. He started slowly but finished the tournament on fire, throwing 15 ringers in one game (40 total throws, 37%).”

Chambers said he takes the kids to different tournaments in Iowa throughout the winter (indoors). It’s not hard to get them ready for the world tournament because “they just love the road trips” and they “love playing the game.”

Lucas Rasmussen had the distinction of being the youngest player at the World Horseshoe Tournament in Texas. He played quite a match with Brielle Rasmussen in Class C competition. “Lucas lost to Brielle in the last game of the tournament,” Chambers recalled. “He trailed 11-9 and just needed a ringer to win the game. Lucas threw a ringer that would have won him the game. However, she had a shoe that was literally standing up on the side of the pole and it flipped her shoe right on there. That canceled out his ringer and he lost 11-9.

“This old guy (Darren) finished up 9-6 at the tournament this year,” he said with a laugh. “I wound up in sixth place, which got me into a little money. They pay out through sixth place.”

Chambers said Donata Kitchens wasn’t initially going to play in the tournament. At first, Chambers said she came along to “help out with the kids.” Chambers admitted he knew they would need an extra pair of hands on the trip, especially with the extra kids going along to Texas. “Well, we decided since she’s going along, Donata might as well play,” he said. “You have to play in four tournaments to qualify for the world tournament and we just barely got her qualified. It was worth it as she took third place in the women’s Class K Division.”

It takes many hours of practice to be successful at the world tournament. Chambers likes the fact that people in each division are competing against other players with similar skill levels, thanks to the way the national association organizes the tournament.

“This tournament really has a class for everybody,” he said. “Participants are put into their class based on their ringer percentage. The more ringers you make, the higher class of competition you’re in. For example, I’m in the second-to-lowest class at the tournament because my ringer percentage is between 10-12 percent., while the number-one-ranked guy in the world will pitch somewhere between 85-90 percent.

“That’s a big difference and why they class it up the way they do,” Chambers added. “When you play someone in your class, you’ll have a good chance to win. It makes the tournament a lot more fun for everybody.”

Chambers started attending world tournaments every year since 2003 and typically went by himself, however the group traveling to next year’s world championship tournament in Monroe, Louisiana, will likely include at least 13 people from Minnesota. He said there’s always room for more people who want to play.

“Anyone interested in pitching horseshoes can give me a call if they want to get involved,” Chambers added. “I’m happy to teach them different ways to throw and would be happy to help anyone interested.”

I included a video recap of some of the action at this year’s tournament:

August 23, 2019August 23, 2019

Fillmore Central football upgrade: Sports Podcast

Here’s the latest Chad Smith Media podcast with the full interview from Mensink. It’s downloadable. Just click on the three buttons stacked on the right side and hit download.

Fillmore Central football fans will find things look a lot different when they head out to the home field in Harmony for the season opener on Friday, August 30^th, against United South Central. After a couple of years of plans and discussions, as well as several months of hard work, the football facility upgrades all but completed. Falcons’ head coach (and Athletic Director) Chris Mensink said the upgrade idea got started because of very little room on the home sideline.

Falcons didn’t have enough room

“Our home sideline was right on a hillside,” he said, “which meant there were some safety issues. We talked initially about sliding the field away from the hill but were limited because we host junior high baseball on that same field. The question was how do we do that slide things over?

“We ended up moving the baseball field up behind the community center where we practice football,” he said. “The school owns all that practice area up there. Once we found a new place to put the baseball field, that kickstarted the process of putting a football-only facility together.”

He said sliding the field to give the team more room on the sideline, as well as adding in a 500-seat grandstand, eventually led to a larger-scale renovation process. Eventually, the project included new lights, crowning the field, and putting in a new watering system. “We’re now building a structure to hold the concession stand, a ticket area, some new bathrooms, and a locker room for the referees,” he said.

Mensink said the Falcons the kids were “basically standing on a hillside and couldn’t have any benches on their sideline.” Back when the district built the press box, they added a bunch of fill to the area so the fans could see over the top of the kids standing on the sideline.

Safety concerns

“That made the sideline really tight to the hill,” Mensink said. “If we had a player get injured, he wouldn’t be able to sit on a bench along the sideline because of that hill. If they tried to sit on a table so the trainer could look them over, the tables would tip over.

“Also, the area where the old concession stand sat was fenced,” he added. “That fence was a little tight to the back corner of the end zone. If a player went too far out of the back of the end zone, they were running into that fence and we don’t want kids getting hurt.”

Workers lay the foundations for the new facilities at the Fillmore Central football field. (Contributed photo)

When a football field doesn’t have a crown on it, that’s when it can get flooded by heavy rainfall. “The soil contained a lot of clay, which made it really hard,” Mensink said. “We were having a hard time keeping grass on it, so the surface wasn’t what it should be. When we took a hard look at the field, we decided to do this right and crown the field.”

Crowning the field

For those who don’t know, crowning a football field is a lot of work. Workers start the project by removing the topsoil from the field. “They brought in a sandy mixture of soil as soon as we were done playing last fall,” Mensink recalled. “You use that sandy soil to build the crown. After that, workers brought in eight inches of black dirt and piled it on top of the sandier soil last spring. They re-graded everything, slid it over to where it needed to be, and that’s when we put the sod down.”

School officials even talked about flipping the field, so it ran north and south instead of east and west. Mensink said that would have involved a lot of extra work, including moving the crow’s next.

Thanks to everyone who helped

He said they wouldn’t be able to make improvements of this magnitude without the support of the administration. “The district has been putting some money away in their building fund,” Mensink said. “The fund balance helped us make a lot of improvements at the football field and helps with ongoing projects at the school building.”

Falcon fans will be sitting on the other sideline this fall. Mensink said officials put in a 500-foot grandstand that will be “nice and close to the action,” and everyone will have a great view of the game. He said the field has a “nice crown on it” and looks “really nice.”

Mensink thanks everyone who helped out. He says the list of everyone who helped with the project is gigantic. “We put sod down with a great deal of volunteer help,” Mensink recalled. “We put down five semi loads of sod in a day, which was an amazing cost-saving for our district.

New seating at the Fillmore Central football field means the fans get a great view of the games. (Contributed Photo)

“Scheevel and Sons Construction handled all of the gradings on this project,” he said. “Stateline Cement did all the cement work for areas underneath the bleachers, for the sidewalks, and the concession areas. Morem’s Electric handled all the electrical work. VIS Plumbing handled all the plumbing work at the facility.”

Fillmore Central fans will get to enjoy the new facility right away as three of the first four games of the fall season will be on the Falcons’ home field.

August 21, 2019August 21, 2019

Kingsland High School Fall Preview on the Sports Podcast

Kingsland high school fall sports are officially underway! We’re going to try something new when it comes to podcasts. I cover several high school sports programs for the Bluff Country Newspaper Group, so we’re going to take some of their coaches’ comments and provide periodic updates for their fans. Pass the word if you decide you like what I’m doing here.

You can download the podcasts and listen at anytime, or feel free to play them right off the website. First up is Kingsland football coach Brent Stinson. They want to improve on last season’s win total (1-8 overall, 1-6 District) as they move from 11-man football to 9-man play.

The Knights, like most football teams, have some holes in the roster to fill from the previous year. Kingsland lost a couple of All-District First Team selections in Reid Kruegel and Dallas Jones. Kruegel was a top receiver that drew double-coverage on almost every play but still finished with 22 catches for 486 yards (22.1 yards per catch). Jones was the team’s leading rusher and top linebacker last year. He ran the ball 102 times for 400 yards and four touchdowns. He made 39 solo tackles and assisted on 34.

Football

“We have several guys looking to step up and fill in some of that gap this year,” Stinson said. “Names people recognize include Reid Merkel, Devin Carr, James Howard, and Lucas Howard, who can really run.

Cross Country

Next up on the podcast is Erin Milz, the head cross country coach at Kingsland High School. Their first week of practice is a unique one. Their schedule included a two-day, midweek camping trip that involved some camping, swimming, and even a service activity.

The Kingsland boys’ team will be very competitive this year as they have the best roster numbers they’ve seen in several years. Twelve boys are on the roster, with ten of the boys eligible to run varsity meets (have to be in grades 9-12). Kingsland hasn’t been able to have competition for boys’ varsity spots because of low numbers since Milz started coaching. She’s looking forward to the new experience. “It’s hard to predict who the top boys will be because I haven’t had enough time to dial that in just yet,” Milz said.

Volleyball

We’re also talking with Amanda Siskow, the new coach of the Kingsland volleyball team. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to be hired until late July, which put the team’s preparations a little behind the 8-ball. Preparations are kind of on fast forward, which is okay as she says the first week of practice went well.

“We’ve got Ellie Buchholtz, a really good all-around player as a setter and hitter, who can also play the back row,” she said. “We’ve got middle hitter Shelby Beck back, who’s been playing well so far, as is Kate Miner in the front row. We also have some seniors back who didn’t play a ton last year but are really trying to step up to the plate and take on bigger roles.”

One of the biggest names not coming back is All-Southeast Conference standout Lauren Buchholtz. The senior outside hitter will be sorely missed during the 2019 season as both an outstanding player and a team leader. Her younger sister, Ellie, is back as a first-team All-SEC selection. Because of an early-season ankle injury last year, she made the switch from setter to an outside hitter to limit her on-court movement somewhat and didn’t miss a beat.

Sorry about the annoying little bursts of static in the interviews! Working on rectifying that. Hope you enjoyed the sports talk! More to come in the near future.

June 17, 2019June 17, 2019

Lanesboro alum is two-time national track champ

Track and field success for hard-working Burro

Track and field has been very good to Lanesboro alum Eric Holst. He’s a three-time All-American track athlete at St. Thomas University. He’s a two-time national champion, winning the Hammer Throw (outdoor season) as a junior and the Weight Throw (indoor season) as a senior. Holst wound up taking second in the Hammer Throw at this year’s National Division Three Track and Field Championship Meet. Holst said he was initially disappointed that he couldn’t repeat in the top spot but second was still a great way to finish up his college track career.

Runner Up

“It’s second place in the nation and very few people will ever reach that in their athletic lives,” Holst said. “It’s still a great thing and I still get All-American honors. However, I still wanted to win. I don’t know a single athlete that wouldn’t want to hit that mark. It came down to one throw that didn’t go my way.

Lanesboro’s Eric Holst qualified for the NCAA Division Three National Track and Field Championship Meet in both the hammer throw and the discus. He finished as the runner-up in the hammer throw. (Contributed Photo)

“My first throw of the meet was technically sound (60.90 meters),” Holst recalled, “it just felt soft, not full-go. However, that put me into the finals, which meant I was All-American. I told myself at that point ‘now we can push it.’ I attacked my second throw too hard and let go one turn too early in order to save the mark. Still, that throw put me into second place (61.69 meters).”

Holst said he couldn’t find the rhythm again and wound up scratching on his next four throws. The senior thrower either hit the net with the hammer or stepped out of the launch area. The only two throws he hit all meet were the first two attempts. “I just couldn’t find it again,” he said. However, it wasn’t just Holst that lost his rhythm.

Zak Dysert of Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio wound up as the national champion in this year’s hammer throw. He had a couple of scratches and poor throws during his earlier attempts. However, Holst said Dysert ‘pulled it together as I should have’ and won it on his last throw (62.01 meters). Converting meters to feet shows just how close the competition turned out to be. Dysert’s best throw totaled 203 feet, 5 inches. Holst’s best throw was one-inch shy of that mark at 202-05.

A Big Change

Holst made a big change in his training last year that carried over to this season. He switched up his throwing form last year as a junior. He went from spinning three times before releasing the hammer/weight to four times. It took some time to get used to, but Holst was feeling good about the adjustment by the end of last season. This season, it took a little longer to find the rhythm during his senior year.

“Switching from three rotations to four give you more time to accelerate ahead of the throw,” Holst explained. “If you’re a very explosive athlete, three turns are generally all you need. I’m not as explosive as many other competitors are, so that fourth turn to build up more speed can help me even the field quite a bit.”

Training Harder

In addition to changing his throwing form, Holst also changed his in-season training regimen. “I trained a lot harder during the season and attempted a lot more throws in practice,” Holst recalled. “The hope was that I could break down my body a little more during the season in hopes of building up to a stronger peak by the end of the year. I cut back on the number of throws as I got to the meets where they give out titles, trying to be a little bit fresher at that point of the season.”

Because it’s a throwing event, strength is obviously important if athletes want to be competitive. However, Holst says technique plays an even bigger part in success. “I think it’s the most technically-driven event in all of track and field,” he said.

“You mainly see that when you go from high school track up to the college level,” Holst said. “At the lower level of competition, you’ll see big guys that win by simply outmuscling the other competitors. However, when you get up here, you’ll notice that people aren’t quite as big as they were down below. They realize it takes more than just brute strength to compete in the throwing events. Everyone is strong, so it boils down to technique.”

Holst is quick to credit his coaches for pushing him to be better every day, both at practice and during competitions. However, they won’t be pushing him anymore as his St. Thomas track career ended after the Outdoor National Meet. Looking back over his four-year career, it’s been interesting to remember how things developed.

On to New Things

“It really hit me hard this year that I’m done with college track,” he recalled. “I struggled with it for a few days. I remember back in my freshman year when we had a thrower that placed ninth at the national meet. We looked up to him like a god because he was one spot away from being an All-American. A spot in the national meet seemed so unattainable that we thought he was a ‘freak athlete.’

“It’s funny to look back and think about how I’ve made the same level of competition as that ‘freak athlete’ back then,” Holst added. “It’s kind of wild to think that I did it too, especially when I think about my freshman season and what we had thought was so unattainable.”

What will he miss the most about college track? It boils down to one word: routine.

“I’ve been used to going to class and going to track practice for the last ten years, going all the way back to middle school,” Holst says. “Now, there’s no more practice at all. It’s off to the workforce, which is a whole different routine to learn.”

April 16, 2019April 16, 2019

Minnesota Gopher basketball; better than you think?

By Chad Smith

Minnesota Gopher basketball can be a polarizing discussion among their fans. The team finished the 2018-2019 men’s campaign with a 22-14 record. While there are dozens of colleges and universities that would be thrilled with 22 wins and a victory in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, not all Gopher fans were pleased with the outcome. Mike Grimm is the 13-year radio voice of the Golden Gophers, who made a recent appearance on the Minnesota Sports Weekly podcast. He says it’s important to keep a little perspective when fans look at a basketball season.

“I think it’s all how you look at it,” said Grimm. “It’s hard to say it was a disappointment. I’ve seen people say that on social media and I think they’re wrong. It’s not worth getting into a disagreement with someone if they don’t have the time or patience to look at the history of Minnesota Gopher basketball. We don’t have the history here as a UCLA does.

“This program has only appeared in 14 NCAA tournament, with two of those appearances in the last three years,” he added. “Anyone who suggests they should be ashamed of a season in which they made an NCAA Tournament and won a game for the second time in 20 years is being silly. That’s just dumb.”

There’s no such thing as a perfect college basketball season. However, Mike Grimm, radio voice of Minnesota Gopher basketball, says the 2018-2019 campaign was pretty good, especially when you look at the history of men’s basketball at the University of Minnesota. (Photo from krocam.)

Grimm says if people really want to nitpick, they can. The Gophers did let leads slip away in a few games and they lost a few they probably shouldn’t have. However, they also beat Purdue twice and beat the Badgers IN Wisconsin for the first time in over a decade. They knocked off the PAC-12 champion Washington Huskies to win the Vancouver Showcase.

“There were a lot of good things that happened,” Grimm said. “Remember, this was one of the toughest Big Ten seasons, top-to-bottom. The Gophers didn’t have a bunch of easy wins anywhere on this season’s schedule. The Gophers had to play a total of nine games out of a possible ten against the top five teams in the conference.

“There’s really no reason to sit and argue about it,” he added. “If you want to call it a disappointment, then you haven’t done enough research or you’re just being lazy about it.”

One of the highlights from last season for the Gopher men’s basketball squad was beating Purdue twice in the regular season, as well as a third time in the Big Ten Tournament.

He’s quick to say there were things that could have been done better. However, to say a coach should be fired after leading a team to a win in the NCAA Tournament is “ludicrous.” Grimm took it a step further, saying people who think Minnesota Gopher basketball shouldn’t be proud of this past season is “stupid, really.”

One of the bigger issues when it comes to the Gophers and social media was a sometimes-heated discussion over the contract extension given to Richard Pitino. The agreement will keep Pitino at the University of Minnesota for a total of another five years. It’s the third contract extension for the coach since joining the U back in 2013.

“There are some benefits to doing it now, especially when it comes to recruiting,” he said. “But I know it’s hard to forget the disappointment of the previous season. At one point, that team was 14-3 overall and ranked at No. 11 in the country. Then, the you-know-what hit the fan.”

That team went 2-14 the rest of the way as the wheels fell completely off the wagon. There were so many injuries to contend with, and then the suspension and expulsion of Reggie Lynch added a huge distraction to the season. “I’m not saying what’s right or what’s wrong,” Grimm added, “but there are probably schools where Reggie Lynch stays on the team.” However, there’s no question it’s a university policy and an important issue.”

The main thing about the Lynch situation Grimm wants to get across is it definitely played a role in the abysmal end to the season. Then, there were injuries to several players, including Amir Coffey, Dupree McBrayer, and Eric Curry, to deal with. That dragged everything down to a 2-14 record to end the season and any momentum from the NCAA appearance the prior season was lost.

“If he were sitting on three-straight tournament berths, which likely would have been the case if the wheels didn’t fall off last season, I don’t think too many people would be second-guessing,” Grimm said. “I know people cite the 40-70 Big Ten record, but it’s important to remember that this conference is tough every season. And, if you have two down seasons of 4-14 and 2-16 in the conference, it’s going to be hard to improve your record, even during successful seasons.

“The extension is also really good for recruiting,” Grimm said. “I know people want to dismiss it and say, ‘kids aren’t that dumb,’ but it does make a difference. Everything makes a difference.”

Grimm was frank in saying that if the school does want out of the deal with Pitino, it’ll actually cost the school less money next year than it would have without the extension. “I don’t know why people lost their minds over it,” he pointed out. “There are just some people that thrive on negativity in this market.

There are things you can nitpick when it comes to Pitino as far as in-game strategies and substitution patterns. However, that’s something fans can do with any coach. But Grimm said you can take that too far.

“To sound off about contract extensions and ask why they didn’t even have a news conference is crazy. There are certain people that love to be negative and won’t give anyone the benefit of the doubt. It’s the world we live in, and it’s an everywhere-thing, not just a Minnesota-thing. Negativity sells and people seem to love it.”