Bethel basketball took on St. John’s in a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference men’s basketball matchup on Saturday afternoon. What a doozy. Bethel came into the game with 16 wins on the season while the Johnnies had 22 wins at tipoff. Both teams put on quite a show for a packed house at the Robertson Center.
I don’t know for sure if the team’s were nervous going into the game but they played like it early on. They both had already qualified for the MIAC playoffs which began the following week. But, the Johnnies and the Royals put up a lot of shots in the first half and I lost count halfway through the period as to the number of bunnies that both teams missed under their respective baskets. St. John’s led a low-scoring game, 26-25 at the half.
The tempo and the number of made baskets picked up dramatically in the second half. The Johnnies outscored the Royals by six points (47-41) after halftime, thanks to a combination of deadly three-point shooting, key free throws, and a couple of iffy officiating calls very late in the game. Irregardless of whether you thought the calls were good or not, St. John’s capitalized and came out of there with a hard-fought MIAC win.
Here’s a file photo from a recent Bethel University men’s basketball game. I saw the Royals drop a hard-fought game to St. John’s on Saturday, 73-66. It was one of the more entertaining Bethel basketball games I’ve seen in a long time. (File photo from Bethel basketball website.)
Physical strength in the post played a big factor in the St. John’s win. Johnnie’s center Zach Hanson scored a game-high 19 points (8 of 17 shooting) on the block, with Bethel unable to stop his running hook shots in the lane. The big Johnnie completed a double-double with 10 rebounds. Colton Codute added 17 points and Jubie Alade, one of the smoother guards you’ll see in the MIAC, added 12 points.
Bethel basketball senior guard Jack Jenson likely needed an oxygen mask after the game. He played 38 of the 40 minutes in the game, including all 20 minutes of the second half. Jenson finished as the top scorer for Bethel with 14 points, while forwards Isaiah Carver-Bagley and Chandler Wellman each scored 13 points.
Three-point shooting along with free throws were likely the difference in the game. Bethel outshot St. John’s overall, but the Johnnies held a nine-point advantage outside the arc, making 6 treys (18 points) to just three (9 points) from long range for Bethel basketball.
Free throws were also a big advantage for St. John’s, much to the irritation of Bethel fans on hand. St. John’s was 15 of 21 at the stripe while the Royals made just nine of 14 tries.
The one place the Royals had more success on offense was in the paint, outscoring the Johnnies 48-36. In this case, it was outside shooting that made the difference in the game for both teams.
Both teams are getting set to open up the MIAC playoffs during the week ahead.
Lanesboro alum Eric Holst is a two-time national champion in the Hammer/Weight Throw and finished as a runner-up in this year’s hammer throw event at the NCAA Division Three Track and Field Championships. (Contributed photo)
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.”
Eric Holst of Lanesboro is one of the more successful Burros when it comes to collegiate sports. He’s a two-time national champ in the hammer/weight throw and a runner-up in the hammer throw at this year’s national meet. (Contributed photo)
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.”
