In this week’s edition of Lots O’ Stuff you can read about college volleyball and baseball, including former major leaguer Bill Lee being hospitalized.
Fall sports at the high school and college levels are getting underway this week.
As has been my custom for a number of years now, I’ll try to keep you up to date on how area graduates that are competing at the collegiate level are doing.
We did that for years in a Sunday Morning Barrage on Twitter and have brought it over to Substack to make it easier to write a little more.
Lots O’ Stuff usually gets sent out sometime Sunday, sometimes Monday and in this case, Tuesday.
I’m still compiling a list of grads from Jackson County Central, Martin County West and Fairmont to follow, although if you have someone you’d like me to keep track of just send me an email at sportsdr44@hotmail.com. And if you don’t follow me on Twitter @sportsdr44
Some schools haven’t updated their websites for the fall yet so if you can let me know, that really helps.
One athlete we can tell you about who is playing at a new location is JCC grad Alaina Wolff, who is a junior defensive specialist at the University of South Dakota. Alaina has spent two years at Wayne State, although the 2020 season was canceled.
USD played an exhibition match vs. No. 18 Creighton Sunday in Omaha. The Bluejays won all four sets (25-16, 25-11, 25-23, 25-22).
The programs had agreed before the match to play at least four sets no matter what to allow as many players and lineups as possible to be utilized. Also, full stats from the match were not released.
Wolff appeared in 26 matches at Wayne last season and 88 sets as libero, averaging 3.05 digs per set. She had 10 matches with double-digit digs, including a season-high 22 digs at Concordia-St. Paul.
Alaina was second on the team with 26 service aces. She had three service aces in a match three times.
USD officially opens the season this weekend by hosting the Coyote Invitational at Sanford Coyote Sports Center in Vermilion.
Up first is No. 4 Louisville at 7 p.m. Friday. The Cardinals were 32-1 last season with the lone loss coming 3-2 to eventual champion Wisconsin in the national semifinals.
The Coyotes also play Northern Kentucky at 6 p.m. Saturday and Missouri at 1 p.m. Sunday.
DWU 4-0
In addition to athletes, we’ll have updates on local grads who are coaching at the collegiate level.
Heron Lake-Okabena-Lakefield graduate Lindsay Wilber is in her ninth season as head volleyball coach at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, S.D.
The Tigers are rated No. 15 in the NAIA preseason poll.
DWU opened its season last weekend in Florida, going 4-0 at the Chick-Fil-A Classic in West Palm Beach.
Wesleyan defeated Georgetown (Ky.) 3-0, Columbia International 3-1, Olivet Nazarene 3-0 and No. 20 Columbia (Mo.) 3-2.
Lindsay’s husband, Matt (DWU’s head men’s basketball coach) tweeted the news after the win over Columbia.
That’s Lindsay’s mom, Amy Voss, on the floor in front of the bleachers and I’m pretty certain that’s three of Matt and Lindsay’s four sons. They also have a daughter.
Dakota Wesleyan heads to North Dakota Saturday for a nonconference match at Mayville State.
The Tigers play their first nine matches away from home. DWU’s first home match is Sept. 9 vs. Briar Cliff.
Wesleyan plays in the Great Plains Athletic Conference.
Six GPAC teams are nationally ranked in the Top 25:
1. Jamestown
5. Midland
9. College of St. Mary
14. Northwestern
15. Dakota Wesleyan
16. Dordt
Lacey coaching at Northwstern
Jackson County Central graduate Lacey (Wacker) Reitz is in her first season as head coach Kyle Van Den Bosch's full-time assistant coach at Northwestern College.
She was an American Volleyball Coaches Association/National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics All-American three times in her career.
Reitz recorded more than 5,000 assists at Northwestern, one of only two players in program history to reach the 5,000-assist mark.
She is married to Austin Reitz, who is an assistant coach with the Northwestern men's golf program.
Austin holds the course record at Jackson Golf Club, having carded an eight-under par 29 in July of 2021.
Here’s the newsletter after that happened:
Gusties rated 19th
Gustavus is No. 19 in the first NCAA Division III poll of the season.
Martin County West graduate Alyssa Taylor was recently promoted to Associate Head Coach for the Gusties.
Gustavus, which won the MIAC Playoff Championship last year, opens the season on Sept. 2-3 at the Ithaca Bomber Invitational in Ithaca, N.Y.
Two other Minnesota teams are ranked, with the UMAC’s Northwestern 15th and the MIAC’s Bethel 20th.
Here’s the newsletter announcing Taylor’s promotion:
State amateur baseball tournament
Two Jackson Bulls were drafted onto teams that advanced to the state Class C amateur baseball tournament.
Gavin Jacobsen was a member of the Fairmont Martins, who lost their first-round game 4-3 to Avon Saturday in Dundas.
Jacobsen did not appear in the game. Spencer Chirpich went the distance for Fairmont.
Jon Traetow hit a home run for the Martins and may have sent teammate Tyler Tennyson into concussion protocol after he crossed the plate:
Evan Olesen was drafted by Region 13C champion Luverne, which had a bye this weekend and will play the Buckman Billygoats at 4:30 p.m. Saturday in Faribault. Buckman defeated the Cannon Falls Bears 7-1 in the first round.
The other Region 13C team in the state tourney was the Milroy Irish, who lost 10-3 to the Webster Sox in Dundas.
Shoen update
Derek Shoen of Truman had a hit, and RBI and walked once for Fairmont in its state tournament game.
Last week, Shoen completed his season with the Mankato MoonDogs of the Northwoods League.
The end of his amateur season came on Aug. 20, a full six months after his first game with the University of Mary, which came on Feb. 20.
Between the Marauders, MoonDogs and Martins, Shoen has played in more than 90 games in 2022.
"I'm pretty worn down right now. It's been a lot of ball, but it's still been fun," Shoen to Dave Selvig of the Bismarck Tribune. "To spend your spring and summer playing baseball, that's pretty tough to beat."
Classes start in just a couple of weeks back in Bismarck for Shoen, who also excels academically, posting a 3.80 grade point average to earn Academic All-District 7 honors while pursuing a degree in sports and leisure management/business administration.
He's hoping for a little down time first, though.
"I hope to get on the lake a little bit," he said. "I'm not going to touch a baseball, just be a normal human for a couple of weeks."
He played mostly first base for the MoonDogs. He was hitting over .300 for much of the first half of the Northwoods League season.
Shoen finished with a .252 average with Mankato with 37 hits in 147 at bats. He had nine doubles, two triples, three home runs and 26 runs batted in. He walked 20 times and was hit by a pitch seven times for a .366 on base percentage.
The MoonDogs had a strong season, finishing with the sixth-best record in the league at 40-28, going 19-15 in the first half and 21-13 in the second half.
Mankato was in the Great Plains West Division along with St. Cloud (50-18) and Willmar (48-20) and the Rox and Stingers claimed playoff spots.
"Our team was very solid. We had a lot of really good players come through here," Shoen said. "It was like, dang, Willmar and St. Cloud, they're really good too, and we were all in the same division."
It was Shoen’s second summer in the NWL after playing with the Bismarck Larks in 2021.
"I was a lot more comfortable. I'd kind of seen it all, so I had a better idea of what I needed to do and that helped me this summer," Shoen said.
Shoen has one more year of college eligibility remaining at Mary. He’s a two-time first-team all-Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference selection after transferring from Iowa Western.
He broke school records last spring for home runs (14) and runs batted in (51).
In 51 games he hit .339 (60-177) with a .473 on base percentage, a .644 slugging percentage and an OPS of 1.117 to lead the Marauders in each category. Shoen was also a key relief pitcher late in the season, earning two saves.
Another good season could put Shoen in position to land a pro shot, which is the goal.
"Nothing really happened this year in the draft,” he said. “Heard a few whispers on a possible free-agent deal, but nothing really came my way.
"I'll go back to Mary, hopefully do it again, and once that ends, hope to get drafted or sign something. If none of that happens, I hope to play some independent ball. I feel like I have marketable tools. I just know I believe in myself. In my mind, I can play. It's just, someone's gotta take a chance on me, and if they do, I hope to reward them."
Becker update
Fairmont graduate Luke Becker is playing independent baseball this summer with the Kentucky Wild Health Genomes of the Atlantic League.
He’s hitting .298 on the season (113-379). Becker has 23 doubles, three triples, 18 home runs, and 75 runs batted in. He’s walked 55 times and has an on-base percentage of .384.
He hit a grand slam on Friday:
The Genomes have a 21-20 record in the second half of the Atlantic League schedule and are in second place in the Southern Division, eight games out of first with 10 to play.
Lee hospitalized
Former major leaguer Bill Lee had stopped breathing after collapsing in the bullpen during an exhibition game, but paramedics and two shocks with a defibrillator helped resuscitate the 75-year-old pitcher, according to a witness at the scene.
Lee was in Ruthven, Iowa earlier this summer for a Savannah Banana-style intrasquad scrimmage with the Graettinger-Terril/Ruthven-Ayrshire baseball team and in which he had Blaise Jacobsen of the Jackson Bulls amateur team as his catcher.
Lee threw for both sides of the seven-inning scrimmage, which took 55 minutes.
In October of 2020 he was in the Iowa Great Lakes to conduct clinics with Andy Wolf of Total Baseball Development, who also plays with the Bulls.
Jacobsen, Wolf, and two other Jackson players, Pat Boggess and Tom Hady, have traveled to Florida to play in the Roy Hobbs World Series with a team from Russia. Lee has also played in that event.
Lee remains hospitalized.
“Without immediate intervention, I do not believe he’d be here today,” Town of Thunderbolt Administrator Bob Milie told The Associated Press on Saturday, a day after the cardiac episode during a game for the Bananas.
“He wasn’t breathing,” said Milie, who’s also a firefighter in the Georgia town a few miles from Savannah. “It was very, very dire.”
Bananas manager Eric Byrnes posted a picture to Twitter of himself with Lee — a member of the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame — at Memorial Health University Medical Center on Saturday.
One of Lee’s daughters arrived in town and was at the hospital with him, team president Jared Orton said.
“She said he’s in good spirits and continues to be evaluated for next steps in recovery, but is certainly acting like himself,” Orton said in an email to the AP.
Orton said a member of the Bananas’ front office stayed with Lee at the hospital past midnight.
Milie was at Grayson Stadium to see the Bananas, an entertaining team known for its bright yellow uniform and its clowning antics on and off the field. The game against the Party Animals was on ESPN2.
In 14 seasons with Boston and Montreal, Lee had a record of 119-90. An All-Star in 1973, the left-hander helped pitch the Red Sox into the 1975 World Series and started Game 7 against Cincinnati. Lee exited in the seventh inning and Boston later lost to Cincinnati 4-3.
Here is that earlier newsletter: