Lots O’ Stuff
College updates and more
In this edition of Lots O’ Stuff you can find updates on some local graduates, oil wrestling and underwater hockey. That should grab your attention.
Four straight titles
Bethany Lutheran College won its fourth straight Upper Midwest Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament title Saturday with a 76-75 win at Minnesota Morris on a basket at the buzzer.
Jackson County Central graduate Pat Garvin is the head coach of the Vikings and another JCC grad, 6-foot-3 junior guard Christian Benda, is on the roster.
BLC had a pair of leads at 2-0 and 4-2 inside the first three minutes of the game and did not lead again until Brady Ingersoll’s floating jumper as time expired.
Here’s the winning basket. The announcers apparently are from Minnesota Morris.
Pairings for the NCAA Division III tournament will be announced at noon Monday.
Region wrestling
Four JCC graduates competed in NCAA regional wrestling tournaments this weekend.
Two finished their careers at Concordia College in Moorhead.
Kie Anderson placed sixth at 133 pounds and Will Freking finished eighth at 197 at the NCAA Division III Region VII tournament hosted by UW-Eau Claire.
Anderson was 3-3 in the two-day tournament, with each of his wins coming by fall. He finishes with a 21-11 record with 13 wins coming by fall, two by technical fall and two by major decisions.
Freking was 1-2 plus a bye with his win coming via a major decision. He ends the season 14-12 with five falls, two tech falls and three majors.
The other two JCC graduates were in Marshall for Saturday’s NCAA Division II Super Region V tournament.
Redshirt freshman Nolan Ambrose placed fourth at 149 pounds and redshirt junior Payton Handevidt competed at 165.
Ambrose had a 3-2 record in the tournament with two of those wins coming by fall. He finishes the season 28-6 with 13 falls, three tech falls and one major.
Handevidt went 1-2 with the win coming by a major decision. He was 18-7 this season with five falls and six majors.
Tommies seeded second
Sherburn native Carsen Musser was in goal for both games this weekend as the St. Thomas men’s hockey team split a series at Bemidji State. The Beavers won 3-1 on Friday, with the Tommies winning in a shootout on Saturday.
A sophomore, Musser had 18 saves in Friday’s game. On Saturday he made 31 saves on 33 shots and three stops in the shootout.
The shootout win boosted UST into the number two seed for the Central Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs.
Minnesota State (14-7-5) is the top seed with 51 points. St. Thomas (15-7-4) and Augustana (14-8-4) each had 50 points with the Tommies claiming the tiebreaker.
UST will host seventh-seeded Lake Superior State Lakers in a best-of-three CCHA quarterfinal series on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, if necessary
For the season, Musser has played in 17 games, all starts. He has an 8-5-3 record with one shootout.
Musser’s goals against average is 3.09 and his save % is .885.
Hedquist updates
Heron Lake native Hobie Hedquist is a junior goaltender for Ferris State, which closed out its regular season schedule with a split at Lake Superior State, winning 5-2 on Friday and losing a 2-2 shootout on Saturday.
Hobie has played in 13 games for the Bulldogs, starting 12. His goals against average is 4.12 and save % is .879.
Ferris State is 7-25-2 overall, 6-18-2 in the CCHA.
The No. 8 seed Bulldogs have a best-of-three quarterfinal series at No. 1 seed Minnesota State next weekend.
Hayden Hedquist is a defenseman with the Amarillo Wranglers of the North American Hockey League.
He scored a goal in a game vs. the New Mexico Ice Wolves last weekend. In 45 games he has two goals and 11 assists for 13 points,
Amarillo is eighth in the Southern Division of the NAHL with an 18-27-2 record for 40 points.
Two Windom graduates are members of the Dordt University men’s hockey team that won three games in four days to win the Mid-American Collegiate Hockey Association tournament in Chesterfield, Missouri.
The Defenders defeated Olivet Nazarene 6-1, Arkansas 5-1 and Nebraska Omaha 2-0.
The championship game was scoreless until senior defenseman Zach Espenson scored from the crease at 4:47 of the third period. Dordt added an empty net goal in the final minute.
In 29 games, Zach has 13 goals and 27 assists for 40 points.
Freshman forward Nick Espenson has 16 goals and 19 assists for 35 points in 27 games.
Dordt will play in the American Collegiate Hockey Association tournament starting March 18 at Centene Community Ice Center in St. Louis. That facility is the official practice facility of the NHL’s St. Louis Blues.
NSIC Indoor
A pair of Jackson County Central graduates competed in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Indoor Championships in Mankato.
Peyton Hanson, a junior at the University of Sioux Falls, placed fifth in the pole vault as she cleared 3.61 meters (11-10).
Also, Adrew Boyum, a senior at Concordia University in St. Paul, had a season and personal record time of 8:54.52 in placing 16th out of 32 runners in the 3000 meters.
Tordsen second
Fairmont grad Oliver Tordsen, a freshman at Dakota State, placed second in the shot put at last weekend’s Frontier Conference Championships in Brookings.
He had a personal record 16.31 meters (53 feet, 6.25 inches).
The Trojans were second in the team standings.
Baseball
JCC graduate Gavin Jacobsen is a graduate student left-handed pitcher on the Loyola Marymount baseball roster.
The Lions have a 4-8 record and play the final of four games in Winston-Salem, N.C. today (Sunday). Loyola then returns home to Los Angeles to host Utah on Monday.
Fairmont grad Eli Anderson is a senior outfielder at Purdue.
He’s hitting .345 (10-29) with one triple and has walked five times for an on base percentage of .457. He’s 7-9 on stolen base attempts.
Another Fairmont graduate, Landen Meyerdirk is a junior outfielder at Minnesota Morris, which opened its season with two wins over Martin Luther at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Meyerdirk is hitting .400 (2-5) with two RBI, one walk, has been hit by a pitch twice for an on base percentage of .625.
Softball
Former Fairmont pitcher Tegan Livesay is a junior at North Dakota.
She went the full six innings for UND in a 12-3 run-rule win over Saint Francis Saturday in San Antonio. Livesay allowed six hits, walked three, hit a batter and struck out four.
In 10 games including eight starts for the 11-8 Fighting Hawks, she has pitched 44.2 innings, allowing 27 runs (22 earned) on 43 hits, walking 17, hitting two and fanning 43. Livesay has a 5-3 record and 3.45 ERA.
Men’s golf
Martin County West graduate Hunter Schmidt is a sophomore at Mid America Nazarene University in Olathe, Kansas.
Schmidt was the Freshman of the Year in the Heart of America Athletic Conference. He finished second out of 63 golfers in the conference tournament, losing in a playoff.
Schmidt tied for 60th out of 155 finishers at the NAIA Championship at TPC at Deere Run in Silvis, Ill., site of the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic every year.
MNU is scheduled to open its season March 9-10 at a two-day tournament hosted by Baker University at Eagle Bend Golf Course in Lawrence, Kan.
Fun fact
Oil wrestling is the Turkish national sport, and wrestlers cover themselves in olive oil.
This wrestling match could go on for many days originally, but in 1975 the time was limited to 40 minutes.
Ice hockey received quite a bit of attention around the world recently with the Olympics and in the U.S. with some off-ice theatrics around both the women’s and men’s teams.
In Minnesota this week, the state boys hockey tournament is coming up this week.
But have you heard about underwater hockey?
That sport is a 6 vs. 6, without goaltenders, and takes place in a pool. The sport utilizes a weighted puck that remains at the bottom of the pool.
Players use a small one-handed stick to push the puck toward the goal. Players wear fins for mobility, masks to see underwater, and thick latex gloves to protect the hands from the pool bottom.
You might think that players wear oxygen tanks to breathe underwater, but that’s not the case.
Instead, players have to hold their breath underwater and therefore have to periodically return to the surface to breathe. This gives the sport an interesting team aspect, as players have to anticipate when a teammate or opposing puck-carrier is going to return to the surface and leave the puck behind.
It does seem like it would be a difficult sport for spectators though.
