DWU Tiger Talk

Moving on

2011-11-22T14:40:00.000-08:00

That's all the DWU men's basketball team can do after Saturday's loss. Move on. Well, no. First, they can learn from it. Then move on. That loss cannot sit on them all year, or they will be doomed.

For those that don't know, Saturday the Tigers had (at one point) a 17-point lead on Briar Cliff. The Chargers whittled that down, and it was tied at 67 late in the game. DWU got the ball in the last 15 seconds thanks to a BCU offensive foul, and Mike Lee missed a three after DWU called its last timeout. The Tigers pulled down the rebound, and called a timeout on the floor - with no timeouts left. For those that aren't aware, that's a technical foul. So BCU hit two free throws with 0.9 seconds left. Carde Pennington put up a good three-point shot, but it went in and out as the buzzer went off.

Heartbreaking. Hard to swallow. And the worst part - it's not the first crazy loss for DWU this season. It's the second. On Nov. 12, a winless Kansas Wesleyan team (that looked TERRIBLE the night before against S.D. Tech) was within two points of the Tigers in the final seconds of the game, picked off an errant pass (pass? Throw? Lob in the air?) and put up a desperation three that went in. The guy was literally falling backwards, and yet the ball banked off the backboard and went in.

Two losses that are very hard to handle. DWU could very realistically be 7-0 right now and have beaten one of the GPAC's toughest teams. But it isn't, and the Tigers have to learn from that and move on. Right now. Tonight they take on a York team that has been improving in recent years. Next week, they start a steady GPAC schedule that has little to no "gimmie" games or for-sure wins. It will be interesting to see how these Tigers handle this. One thing's for sure - they are going to give me a heart attack before this season is over. The past three games have been decided by a grand total of four points. Yeesh.

The Tiger women look good early this season. They picked up a nice win against a tough Valley City team. DWU also looked good in the first half against No. 5 Briar Cliff, and were only down by nine at halftime. The Chargers forced some turnovers in the second half and started shooting better, but DWU was right in that game for awhile. Amanda Hart is having a good year; she leads the nation (not just the GPAC, the NATION) in threes per game (4.4) and is a big reason the Tigers were so close for so long against BCU. She was named the GPAC Player-of-the-Week this afternoon.

Fall sports are officially over here at DWU; all the All-GPAC awards are out and outdoor sports done for the season. Congrats to all our all-conference athletes. This year was especially big for the men's soccer program, which had its first first- and second-team honorees since 2006 (Hugo Gonzalez earned first-team honors and Eric Christianson and Jordan Werner were named to the second team).

Crazy to think basketball and wrestling have been going for almost three weeks now. But at least that means it's Thanksgiving break! Hope everyone has a wonderful day full of family and friends. Don't forget to let those you love know how thankful you are for them.

Bigger than sports

2011-11-18T10:13:00.000-08:00

I had a whole blog post planned out about the basketball teams and a 'devastating loss' and exciting win and some big games this weekend, but with the events of the past two days I just don't have the heart to post it. It just doesn't seem to matter right now.

Yesterday, we found out in chapel that Hunter Bork, a sprinter on the Tiger track team, is dealing with his second bout of cancer. He has been in remission for a few years now, has a prosthetic after losing his leg and just this summer set an American record in the Paralympics. I did a story on Hunter last year for Wesleyan Today, and he was so upbeat and positive about life and losing his leg; he didn't let it bother him. He was training for another shot at the Paralympics. Now, the cancer is back, and he has a long battle of chemo and radiation ahead of him.

Now, this morning, the world woke up to the news that the Oklahoma State women's basketball coach and his assistant were killed in a plane crash last night. This just 10 years after 10 people associated with the men's basketball team at OSU were killed in a plane crash. That one school could suffer such tragedy is heartbreaking. And to write about DWU's 'devastating loss' to Kansas Wesleyan after this - a true devastating loss - seems trivial and elementary.

So this blog post today, especially with the holidays coming up, is to remind everyone that, no matter how much you love your favorite team or how well or poorly they are doing, there is so much more to life than sports. There are so many things so much bigger than sports. Friends, family, teammates. So please be safe this holiday season and spend time with your families and friends. And please, keep both Hunter and the Oklahoma State campus in your prayers.

And we're off!

2011-11-04T13:24:00.000-07:00

First basketball game of the year was last night, and it was all-around entertaining. Three-point shots, pretty layups and even a HUGE dunk. It was a good game; a good one for everyone to shake off the rust and work out the kinks. The Tigers beat Black Hills State 74-59.

You could tell the Tigers are a new team in the first half. We were putting up some rushed shots, some crazy shots and some shots that were making coach Murphy pretty unhappy. We also gave up quite a few offensive boards. In the second half, everyone seemed to have calmed down and found their groove a bit. That's when it got fun.

Carde Pennington, a 5-foot-7 junior transfer from Chicago, Ill., hit three straight 3-pointers (all off assists from Kris Wilson, who did an awesome little victory dance after the third one) and a pair of free throws to give DWU a sizeable lead. Then, as if to tell Black Hills to just back off, Jordan Long broke free and took a full-court pass from German Madueno and slammed in a huge dunk. The Corn Palace crowd (which was pretty good sized for an early-season game on a Thursday) went absolutely nuts. That basically took the wind out of Black Hills' sails.

Mike Lee, another junior transfer, led the team with 21 points. It was a fairly quiet 21 points; he hit three 3-pointers, other than that it was layups and a handful of tough jumpers. After he hit one of his last baskets he did a little dance at about the free-throw line; I don't know how many people saw that but I enjoyed it.

It was really fun to watch Pennington and Lee take over the game and do their thing. Pennington is small, but he's so fast, and he has such a smooth shot. Each time it left his hands you just knew it was going in (and the BHSU coaches knew it too, and therefore weren't too happy when he was allowed to get a shot off, which was fairly often). Lee is also quick, and was able to make some tough shots in front of the BHSU defense.

The Tigers are up in Ellendale, N.D., for a game against Trinity Bible College this weekend and are back at home Tuesday against Mayville State. I'm looking forward to watching this team all season; it will be fun to see how it evolves.

The DWU women are also up in Ellendale this weekend for their first game of 2011-12. Last year the Tigers were young. This year is no different. The difference in this year and last year, however, is the amount of experience on the team. All the sophomores played a decent amount of minutes as freshmen last year, and several of them started. Liz Lamb and Brittany Hills are both in their third years with the program and will be looking to pick up a few more wins, and Brittany Pritchard is back as the team's only starting senior. Kim Johnson, Amanda Hart, Taylor Piper and Whitnee Clayton are a few sophomores that will play, and Celeste Beck and Katie Johnson are the two freshmen that are expected to see playing time.

I think what's going to be key for this year's young squad is forgetting mistakes. Last year it seemed like they'd be doing ok, then someone would turn the ball over or make a bad shot and everything just snowballed. Things happen; we just need to learn from it and move on, and quickly. Teams will take advantage of a meltdown, even a short one. Especially GPAC teams. There were three GPAC teams in the top five in the NAIA's top 25 preseason poll, so league games aren't going to be any easier this season.

Last home football game of the year Saturday. Tigers need a win to get back on track and end on a good note after such a solid start.

The Tiger men's soccer team plays in a GPAC semifinal game Saturday at 5 p.m. at the Pepsi-Cola Complex. No. 2 DWU hosts No. 3 Midland. Midland beat DWU 3-1 earlier this year in Fremont, Neb. A Tiger win would mean their first-ever trip to the GPAC championship game.

Lots to do this weekend. Someone needs to find a way for me to be in about four places at once. The basketball/football overlap makes life crazy, but I enjoy every minute of it. I might sleep every spare minute I'm not working, but I'm ok with that.

Hope to see everyone at at least one sporting event this weekend. Who ya rootin' for?!

Every new beginning is some other beginning's end

2011-11-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

A little Semisonic as a title for this edition of the Tiger Talk blog, anyone? I thought it was a pretty clever idea, not going to lie. Anyway...

I got the idea for my oh-so-creative title because the football team is starting to wind down its season with just two more games on the slate, but the men's and women's basketball seasons are just beginning theirs! These next two weeks are some of the busiest of the year because of the football/basketball overlap, and then wrestling starts and cross country and soccer are into the GPAC championships and playoffs. They are some of those weeks when sleep trumps all other non-work related activity, whether it be eating, reading, watching TV, having a life, etc. But, I also love these two weeks because there's such a variety of sports!

We'll start with football. The Tigers have, unfortunately, lost their past three games, which knocked them out of the NAIA Top 25 poll and, therefore, the playoff picture. DWU hosts Nebraska Wesleyan this Saturday and ends 2011 with a trip to Midland Nov. 12. After the Morningside heartbreak, the Tigers came up just short again against Doane. They were down big early, but Jon Bane and Anthony Muilenburg connected for three fourth-quarter touchdowns to take a one-point lead. Doane scored again, and DWU had the chance to win, but Bane's pass just missed Muilenburg's fingers (from what I'm told).

Those two losses, which came by a combined seven points, seemed to push DWU over the edge last week when they got beat 34-0 by Northwestern. I listened to most of the game on the radio, and it just didn't sound like we had any life in us. I don't think we got our first first down of the game until midway through the second quarter, we couldn't seem to stop anything they did and we gave up a few easy touchdowns. Josh Endres ran for 128 yards and was the one bright spot on the day for DWU, which was held to around 200 yards of total offense. We average more than 300 yards per game through the air, and didn't even get 150.

Hopefully that loss snaps the boys out of whatever funk they were in. We can still end the season 7-3, which isn't as good as 10-0 or even 9-1, but it's still a winning season, and nothing to be ashamed of. Sure, we probably could have won all three, but that's the way it goes sometimes. A win would be a good way for the seniors to go out, too.

And while football is wrapping up its season... basketball is getting ready to start! The men's first home game is this Thursday at 7 p.m. vs. Black Hills State. DWU won 96-94 in double overtime last year, but BHSU lost almost all of its key guys from last year. The Tigers are kind of a new team this year as well. They lost Brady, Larry and Chase - their top three scorers. Replacing Wiebe is going to be tough, and coach Murphy knows it can't be done by one guy. Sounds like freshman Jalen Voss has been doing pretty well so far, and I would bet he sees a lot of minutes as a freshman. Murphy said in their scrimmage against USF, some of the Cougars' more seasoned guys had no answer for Voss when he was on his game. Of course, playing that consistently so early in his college career will be an issue, but that's good to hear.

Transfers Mike Lee and Carde Pennington look to play a big role this season, and both are listed as probable starters for Thursday. Carde is small but quick, and Mike is a tall, fast basketball player. Sounds like health is a bit of an issue with him, but Murphy had good things to say about both guys. Then, of course, there's German Madueno, Jordan Long, Jake Kneeland, Bo LaCroix, Justin Nelson, Kris Wilson, et. al. German (who is wearing Brady's No. 32, which will be weird at first) will likely have a bigger role and be looked to for scoring. He had a good season last year, and without Brady that gives him the green light for more shots and scoring opportunities. Jordan and Jake have both been here four years, and will hopefully have big senior seasons.

Bo is poised to have a big junior year. He showed flashes of brilliance last year, and Murphy is hoping he puts it all together this year. Nelson and Wilson both played the point last year, and Nelson took over as a starter as a sophomore, so he will be a good guy off the bench (depending on the rotation, who's healthy, etc.). All in all, should be an interesting year! Starting with BHSU is exciting, as that's a good rivalry, even if Black Hills is in the transition to NCAA DII.

Women's basketball starts Saturday at Trinity Bible College... I'll do more on them later this week. This post has gone on long enough.

One final note: the men's soccer team earned the No. 2 seed (highest in school history) in the GPAC playoffs and hosts its first-ever GPAC playoff game tonight at 6 p.m. Semifinals are Saturday if the Tigers win, and the championship is next Thursday. Big night for Tiger soccer, come cheer! Who ya rootin' for?!

Battle of the Tigers

2011-10-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

This will be a quick post, but just wanted to get a few thoughts out there.

This weekend, DWU travels to Crete, Neb., to take on Doane. Both teams (both the Tigers!) are coming off a loss to Morningside. (Doane is technically coming off a bye week, but they last time it played it lost to Morningside). Both teams are trying to avoid dropping any farther -- or falling out of -- the NAIA poll. DWU is 19. Doane is 18. Needless to say, this is a big game.

Stat-wise, it's nearly impossible for the two teams to be any more similar. The biggest, and only of the only, major differences is in pass defense, which could be a plus for our Tigers. Doane is sixth in the league in pass defense and we're first. We're No. 1 in pass offense, they're No. 2. We're No. 1 in total offense and scoring offense, they're No. 3. Our QB is No. 1 in the league, theirs is No. 2. We have three of the league's top receivers, they have two. It goes on and on.

Basically, we're going to have to stop their passing game. Neither team has really established much of a running game so far this season, so it's no secret we're both going to pass, pass and pass again.

A win would be especially huge for the DWU Tigers because we end the season with a handful of tough games. After Doane it's Northwestern, Midland and Nebraska Wesleyan. Doane has Hastings, Concordia and Dordt. We could use some momentum for the last three games of the season. Plus, winning out wouldn't hurt our playoff chances at all.

That's it. Told you this would be a short one. Who ya rootin' for?!

Tough to swallow

2011-10-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

I know moral victories aren't worth a lot to most coaches... or any coaches, for that matter... but I really, really hope our guys walked away from Saturday's game knowing we're the better team. I know a few did, because I heard one player commenting on his way out of the Wellness Center that he was glad Morningside is the 'best team' in the conference, because they weren't that good.

It's not that the Mustangs weren't good. It's just, well, we were better. We absolutely dominated in the first half. Our defense was fantastic. They had 33 yards of offense at halftime. We had 194. The final stats were about as lopsided; they ended up with 201 to our 413. It was just two crazy plays that gave them the advantage. The first was a punt return that the Morningside guy fumbled, and another Morningside guy happened to be running right by to pick it up and score. Then came the interception. I watched it happen from the top of Joe Quintal. It was one of those plays that as soon as you saw the pass was over Bilyeu's head, you know exactly what was going to happen.

Sure enough, Bilyeu tipped the ball right into the hands of the same Morningside guy who picked up the fumble recovery, and he sprinted to the end zone. If you take those two plays away... we win. Then, you throw in the blocked field goal, a blocked punt, a last-second score, an onside kick ... it was a crazy game. I don't think I took an easy breath the entire game. Especially in the last minute. We score with 23 seconds left on a great pass to Clayton, then recover our own onside kick. I thought for a second we had the chance to win with a hook and ladder play, but Clayton dropped the pass.

What a game. What a great game between two rival schools for first in the league and to try and stay in the top 15 in the NAIA. I'm hoping we don't drop too much when the poll comes out.

This makes this week's game even bigger than it already was. We play Doane, which, along with us and Morningside, is tied for first at 5-1 overall and 4-1 in the GPAC. Looking at stats, we're pretty even with Doane in just about every category. Another perk for us -- they're near the bottom of the league in pass defense and, as you all know, our pass offense is pretty good. They are No. 2 in pass offense, and their quarterback, Anthony Dunn, is pretty prolific. He and Bane are 1-2 in basically every passing category. Should be interesting to see who comes out on top.

Here's hoping that close game showed us we can play with anyone in the league. Who ya rootin' for?!

The big one

2011-10-14T12:27:00.001-07:00

Well, folks, it is upon us. The football team's biggest test of the season thus far. I would venture to say that coaches and players have been looking at this game since the start of the season, as Morningside was picked to win the GPAC. And now it's finally here. Not only a top-15 showdown, but also a fight for the top of the conference. If DWU wins, they stay undefeated (obviously) and keep hold of first. If Morningside wins, there's a three-way tie for first with those two and Doane, which has a bye after picked up its first loss of the year to Morningside last week.

Should be a good game. Morningside is No. 8, we're No. 13. And it will be interesting to see where we stack up against the Mustangs. We've played the lower half of the conference to get to this point, and Morning has played some of the league's best. It beat Northwestern, Doane and Midland, and its lone conference loss was a 30-23 upset by Nebraska Wesleyan. The Mustangs beat Doane pretty handily, 31-16, but beat Midland by a point and Northwestern 21-10.

Stat-wise, the Tigers look pretty dominant on paper. DWU is at or near the top of the league in nearly every category, while the Mustangs are in the middle of the pack at best. But, again, Morningside has played some of the league's best, and the Tigers have had their way with most of their opponents thus far. One stat that really stands out to me is the Mustangs' pass defense -- they are ninth in the GPAC and giving up 232 yards per game through the air. That's good news for DWU, whose pass offense is absolutely dominating the league individually and team-wise.

Morningside has two young quarterbacks that shouldn't be taken lightly, including a freshman who came off the bench to throw for three touchdowns last week against Doane. We, however, counter that with a sophomore who has a strong arm and has made some excellent passes this season. We also have three receivers who are the best in the league. And one of those 'receivers' actually doubles as the league's best running back, so take that, Morningside!

For real, though -- it will be fun to see what we can do against this team. They don't seem to be the high-powered team they used to be, although they're still pretty darn good. We haven't beaten Morningside since 2002... in fact, we've lost pretty badly to them most years since, so hopefully there's no mental block going into the game.

I know it's pheasant opener tomorrow, but here's hoping we see all kinds of blaze orange intermixed with the blue and white cheering for the Tigers.

Other notes

In other news... the DWU men's soccer team picked up its second win of the year against a team receiving votes in the NAIA this past week. The Tigers upset Dordt College 2-1 in double overtime thanks to a free kick by Hugo Gonzalez that slipped past Dordt's keeper. Another huge win for this team, which continues to impress. The Tigers are 4-2 in the league and in second place.

Holy women's golf team. The Tigers were a stroke behind Morningside after the first GPAC qualifier of the season, but won the second by 25 strokes to pull ahead by 24 in the overall standings. Twenty-five strokes! That's huge. Dani Bellet is in the individual lead by seven shots, and Jenna Winckler is second. Should be a fun spring season for the girls!

That's all for today. Hope to see everyone at Quintal tomorrow afternoon. Who ya rootin' for?!

A 'W' is a 'W'...

2011-10-01T15:48:00.000-07:00

Well... wow. I hate to be too hard on the guys on the day of a homecoming win but... we practically tried to give that game away to Hastings. Gift wrapped and tied with a pretty bow.

We dominated the first half. Dominated. Had 250-some odd yards of offense, moved the ball pretty freely, held them to 83 yards of offense. Their rushing game had negative yards at halftime, I'm pretty sure.

Then came the second half.

Then we looked like a team who couldn't do anything. We looked tired. We looked lost. We couldn't run. We couldn't throw. Protect the quarterback. We had 17 total yards of offense in the second half. Seven.Teen. Hastings had almost 200.

DWU had some big second-half plays. An interception, a fumble recovery. Jesse Holz had a HUGE pass breakup on 4th-and-7 on the DWU 6 in the final minutes of the game to give DWU the ball back. But it was seriously nerve-wracking to watch.

Give the Broncos credit; after that first half they didn't give up. It seemed like it woke their quarterback up, actually. And their defensive line was awesome; Bane was scrambling on every play, it seemed like. At one point, the Bronco D sacked Bane for a loss of 15 yards, back to the Tiger 4-yard line. Yikes.

A few people got a little banged up... Aaron Rolen went down, and Muilenburg had to be helped off after a big hit. Dordt next week, then we have to get ready for Morningside.

On a lighter note... DWU is 4-0 for the first time since joining the GPAC, and (I think) for the first time since its undefeated season in 1992. Let's see how long we can keep this going.
Who ya rootin' for?!

Homecoming!

2011-09-30T13:52:00.000-07:00

It's Homecoming week here at DWU... scratch that. It's the Friday at the end of DWU's Homecoming week, which can only mean one thing... Blue and White Days game tomorrow!

Tomorrow's game is a tough one for the Tigers. Hastings comes to town, and the Broncos don't appear to be the team that they've been in the past five or so years, but it's still Hastings, and we seem to have a history of playing very, very close games with them.

Let's look back, shall we. In 2005, Hastings won by three (32-29) in Hastings. The next year the Broncos won pretty handily in Mitchell, but the next year, the Tigers kicked a field goal as time expired to win 34-31 in Hastings. Then comes the 2008 season. That was the year, if you remember, DWU went 7-3 and (I like to think) barely missed a berth in the NAIA playoffs. Well, if they did, in fact, narrowly miss that berth, it's because of the Hastings game.

That year, the Broncos and Tigers played to double overtime, and Hastings pulled off a 28-27 victory in front of DWU's home crowd at Joe Quintal. I was working at The Daily Republic at the time, and was standing on the Tiger sidelines throughout the game. That was such an intense atmosphere. Everyone was one their feet, hoping and praying Hastings wouldn't score. I think it was the first overtime it looked like we held them because we had their QB scurrying in the backfield, but he threw up a prayer of a pass and someone in a Bronco uniform managed to catch it on the 1-yard line, where they ran in for a TD. The Broncos scored again to start the second OT, and then the Tigers scored, but DWU went for two and the win instead of a third OT, and the run failed, giving Hastings the one-point win. Heck of a game.

DWU picked up its second win against the Broncos in school history last year, and is looking for No. 3 tomorrow. The Tigers are also looking for their first 4-0 start in GPAC history tomorrow, and this is a scary game for that. This is a game DWU *should win, but the Broncos are a strange team. They lost 10-0 to Concordia (we rolled past Concordia), but they shutout Briar Cliff and destroyed Dakota State. Their defense leads the league or is at the top of the GPAC in several categories, and their running game is nothing to sneeze at.

The Tigers will need to be at the top of their game, that's for sure. That hasn't been a problem in the first three games; Jon Bane leads the league in passing and total offense, Anthony Muilenburg is at the top of the GPAC in receptions and receiving yards per game and Josh Endres is first in the league in rushing and scoring (and he also leads the nation on scoring). Oh, and Derek Carlson leads the league in punting. We're going to need all those components, plus a solid defense and steady O-line, to come away with a W. We just need to play like we have been.

Hope to see everyone out at Quintal! Tailgating starts at 11:30 a.m.! Who ya rootin' for?!

Three-plus weeks in...

2011-09-19T09:25:00.001-07:00

I had every intention of updating this blog much sooner, I promise. Things move at a much faster pace in the fall than they do in the summer, that's for sure!

Where to begin. How about with football and the Tigers' second-ever 3-0 start? That's right, the DWU football team is 3-0 for the second time in GPAC history and for the second straight year. And they are a dominant 3-0 at that. The Tigers have arguably one of the best passing attacks in the league this season, led by quarterback Jon Bane. He leads the league in passing (297) and total offense (313.3) per game and has nearly 900 passing yards after three games. Add to that a pair of solid receivers (Anthony Muilenburg leads the GPAC in catches per game (8) and and receiving yards per game (93.3) Euedell Clayton is tied for second in catches (5.33) and is third in receiving yards (79.3) per game) and it all comes together nicely.

Muilenburg and Clayton aren't the Tigers' only threats through the air, though. Josh Endres (yes, the running back ) had a HUGE game Saturday and is ninth in receiving yards per game (52.3) and Nate Ovenden has also made some big catches.

A solid offensive line helps, too. The Tigers fought through, and are still fighting through some injuries, but the O-line hasn't given up a sack in two games, and is giving Bane plenty of time to air out the ball. Major contributors include freshman center Kyle Hencke, junior Nathan Little, senior Mario Palencia, along with Spencer Bloch, Kevin Calsbeek, Jake Verry and others I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Speaking of Endres... he ran for 186 yards and caught 11 passes for 115 more yards and four touchdowns. He leads the GPAC in rushing and scoring per game, and is also No. 1 in the NAIA in scoring per game at 16 points. DWU's running game was pretty slow the first two games, but it flourished thanks to Endres Saturday in a 45-14 win against Briar Cliff.

I was asked Saturday if I thought the Tigers' schedule has allowed them to go 3-0, or if they are that good. I really do think they are that good, although we haven't had a major test yet. Morningside at home on Oct. 15 will probably be our first big test, as Hastings (1-1) lost to Concordia this weekend (and we rolled past the Bulldogs). I have noticed, however, that we seem to get off to slow starts, and that will hurt us against good teams. In all three games in the first quarter we get into scoring position and then stall, or we fumble or get a big penalty. If we can quit that, we'll be even better.

Since I brought up Morningside... they lost Saturday! The GPAC race is now wide open, I think. Morningside, which is/was No. 3 in the nation, lost to unranked Nebraska Wesleyan. Northwestern is currently 1-2 as it lost to Morningside last week and then was upset 20-8 by Doane College, which is undefeated and receiving votes. It will be interesting to see what the polls do when they come out this afternoon. Midland was No. 11, and I bet will vault into the top 10. I think we should crack the top 15, or at least the top 21 (we were No. 21 in last week's poll). Northwestern should drop even farther (was No. 16), and Morningside would (I would think) drop out of the top 10. Oh, and Doane should jump into the top 25. Busy, busy week for GPAC football in the rankings!

Other thoughts... the volleyball team got off to a 7-3 start, but has now lost its last four and is 7-7. Freshman Danielle Bird is going to be a very, very good volleyball player for us. She and/or senior Larissa Veldhuizen have led the team in kills in all 14 games.

The men's soccer team could surprise some people. They are 2-3, and all three losses have been by a single goal, and two in overtime (or double OT). That includes a 3-2, double overtime loss to No. 10 Kansas Wesleyan. Top-ranked Hastings edged KWU 1-0, so that bodes well for us.

I swear I will be better about updating this throughout the fall. No, for real.

Who ya rootin' for?

Welcome to 2011-12

2011-08-18T13:33:00.001-07:00

Well, I successfully made it through the summer without a single update to this blog. Oops.

But, I'm ready to remedy that now. Fall sports have been checked in on campus for a week and a half and the rest of the DWU student body arrives tomorrow, so summer is officially over. Time to get back into the swing of sports!

This is not going to be a very informative post. Between media guides and meetings and taking head shots of our fall sports teams, I have about 1,207 other things to do. But, one can only format photos and edit media guide copy for so long, so I thought I'd spruce up the blog a bit and let everyone know that I'm back for the school year.

Here, this will be informative: a bit about when sports start. Men's and women's soccer had their first scrimmages Tuesday against Iowa Lakes CC. The women scrimmage at home tomorrow (Friday, Aug. 19) and again Sunday, this time on the road. The first real game for either team is Aug. 26 when they host Jamestown College. Volleyball starts its season Aug. 26 at the Rocky Mountain College Tournament, men's and women's golf is at Morningside Aug. 31 and cross country starts Sept. 2 at a meet hosted by Augustana.

The football team opens the season with a nonconference game -- its first non-GPAC game in several years -- Sept. 3 at Dakota State University in Madison, S.D.

Back to the media guides. More to follow in the very, very near future about the upcoming sports seasons. Should be a good year for Tiger athletics!

Oh, and for those who don't know -- DWU athletics has a new website. www.dwuathletics.com. Check it out. Who ya rootin' for?

Stupid snow.

2011-04-15T11:59:00.000-07:00

Well, it's true that our spring sports season is almost over (only about three weeks to go!), but Mother Nature sure doesn't seem to comprehend that. We have, so far, probably 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch of heavy, wet snow here in Mitchell, and it's still coming down pretty hard. This would be fine a few months ago. Maybe even in March. But mid-April? Come on now. This is nonsense. I wore my snow boots back to work after I took lunch because I got sick of my feet being cold and wet. Along with being a general nuisance, the snow also creates plenty of problems for our baseball and softball teams. So far, softball has already been postponed from this afternoon (now played on 4/22) and baseball is still waiting to decide what to do (although it doesn't look like there's any way they can play... they would tear that field to pieces). Football was also forced to cancel its spring scrimmage. Now, teams are forced to find a time in the next two-ish weeks to reschedule these games. Both baseball and softball are going to have a busy few days at the end of the season. The baseball team is struggling a bit this year. The Tigers are 7-30 overall and 1-10 in the league. This was expected to some degree, I think. There are 15 true freshmen on the roster, and of the sophomores, juniors and seniors, only a precious few actually saw much playing time last year or in previous years. John Greicar is pretty much the only fielder to have any varsity playing experience, and Ethan Opsahl, Thomas Pickett and Patrick Dennis are the only pitchers with a significant amount of experience. DWU has been in plenty of games. A few weekends ago the Tigers played three games that went to extra innings and lost all three. They are just young and don't have that experience yet. I think down the road they'll be good, as long as they can get some of these young guys to stick around. There are some very talented players on this team. The softball team is doing well; DWU is 12-17 overall and 7-7 in the league. The Tigers have split their past four GPAC doubleheaders, but two of the losses have been 1-0 games. DWU has plenty of power this season, and has been taking advantage. The Tigers have 16 total home runs so far, led by Kelsie Fahr, who has five. The pitching staff has also been solid for the Tigers. The DWU track team has two athletes qualified for the NAIA Outdoor Track and Field National Championships. Alex Liberty qualified in the decathlon last week and Derik Fossum in the triple jump. The decathlon is nuts... athletes compete in a 1,500-meter run, several sprint races, at least one hurdle race, high jump pole vault and I think hammer or javelin. Along with a few others. Talk about needing to be athletic and versatile. Kudos to Liberty for qualifying. On a random aside... the senior athlete recognition and DWU Athletic Hall of Fame banquet is Saturday. This year's senior class has accomplished some amazing things. Our latest hall of fame inductees also make up a talented bunch. Should be a fun evening for everyone. Here's hoping no one decides to talk for an hour and a half.

Spring has sprung... and is almost over?

2011-03-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

So I was completely wiped out after our 10-hour drive home from Branson (and the subsequent drive back from Mitchell to Sioux Falls and back that same day/night to watch my friend's band play) and meant to blog that next day or early that next week. Well, that's been two weeks ago now, and I have slipped into forgetting to blog again. I swear I'll do better the rest of the spring.

Anyway... I don't want to lapse back to the national tournament too much but... I thought we had Northwood. We got it down to a three-point game, then couldn't score. I think if we would have tied that game or even taken a small lead, we would have had it. They were cocky, and you can't tell they weren't used to losing, or even playing close games. One thing I noticed down there is that teams and coaches are generally very, very friendly. They're excited to be in Branson at the national tournament, and they'll sit there and chat with you about the teams, the weather, their trip, their season, where you're from, anything. Northwood did not give off that vibe. They seemed stuck up, like they thought they were better than everyone. Which, yes, they were good. Very good. But very beatable.

Anyway... that's over and done with. Great season for the Tiger men. The offseason has been good to them, too. Brady Wiebe earned All-America First Team honors -- the third All-American honors of his career. Coach Shane Murphy signed Luke Bamberg and Kris Menning, a duo of high scorers and talented players from nearby Corsica/Stickney. Those two, along with Jalen Voss, should mean good things for the future of the program.

And now, it's baseball/softball season. Which seems nuts. We've actually had a handful of home baseball games, though. They haven't been particularly warm, but DWU is playing baseball in March in South Dakota, which is fairly impressive. The softball team hasn't been so lucky, but is hoping to change that Friday with a doubleheader against Peru State.

The baseball team has struggled a bit this season, mostly because it is very, very young. There are only a handful of upperclassmen on the team, and some of those upperclassmen are seeing playing time for the first year, so they don't have that big-game experience. Thomas Pickett and Ethan Opsahl have both excelled, though. Both have won a GPAC Pitcher-of-the-Week award after big performances. Opsahl leads the league with 38 strikeouts and Pickett is second with 31.

The softball team is also young, but experienced because these kids have been playing since they were freshmen. Brandi Nekrassoff earned GPAC Pitcher-of-the-Week honors last week for her part in helping DWU sweep previously undefeated Nebraska Wesleyan.

I know it's only the end of March, but graduation is April 30, so spring sports are coming to a close rather quickly! Which is nuts to think about.

Like I said, I promise I'll blog more this spring season. Who ya rootin' for?

Game 2: So close.

2011-03-11T20:01:00.000-08:00

We could have had them. We had chances. We should have upset the 2 seed. If only we'd scored more than one point in the last three minutes of the game. If only a few more of our threes would have gone in. I think if we could have gotten one big shot in the final minutes of the game, it would have rattled Northwood and we'd have won.

They were panicked. In the second half when we started making a run and chipping away at the lead... they got sloppy and tight and started fighting with each other. They didn't know how to react. Just one more three, and I think they would have internally collapsed.

But, we didn't. And they didn't collapse. Northwood was tall and athletic and strong and very solid. But they are for sure beatable. Brady had a great game, despite being outsized down low. Fourteen huge rebounds and 19 points. What a career he has had.

I really wanted us to win for several reasons, but one reason was because the Oklahoma Wesleyan scouts I was sitting between didn't take a single note about us. Not one. They had a page and a half worth of notes on Northwood's plays and personnel and whatnot. They had a corner of the page marked off labeled DWU, but nothing written down. I really wanted to win and make them feel stupid. It's not like Northwood killed us. They didn't have it wrapped up; it wasn't a for sure win. Seeing that made me mad.

Excellent season for the Tigers. Considering we were at one point in the middle of the GPAC race and now went 1-1 at the national tournament... an excellent season with some very, very big wins. No one on this team has anything to be ashamed of. Especially after tonight. We left everything on that court. And it showed.

Again, I want to mention how very blessed I, and everyone involved with DWU athletics, am/are. There is so much support for the athletes and staff from the families, the athletes, the community. Families adopt players whose families live far away and invite them into their homes. Welcome new families into the Tiger athletic family. It's amazing to see, and be a part of.

Growing up, I never thought I'd say this, but I am already anxious for next year's basketball season. Who ya rootin' for?!

Game day #2: 3:19 p.m.

2011-03-11T13:19:00.001-08:00

I'm a little bit anxious now. Still not as bad as yesterday. I wouldn't say I have a positive or negative feeling about the game, I just feel like it's going to be fun. This is a chance for the Tigers to prove to everyone what they're made of and what they can do. I'm very excited.

Branson is a great host city for this tournament. Moving this tournament would be an absolute shame. Went down to the landing today and wandered through the shops. What a beautiful area -- and the 60+ degree weather and sunshine sure didn't hurt! Made sure to soak up plenty of that; not sure when it'll get that warm in South Dakota. Also hit up the Titanic exhibit and the Hollywood Wax Museum. Both were very fun and entertaining. My character survived the Titanic sinking -- Curt's didn't.

Another thing about Branson: everyone is so incredibly nice. Very helpful, very friendly. Asking where you're from, what school you're with, wishing you good luck. All the teams and coaches are friendly as well. We're in the same hotel as Oregon Tech and Eastern Oregon (and Northwest, who already lost), and they are all very nice. It's such a great, welcoming atmosphere.

I haven't come up with any great game plan or idea for tonight. Basically, we need to do what we did last night. Maybe even a little better. They're big and talented, but we have a whole lot of heart, and that goes a long way. I'm hoping we can show Rollie and his Florida boys a thing or two.

Time to get ready to head to CofO. I'm quite excited for another hospitality room dinner. The spinach lasagna and strawberry rhubarb pie last night was amazing.

Get ready, Tiger fans. Tonight should be exciting. Who ya rootin' for?!

Game day #2: 10:30 a.m.

2011-03-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

Well I am definitely not as nervous for tonight's game. Not compared to yesterday at this time. I'm still pumped up about how well we played last night. The Tigers will definitely need to play like that again today against the No. 2 team in the nation. I think this one will be fun, though. We've got wins against four top-10 teams... why not see where we stack up with Rollie and his Northwood squad?

I've heard from several people that Northwood is good, but not unbeatable. They're big, but so was Grace. They're taller than we are, but so is everyone else we play. They're athletic, but hey. This is college basketball.

Just a short post this morning. Went for a run (this town is uphill no matter where you go), now off to the marina and then to find some touristy things to do. More later.

Who ya rootin' for?! (Keep yelling!)

Game 1: We win!

2011-03-10T20:52:00.000-08:00

(Jordan Long and Brady Wiebe go up for a rebound against Grace. Photo by Brian Beard, Creative Images Photography)

After a day of being anxious... we did it! It did take me until the very end of the game to stop fidgeting, though. I was sitting next to the Oklahoma Wesleyan coach, and he got a kick out of my finger tapping, white knuckled antics.

But seriously -- what a game. At the reception today, Shane talked about how this needs to be a team effort, how, when everyone works together for a common good, we can achieve so much more, and I think the guys took it to heart. That was the best collective team effort I have seen all year. The Briar Cliff game was great, and Northwestern, but this was fantastic. Our bench outscored their bench 26-4. That hasn't happened all year. Everyone made at least one huge contribution. Bo hit three big 3s. Jordan had 8 points, 8 rebounds, several assists and a few blocks. He was everywhere. Jake hit a big three. And Matt Dykstra had a few huge rebounds and three HUGE blocked shots. Germ had 11 points. Justin Nelson had 11 points and a few key rebounds and steals. Brady had 16 points. Chase had 7, including a late three to help seal it. The list goes on and on. Everyone had a hand in this win, and that is something they should be ridiculously proud of.

I wasn't impressed by Grace's bigs. Not even a little bit. Duke Johnson, their really good big guy, had some good shots, but they were all 18 footers. Not at all impressive down low or in the post. And Dykstra... Dykstra came out and just decided he was going to shut them down and play around them. And he did. He, and the whole team, shut them down. I was worried about No. 33 for awhile... he had a good first half... but he got quiet in the second. They were good, but nothing special. Tall, but that doesn't mean much if you don't take advantage of it.

This means... bring on Northwood! The No. 2 team in the country. Coached by Rollie Massimino, they are in the top 5 in the nation in several statistical categories. They lead the nation in 3-point percentage (.410) and are second in field-goal percent defense (.382) and total assists (571). Jon Dunn is fourth in points per game (23.8) and Pat Horstmann is eighth in rebounds per game (10.1). They're tall... but we learned tonight that doesn't necessarily mean much.

I watched Northwood a little bit today, but I don't think it was too indicative of how they normally play. They played Fisher, who's 15-15, doesn't seem to know what a shot clock is for and whose offense seems to be whoever gets the ball first shoots. It was pretty sloppy. Northwood wasn't working too hard, but it really didn't half to. I guess time will tell!

I'm so glad not to be nervous anymore. We'll see how tomorrow goes. I think I'm going to play tourist for awhile so maybe I'll forget about being nervous until closer to game time.

Hope everyone stays tuned in tomorrow! Who ya rootin' for?!

Game day: 3:18 p.m.

2011-03-10T13:18:00.000-08:00

Still nervous. Getting worse, actually. I have about an hour of down time before we head over to the CofO campus to watch Northwood play, too, so I have lots of time to think.

In my thinking, I came to a realization. I am very lucky. We are very blessed. We have an amazing new coach who is great to work with and has done great things with a program full of amazing guys. Those guys, a group that was thrown together semi last minute, have bought into this new coach and everything Dakota Wesleyan stands for and found a way --despite being a "down year" -- to make it back to the national tournament.

Shane spoke this afternoon at a reception at the hotel (which was well attended -- the Tigers should have a good crowd tonight!) and said that obviously he wants to get a win tonight, but no matter what -- we're at the national tournament right now. We're one of 32 teams in the entire country who were able to make the trip to the national tournament. It reminded me of Herb Brooks' speech during the gold medal game at the 1980 Olympics in Miracle, where he reminds the team where they are and what they're playing for. Our team, coaches, staff, fans -- we're in Branson, Missouri, watching teams play in the national tournament. Not a lot of people get this opportunity, especially not year after year. We are very lucky.

Thinking about that made me less nervous. Sometimes you just have to take a step back and look at the big picture.

Then I stepped back in and looked at the small picture. Still nervous.

In other news, Northwestern is down late against... whoever they're playing. Looks like it's up to the Tigers to pick up a win so the GPAC doesn't go 0-4 down here.

Who ya rootin' for?! (Get loud!!)

Game day: 9:44 a.m.

2011-03-10T07:44:00.000-08:00

Well, it's here. Game day. At the national tournament. I don't know how the guys are feeling right now, but I know I'm already anxious. I have a feeling it's going to be a long day, waiting for that 5:45 p.m. game. At least we don't play the last game of the night series; I'd probably jump out of my skin.

As you saw in Mr. Aadland's blog, we had a good night last night. I didn't go to practice (I went to the free media reception and got some little goodies instead), but I went to the Outback Oyster Bar to eat with the team and got in on the alligator tail trying. I enjoyed it. And it was hilarious to watch everyone else try it. The Parade of Champions was pretty neat. It got a little long, lining up 32 teams, but it was a neat little event. The USF/Ozarks game was very cool to watch. Ozarks gets a great crowd in that gym, and they are loud. I can't imagine how fun that would be, to play your national tournament games on your home court. The Corn Palace would be rocking if Mitchell were ever to host.

It's too bad the GPAC went 0-2 yesterday. USF (I feel) was a much more deep and talented team than Ozarks, but they couldn't hit anything. They shot 29 percent in the second half. I think Hubbard -- you know, the guy who didn't miss a shot the three times we played them -- had five points, all in the second half. They were 2-for-19 from three-point range and just couldn't get anything done. Maxwell was steady as usual, and Bloch had a good first half, but nobody really did much in the second.

I feel like my posts need to be more in-depth now that Cory has shown what he can do. I might have to pass the blogging portion of my job on to him... nah.

Reception from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Mont Clair Reception Room here at the Grand Plaza in Branson; everyone wearing royal blue and white should be there. If you're in Mitchell, Blarney's and the Scoreboard will be showing the game live. Let's go, Tigers. Who ya rootin' for?!

Aadland's Thoughts Part 2 (Guest Blog)

2011-03-09T22:07:00.000-08:00

Associate Athletic Director Cory Aadland's final thoughts from Wednesday in Branson.

Just got back from the Parade of Champions and the USF-College of Ozarks game. This was my second time seeing the Parade of Champions and even though you know exactly what's going to happen and it's the same thing over and over, it is still a pretty cool experience to see all 32 teams announced with their players, coaches and honorary coaches (who are members of the community involved with local businesses that serve as sponsors and hosts for each of the teams for their entire time in Branson). I hope the guys involved enjoy this experience because it is something that is very unique to the NAIA.

As I closed my last entry we were on our way to eat with the team at the Outback Steak and Oyster Bar. You think the Outback Steakhouse is an authentic Australian restaurant? I don't think I've ever seen gator tail on their menu. Coach Greene ordered a full order of it and after seeing it Larry Swann asked the server what it was. After explaining what it was the server asked Larry if he wanted to try some. I think his response was something along the lines of "heck no!" The server insisted and brought him out a small plate to sample. After trying it himself he walked around to the rest of the tables in our group offering it up to any curious and/or gullible sole who was willing to give it a try. I resisted at first but then figured when would the next time I would have this chance be. And it really does taste just like chicken! So I can now say I've tried gator tail and I can safely say that I won't need to do that again. I had way too many things going through my head as I was chewing. But really this is what makes the national tournament experience so unique for people like me. I see these guys all year along almost every day, but to get to do things like try gator tail and spend more time with them is something that I really enjoy. We've got a great group of young men on this team and it really is a privilege to even be associated with them.

So back to my observations from this afternoon's practice. One thing that I was really amazed by was the complexity of the schemes in basketball at this level. Of course I knew there were plenty of offenses sets and different defenses but to hear Coach Murphy go through just a few of the sets he's seen on film with Grace was mind boggling. Then there was the different terminology our guys use for our defensive scheme... can anybody tell me what being in "white" position means? No, how about "l" position? Or maybe "strong" position? A long ways from the "stay between your man and the basket" philosophy we all learned in 5th grade!

After walking through a few different sets and then again at a more game-tempo pace, it was on to something that really caught me off guard and impressed me more than anything... fundamentals! Don't get me wrong; I believe fundamentals are extremely important in any sport, but here these guys were the day before they play the opening round of the national tournament and they split up between shooters, bigs and ball handlers working on the same things they did the first day of practice! After a good 10 minutes of fundamentals it was on to some free throws where I witnessed my highlight of practice... Coach Murphy jumping up and hanging on the back of the rim making faces at Justin Nelson trying to distract him while he was shooting! Who says coaches can't loosen up and have a little fun every now and then!

The last 10 minutes of practice were spent scrimmaging at game speed and let me tell you they got after it. And when I say they got after it, I'm talking everybody... players and coaches both. It made me think of how these mild mannered coaches that I see in the office every day turn into almost completely different people when they get into practice or games. And I'm not talking about just our men's basketball coaches... I'm talking all of our sports. The enthusiasm, intensity and passion that each of our coaches put into their programs on a daily basis is truly amazing. Seeing that passion during games can be expected, but these coaches have that same passion day in and day out that most of us only see when it comes to game-days.

Practice came to a conclusion after some more free throws as all the guys made their way to half court, highlighted by German Madueno's cartwheel, which to me was a perfect ending to a practice the day before a big game. These guys are serious about what they do and they work extremely hard at it, but at the same time they're having fun and enjoying the experience. I don't know what else you could ask for. With the team together Coach Murphy told them of the specifics of the agenda for the remainder of the day including specifically what they were to wear for the Parade of Champions, team travel gear pants and blue polos. He made sure to explain extremely clearly that they were to wear those exact pants and not some other version so they could all look the same. As the team walked off the court Coach Mueller made his way over to me with a slightly concerned look on his face. As he got to me he whispered so that Coach Murphy couldn't hear him, "I didn't bring my travel pants!" I hope no one noticed tonight, but I know I sure did!

All in all today was a great day...slightly long but still a lot of fun. Here's to hoping that tomorrow is an even better day. A win tomorrow night is no small task but very well within us, and I'd like to stick around here for a few more days so the weather has a chance to warm up! Remember for all fans here in Branson that we will be holding a reception from 1:00-3:00 tomorrow afternoon at the Grand Plaza Hotel and we want as many people there as we can get. So come over and enjoy some time with the team and fellow fans as we get ready to cheer on our Tigers.

Who ya rootin for?

Tiger Talk's first guest blogger!

2011-03-09T14:40:00.000-08:00

Everyone, welcome Associate Athletic Director Cory Aadland to the Tiger Talk Blog!

Just got back from the men's practice at the Branson RecPlex. We walked in to catch the end of GPAC Conference Champion Northwestern's practice as they were practicing right before us. After some stretching and loosening up, the guys got into full court drills with some shooting and it didn't take long for Coach Murphy to make a quick adjustment to the practice plan as the guys weren't shooting as well as he would have liked (to which I agreed) so they went into some 2 man shooting and spent a good 7-8 minutes just working on their shots. It was clear after just a few minutes that the guys started to get their shots going as the number of balls going through the hoop far outnumbered the missed ones.

Once Shane was pleased with their shooting he got into some Grace specifics starting with transition defense. It's no secret that Grace is a big team and Coach Murphy stressed that while they won't necessarily play all that uptempo and push the ball, they will use the transition to get their bigs position down low and look to throw the ball up if they can get our guys buried down low. He stressed that our bigs need to be aware of that and look to check up their guys early and not let them get the position they are looking for. To drill this he had our guys work through an offensive set to get a shot and then transition back to defense while Coach Mueller and Coach Greene went 2 on 5 against guys just slightly younger than them! It was entertaining to say the least.

Next topic on the Grace scouting report was their half court sets and once again their size advantage down low. Coach Murphy really talked up how good their big to big high-low action is and how well they work together. They use a lot of different action but ultimately what they're trying to do is get a post up near the free throw line and the other down low near the block. He also stressed how important it will be for our off ball defenders to be active with help defense. Without a question my favorite quote of the practice was when Coach Murphy addressed our size disadvantage and said "I'm the tallest guy on our team...but I can't play! But even though they're taller than we are I still believe we can be successful down low." While we could surely use Coach Murphy's height underneath, good team defense can overcome that disadvantage with good position and good communication.

I've got more from practice that I have to save for later because we are off to eat with the team at the Outback Steak and Oyster Bar before we head back to Keeter Gymnasium for the Parade of Champions which will be followed by GPAC rival University of Sioux Falls playing host school College of the Ozarks which is always a great atmosphere.

Who ya rootin for!

(This also marks the first 'to be continued' version of the Tiger Talk Blog)

One session in the books in Branson

2011-03-09T14:30:00.000-08:00

For someone who used to hate basketball with a passion, I sure do love the national tournament. Basketball, good food, basketball, good people, basketball and plenty of entertainment. It's so interesting and fun to watch teams from around the country and talk to coaches and players and see what they think of Branson and hear about their seasons. Everyone is super nice and excited to be at the tournament.

Watched portions of two different games today. Briar Cliff played Davenport (Mich.) in the first game of the tournament. BCU got down early, but made it a game late. Davenport had a few huge turnovers late, but the Chargers couldn't completely bridge the gap. It was a two- or three-point game in the final minute, but Davenport held on. Black Hills State took on Holy Names next. Hills went up big early, but got really sloppy late in the first half and early in the second and HN got within four or five. Hills ended up winning by 20, I believe.

I also caught a glimpse of the Bellevue/Ashford game this afternoon when I went back for a media reception (got homemade apple butter and a hand-made candle!) and all I can tell you is Bellevue is very, very tall.

I am thoroughly enjoying Branson. College of the Ozarks does a fantastic job with this tournament. The day it gets moved elsewhere will be a sad day.

Tonight: dinner with the team, Parade of Champions and USF vs. CofO. That should be a great game; I've heard they absolutely pack the place.

T-25ish hours until game time. Getting excited! Who ya rootin' for?!

Night 1 in Branson

2011-03-08T22:21:00.001-08:00

Made it safely to Branson around 9 p.m.; a solid 10-hour drive (with three stops) from Mitchell. It rained almost the entire drive, and was a very slushy, snow-like substance for awhile. Hit Kansas City around rush hour (and totally missed 435, which takes you around downtown KC), but even that wasn't too bad. Passed by some interesting towns (Peculiar, Humanville? and Amazonian were my favorite) and saw some interesting scenery through the rain and fog.

I've already eaten at Steak and Shake in Branson, which is absolutely delicious. Their burgers are awesome and their cookies and cream milkshake rivals that of Chik-fil-A, which makes amazing milk shakes. Most everything was closed by the time we got to town, but we've already got a small agenda while in town.

Speaking of agendas... tomorrow we're going to watch Briar Cliff and Black Hills State play for awhile. DWU is practicing at one of Branson's new rec centers, which I might go watch, and the Champions of Character banquet is tomorrow. Sioux Falls also plays Ozarks tomorrow, which should be a great game. I've heard Ozarks absolutely packs the gym for their games, which would be fun to see.

Our Tiger squad seems to be in good spirits. Everyone's having a good time, and coach Murphy said practices have been good so far. I think he's very excited to be back here after being out of basketball for two seasons.

More tomorrow. Be sure to watch DWU Athletics Twitter as I'll be posting there quite regularly. Should be a fun couple of days. Who ya rootin' for?

T-1 hour to departure!

2011-03-08T07:45:00.000-08:00

I should probably be doing my dishes or something, but instead I'm updating all my social media (this, Twitter and Facebook) to make sure all our loyal Tiger fans are as up to date as possible before I sit in a car for 10-plus hours on the trek down south! The DWU National Tournament page is now up and running on the DWU athletics page. Check that out for game stories and links to all sorts of fun things (like where to watch/listen to the game live if you can't make it to Branson!).

I've been looking at blogs from Grace College and NAIA message boards for a few days. Seems like DWU is the slight underdog in this first-round game, but I think that's OK. We've got four wins under top-1o teams under our belt already; bring on the No. 15. Grace is tall, yes, but other than that they seem very similar to the Tigers. Should be an interesting game.

Game notes aside... last year I was in Branson for a total of about 20 hours. (Got there Friday for the second-round game and left early Saturday morning.) It was fun, but I didn't get to do much! This year, I'm definitely going back to the Rib Crib, along with a few other rib places I hope, and wherever other tasty places our senses may lead us. There was also a wax museum across from my hotel last year that I really wanted to get to. Maybe this year. Oh, and I definitely want to hit up the hospitality room more this year. And watch more basketball, I suppose.

Time to finish getting packed/ready. Off to Branson! Who ya rootin' for?!

More on Grace

2011-03-07T15:00:00.000-08:00

Did I mention this morning how tall Grace is? Pretty tall. But...

They had three All-Mid Central College Conference players this year. Bruce Grimm, Jr. (the guy who may or may not play Thursday) earned first-team honors, was named to the Newcomers Team and named the Newcomer of the Year. He transferred to Grace from East Tennessee State, an NCCA Division I program, and was the Indiana Mr. Basketball Runner-Up in 2009. Let's not forget that our Justin Nelson was named Wyoming's Gatorade Boys' Basketball Player-of-the-Year before he came to DWU!

Duke Johnson, who leads the team in scoring, earned All-MCC Second Team honors and Dave Henry earned Honorable Mention. Well, the Tigers can certainly match that with the GPAC Player-of-the-Year (Brady Wiebe) and two Second Team honorees (Chase Walder and Larry Swann). Both teams seem to be pretty matched up scoring-wise; Grace has three guys in double digits, a few between six and nine and then everyone else is around two or three points per game and DWU is about the same.

DWU is averaging 73.7 points per game and giving up 67.1 and Grace averages 76.6 points per game and gives up 67.7 Both teams have played -- and beaten -- a handful of teams in the national tournament field. Grace beat the University of Saint Francis twice with losses to Davenport and Indiana Wesleyan. It also played Indiana Southeast and Indiana... East? (too many directions for me). DWU has played USF, Briar Cliff, Northwestern and Black Hills and beaten Briar Cliff, Northwestern and Black Hills.

Height aside, Grace is very, very similar to us. A few big wins, a few tough losses and some guys who really know how to score. Whichever team puts together a cleaner game and has a few guys step up and have a big night will win.

I head to Branson tomorrow morning. I will be updating regularly. I will also be tweeting from my handy dandy droid and updating to DWU Athletics' Facebook page as much as possible. Should be a good time... hope to see all you Tiger fans in blue and white come Thursday!!

Who ya rootin' for?!

Grace College... early findings

2011-03-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

Just started doing some research on Grace College. Here's what I've got so far:

They're tall. Two 6-foot-11 guys, five guys 6-6 or better, 15 guys 6-0 or better. I know the 'official roster' can only have 15 guys on it, though, so hopefully some of those 15 stay home.

They've got some solid players. Duke Johnson (6-11, C) averages 15.7 points, 7.0 rebounds and 2.4 steals per game. Bruce Grimm, Jr. averages 13.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 2.1 steals per game. Then they've got David Henry (10.0 p, 1.7 a) and Greg Miller (9.8 p, 6.0 r). BUT... according to a blog I found on Grace's athletic page, Grimm is questionable for Tuesday's game. So that might help.

They've got some quality wins. Grace beat No. 13 University of Saint Francis twice by a combined six points (including a one-point win) and lost to them in the conference semifinals. They've also beaten Indiana East and lost to Indiana Southeast, No. 12 Davenport and No. 9 Indiana Wesleyan twice. All five are in the national tournament field.

Time to do more digging.

National Tournament!

2011-03-04T13:50:00.000-08:00

I promised a post after we found out who the Tiger men's first-round opponent in the national tournament is. This is going to be short, but it's been a long week, and I have some research to do yet.

DWU plays Grace College from Winona Lake, Ind., at 5:45 p.m. Thursday, March 10. Here's what I know about Grace: they're 20-10, they lost in the semifinals of the Mid-Central Conference tournament and they are apparently a very big team. From what I'm hearing, Brady's going to have to work even harder than he already does to score because Grace's bigs are going to be working on him hard.

That's about all I've got for you. I also know, however, that Grace was one of the teams Shane had figured into his equation of who the Tigers could play, and he's optimistic/pleased with this match up. So time will tell, I suppose. Oh, also (not that I'm counting chickens, it's just an interesting little side note): should DWU win its first-round game, it likely will take on No. 2 Northwood and their legendary coach (whose name escapes me right now) in the second round.

I have three thoughts on that: 1) We have to worry about the first round first. 2) Yikes! 3) We've already beat four top-10 teams -- bring on another!!

In other national tournament action... DWU junior heavyweight Josh Geppert beat -- no, not just beat: pinned!! -- the top-ranked wrestler in the nation in the quarterfinals at the NAIA Wrestling National Championships this afternoon and will wrestle in the semifinals tonight. The Tigers' only national champ -- in any sport -- is wrestler Justin Portenier in 2002. He is also the only wrestler ever to take second at nationals. Let's go, Josh!!!

More thoughts on Grace next week. Hope to see a bunch of familiar faces in Branson Thursday. I will be making the trek down either very late Tuesday night (weather permitting) or Wednesday morning. Oh, also -- there will be a reception at the Grand Plaza Hotel (where the team is staying and fans are encouraged to stay) from 1 to 3 p.m. in one of the conference rooms on Thursday before DWU's first-round game. All Tiger fans in Branson should stop by!

Who ya rootin' for?!

Big day!

2011-03-02T14:40:00.000-08:00

What a day it's been! Scratch that... what a week! We'll start with the highlights of the day. Drum roll please...

Brady Wiebe is the GPAC Player-of-the-Year! (And All-GPAC First Team)
Chase Walder and Larry Swann were both named to the All-GPAC Second Team
The Tiger men fell just a single spot to No. 18 in the final NAIA poll of the season, basically ensuring them a spot in the NAIA national tournament
DWU received the 7th at-large bid to the national tournament!

The athletic offices at DWU have been busy with excitement since about 3 p.m. when the official at-large bid was announce. We've been pretty sure that we'd get in since we upset Northwestern a few weeks back, but Dordt potentially winning the GPAC tournament title and getting the second automatic bid for the league could have thrown a wrench in things (we thought). But they didn't win, so it doesn't matter!

Ok, a few thoughts on today's happenings. Brady is the fourth POY to come from DWU in the past five seasons. Brock Seim won in 2007, Preston Broughton in 2008, Darrin Dorsey last year and now Wiebe this year. I can't even put into words what that says about the Tiger men's basketball program. That's huge. That means that, since the GPAC started in 2000, DWU has won four of the 11 conference player of the year awards. That's a pretty good ratio for DWU. And an excellent honor for Wiebe, who, despite not being the most athletic of basketball players, led the league in scoring and rebounding and the fourth player in DWU men's basketball history to score 2,000 points. He'll also likely become the first men's basketball player to earn All-American honors three time. Not a bad career.

Nationals. We'll find out who we play in the first round in a few hours here, but I couldn't wait to post. Too much going on in my brain right now, I'd forget something. Coach Murphy feels pretty confident about whoever we play with the 7th at-large bid. We weren't the last team in. Hotel arrangements are already being made and travel plans finalized. I can't wait! (More on nationals later when we figure out who we play in the first round and how the seeding pans out.) There will be four GPAC teams in Branson. Northwestern is the No. 12 seed, USF is No. 15 and Briar Cliff took the 10th at-large bid. It will be interesting to see who they draw as well.

A tidbit on the GPAC semifinal game in Sioux Falls... first of all, we had way more fans there than USF did. Second of all... a few guys had OK games, but no one really stood out. Germ hit some big shots, and Larry had a big three at the end to get it down to a two-point game, but no one could hit the huge shots. And we couldn't get a stop. USF has a very solid offense, and all of their guys can shoot. The Coo went on a 10-0 run to end the first half that just killed us. I think if we could have stopped that run or slowed them down, we would have been OK.

As if preparing for Branson wasn't exciting enough (or enough work!), I'm also trying to keep track of our wrestling and indoor track teams at nationals this week and get the Tiger softball and baseball teams ready to play week-long tournaments in Arizona over spring break. Yikes! I have plenty to do in the next few days, that's for sure.

That's all for now. More tomorrow or Friday about the first round of the national tournament. Here's hoping it's warm in Branson next week. Who ya rootin' for?

Congrats to Brady Wiebe!

2011-02-25T13:26:00.000-08:00

I think I was more nervous for Brady last night than I was at the end of the Northwestern thriller last week. He needed 24 points heading into last night to reach the 2,000-point mark. He had eight first-half points, and then scored 12 in the first eight minutes of the second half, leaving him four points short with 12 minutes to play.

Well, he hit a layup with five minutes left to get within two. Then missed two sets of free throws. And couldn't for the life of him get a foul call. Or didn't get the ball. Then finally, FINALLY, with 37 seconds left, someone (I think Chase?) got him the ball and he snuck in for a (very contested) layup. You could see the relief on his face. He got a standing ovation from the crowd, and a very supportive student section, which was awesome to see. I wasn't sure how many people knew, but everyone did.

It was really cool to see something like that. Not often you see a guy score 2,000 career points -- he's only the fourth player in Tiger men's history and fifth in DWU basketball history to do so. And he's a very deserving guy. Very nice, down to earth. He also has more than 1,000 rebounds, which is equally as impressive. An amazing career, and hopefully one that's far from over!

A win last night, coupled with a Briar Cliff loss, *pretty much locks DWU in to the at-large mix. Unless, of course, Dordt decides to go all Cinderella story on us and win the tournament, which would really throw a wrench in things. But, before we worry about that -- we worry about Sioux Falls. Again.

DWU is at the University of Sioux Falls tomorrow, Saturday, Feb. 26, at 3 p.m. As everyone probably knows, the Coo swept the Tigers in the regular season, including a double overtime win in Sioux Falls a few weeks ago. I think DWU is going to be very, very hungry for a win against their biggest rival. This game will be interesting, because Eric Tisby and Matt Malloy -- who were suspended after a drunken night got them into some trouble -- have been reinstated to the team, and can attend practices and games with the team but not play, so they will likely be at the game. It will be an interesting atmosphere, that's for sure.

Here's what needs to happen. We need to get defensive stops. Stay on their bigs, watch the lane and don't let them go back door on us all the time. Oh, and watch the threes. Then, we need to get Brady the ball, and Larry, Chase, Germ and everyone else need to have big games. If we played like we did during the second half of the Briar Cliff game, we'd be golden.

Stewart Center. Sioux Falls. 3 p.m. Tomorrow. Be there. Who ya rootin' for?

My emcee debut

2011-02-21T10:32:00.000-08:00

If you would have told me five years ago that I would have the opportunity to introduce Rollie Fingers and Sen. George McGovern at a baseball banquet, I would have had two reactions. First, I would be confused, because I would have had no idea who either were. Second, I would have laughed, because me, on stage, speaking in front of people? That just doesn't happen. *Didn't happen.

Well, it's funny how time changes things. I made me debut as an emcee Saturday night the the DWU baseball leadership banquet at the Sherman Center. I not only got to introduce Rollie and en. McGovern, I got to meet both men and chat with them beforehand. What an honor.

I'll admit, I had to google Fingers to find out why, exactly, he's so famous (besides the awesome mustache), but once I did, I was impressed. Listening to him talk was even more impressive. He played with Dick Greene and Catfish Hunter and all the baseball greats. He pitched in 16 World Series games and won three championships. He's met all the greats, and played with most of them. He changed the role of the relief pitcher forever.

Sen. McGovern, though more long winded than Rollie, was equally as impressive. He used to be friends with Fidel Castro. He was trying to work with Fidel to get the Yankees to play down in Cuba. He's traveled the world. He ran against Richard Nixon for president (and, as he pointed out, he's pretty sure even Nixon agrees it would have been better had McGovern won, given how that ended up). He went sky diving for his 88th birthday. He has so many stories it's incredible.

I was beyond nervous, because, well, I'm a writer for a reason, but it was fun. I had my speech all typed up and even threw a few funnies in there, and I think it went well. It was quite an experience, though, being on the same stage with men of such stature and such resumes. Something I will surely never forget.

Did that really just happen?

2011-02-17T13:57:00.000-08:00

I still can't believe that shot went in. I wrote the press release, sent out the stats, spent the night replaying it in my mind. And it still seems unbelievable. In case you live under a rock and haven't heard, Chase Walder hit a three from about halfway to the midcourt line with 0.3 seconds left to give DWU the go-ahead against No. 10 Northwestern. And when I say hit a three, I mean he drained it. That ball didn't touch the rim. Nothing but net.

I thought the Palace got loud last year when the Tigers beat USF for the GPAC tournament title, but it just erupted last night. Students started swarming the court. Chase fell to the ground after being tackled by teammates. It was mayhem. And it was awesome. I'm pretty sure Jon Hart (who helps me keep stats) has bruises on his right shoulder because I was shaking it so hard after the shot went in.

Between that and the fact that we got a TON of help around the conference, it was a good night. Briar Cliff lost in overtime to Morningside, and Concordia lost by 15 -- at home! -- to Nebraska Wesleyan. DWU entered the night tied for fourth with Concordia, but is now tied for third with the Chargers. The Tigers *should hold the tiebreaker as they beat BCU in the two teams' only meeting this year, putting DWU in third. Which means a bye in the first round (Feb. 22) and a home game in the second (Feb. 24).

Hopefully, this helps secure a trip to nationals for the Tiger men. A win against No. 10 should vault us into the top 20 in the NAIA, plus with BCU and Concordia's losses, we're the third-best team in the league, which should help with an at-large bid if that's what it comes down to.

Although, I shouldn't get ahead of myself. DWU still needs to take care of business Saturday against Hastings. The last thing the Tigers need to do is overlook Hastings and pick up a loss. Also, hopefully Larry Swann is healthy by then. If we beat Northwestern without him, I imagine things would have gone even smoother with him in the game. Poor guy got sick on the court in the first minute of the game. I have a lot of respect for him; he was clearly ill, but started the game and hit a three to start the scoring. And he didn't take a lane violation to get off the court before getting sick. That takes guts.

Anyway... big game. Huge win. Great night. Can't wait to see what happens in the GPAC tournament. Who ya rootin' for?

Big game = understatement

2011-02-16T08:23:00.000-08:00

To say that tonight's game against Northwestern College is a big one would be a huge understatement for the Tiger men's basketball team. Northwestern has already clinched the GPAC regular-season title, but a win tonight would do huge things not only for DWU's seeding for the postseason tournament, but also for a potential bid for the national tournament.

The Tigers are 20-7 overall and 10-6 in the GPAC heading into tonight and are tied for Concordia for fourth place. The top five teams get a bye, but it's a good possibility that only the top three teams from the league will get a trip to the national tournament, so DWU really needs to jump a few spots in the league.

We've gotten no help from elsewhere in the league, either. USF won by a single point at Dordt the other day, and Briar Cliff won by two against Concordia last week. So it's up to the Tigers to control their own destiny. A win would put DWU safely in the top four, maybe top three, depending on what else happens around the league.

A win would also be huge for an at-large bid to the national tournament. Northwestern is No. 10 in the NAIA, and a win would mark the fourth time (I think) this season the Tigers had beat a ranked opponent (Black Hills State, Xavier University and Briar Cliff). Those wins (I assume) are huge for at-large bids.

Northwestern beat us 76-67 in Orange City in early January, but the Tigers didn't look like themselves. Their offense wasn't productive and defense couldn't get a stop, and they just couldn't get anything going. The Red Raiders are talented -- and tall -- but nothing DWU can't handle. Hopefully home-court advantage will help us out.

Oh, and another thing we've got going for us (kind of) -- two top-ranked teams in the NCAA lost within a matter of three days this week (including Wisconsin's upset of undefeated Ohio State -- go Badgers!), so I feel like that is a good sign. If unranked K-State can beat Kansas, No. 23 DWU can definitely beat the 10th-ranked team in the country. (Seems logical to me, anyway.)

Hope to see everyone there. We need a huge cheering section. Who ya rootin' for?

The pressure is on

2011-02-07T13:27:00.000-08:00

I hate to break it to the Tiger men's basketball team (as if they weren't already aware), but the pressure is now on. A heartbreaking, double overtime loss to its biggest rival left DWU on the bubble of GPAC teams hoping to make a trip to the NAIA National Tournament in Branson, Mo. A win wouldn't have secured a trip, necessarily, but it sure wouldn't have hurt. And it would have taken a lot of pressure off for DWU's last home game of the season against Northwestern. Now, talk around the athletics office is that DWU has to win out it's last three regular-season games, and winning the conference tournament wouldn't hurt, either.

Let's back up a minute. To that double overtime thriller. What. A. Game. I thought my heart was going to stop on no less than four separate occasions. Once when Larry Swann's soft little layup (a shot that had gone in earlier in the game) hung on the rim and then slowly, so slowly, fell out as the buzzer sounded in regulation. Once when Chase Walder went up for his 3-point shot late in the first overtime. Once when Jordan Long slammed home that amazing dunk and missed the free throw to tie the game. Once when Brady Wiebe was called for a travel (really?). And once when Wiebe was called for his fifth foul (again, really? A touch foul? In a game like that?). Such a good game. It could easily have gone the other way, but USF is the real deal. I almost feel like they played better without Malloy and Tisby because different people are playing different roles; roles they're not comfortable with, which makes them work harder. It'll be tough down the stretch for them, but I don't expect them to go out quietly.

The Tigers won't go out quietly either, however. Wiebe and Walder haven't missed a trip to Branson in the first three years of their Tiger careers, so I don't know why their senior seasons would be any different. The Tigers host Mount Marty and Northwestern and go to Hastings to end the regular season. As of today, DWU is in fifth behind Northwestern, USF, Briar Cliff and Concordia. With their schedules combined with the Tigers winning out, DWU could put itself in good position. Then, anything can happen in the conference tournament.

Basically, what it all boils down to -- DWU needs to play every night like it did in the second half of the Briar Cliff game. That was the best the Tigers have played all year, and if they play like that they'll beat anyone. National tournament opponents included... but now I'm getting ahead of myself. First thing's first... Mount Marty Wednesday. 8 p.m. Corn Palace.

Who ya rootin' for?

Polls, schmolls

2011-02-01T10:11:00.000-08:00

Someone asked me yesterday if I could explain the NAIA coaches' poll to them. I told them if I could explain it, I'd have all kinds of coaches calling me all the time so I could explain it to them.

For those of you keeping track, the DWU men's basketball team was No. 23 in the nation last week. If you remember, the Tigers pulled off an incredible upset of then-No. 8 Briar Cliff University. Again, if you recall -- DWU absolutely dominated the Chargers. BCU scored 14 second-half points and couldn't get a thing done. So you'd expect DWU to jump a few spaces in this week's poll. Right?

Wrong. The Tigers did make a jump, but ti was from No. 23 to No. 22 in the NAIA. The Chargers fell to No. 14, which sounds about right, but DWU jumped a single spot. How does that work? Kind of like earlier this season when we upset then-No. 6 Black Hills State in overtime, we went from No. 20 in the preseason poll to No. 21 in the first regular-season poll of the year. And BHSU fell two spots from No. 6 to No. 8.

Rankings don't matter, I suppose, if you don't get it done during games. The Tigers have another big game tomorrow (Wednesday) when they take on the University of Sioux Falls in Sioux Falls, S.D. It's always tough to win in S.F., but this game will be especially interesting. The Cougars just lost their two top players in Matt Malloy and Eric Tisby after the duo was charged with drunk driving and simple assault, respectively. USF beat Doane this weekend without the pair, but that's to be expected. It will be interesting to see how they fare against DWU, and how the Tigers look in the game. Hopefully they don't look past the Coo just because they're without two of their best players.

Who ya rootin' for?

And now the winter season's almost over

2011-01-28T11:52:00.001-08:00

One would think that, as a person who loves to write, I would be much more diligent about this blog. I'm ashamed to say I haven't even logged in since the end of November. I've thought about it, but just never got around to it. I'll try to make up for that now.

How about the DWU men's basketball team?! What a game on Wednesday against No. 8 Briar Cliff University. My only question: Where in the WORLD has that defense been all season? If we played defense like that every game, we would be undefeated, hands down. The Chargers couldn't get anything going, no matter what they tried. Three-pointer? Nope, we've got people there. Layup? We're already there in your face. Jumper? Probably not a good idea.

Briar Cliff scored just 14 points (14!) in the second half and shot something like 23.8 percent from the field. Which is good, considering they were basically putting on a 3-point shooting clinic in the first half. I won't lie -- I got real nervous when they hit four threes in the first four minutes of the game. If that was a sign of things to come, it didn't look good. Lucky for us, Brady Wiebe looked good (which should surprise no one), and Larry Swann emerged as a scorer and Chase Walder was able to hit some big threes (which is no surprise, but was a nice addition to everyone else's contributions).

That win was a huge win, and should hopefully give DWU the spark it needs heading into its final five games of the regular season. The Tigers are now fourth in the GPAC with an 8-5 mark, and still have two of the league's top three teams on its schedule. DWU is at the University of Sioux Falls on Feb. 2 and hosts Northwestern Feb. 16. Both teams beat the Tigers earlier this season, so there's quite a bit on the line here. Pride, revenge, not to mention seeding for the GPAC playoffs and in the NAIA.

The USF game got a whole lot more interesting today when word got out that Matt Malloy and Eric Tisby -- the Coo's top scorers and only two players on the team averaging double digits in scoring -- were arrested early this morning and are suspended 'indefinitely.' I'm curious to see how the team responds without them.

As for the Northwestern game, let's hope it plays out like the Briar Cliff game did. Home court advantage should be absolutely huge, and the Tigers have a lot to play for still. If they win out, and we get a little help from around the conference, winning the GPAC is not out of the question. That just goes to show how crazy the GPAC is, considering not too long ago we were in the middle and edging close to the bottom half of the conference. Anything can happen; you can't fall asleep against anyone, no matter what their record.

So these next few weeks will be key for the Tigers. Even if they don't win the league, a top-four finish is also very realistic and would give DWU a first-round bye in the playoffs and then home-court advantage for at least a game. And, as we all know, the Corn Palace can be a tricky place to play if you don't wear blue and white.

Who ya rootin' for?

A month in to the winter season

2010-11-23T13:57:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe Thanksgiving is in just a few days. Stranger yet -- the 2010-11 basketball season is a month old already! Only four more months to go!

The Tigers opened Great Plains Athletic Conference play Saturday against Dordt College, and they play another league game tonight when they host Morningside College. The men's game against the Defenders was much closer than DWU would have liked, I would imagine, although it was good to see us get a win considering we were down by nine in the first half.

DWU played well on Saturday, but was never able to make that one big play that it needed to pull away and really seal the game. The game wasn't necessarily as close as the final score (84-80) indicated, but it was definitely closer than it should have been. One thing I'm noticing: Brady Wiebe needs to get the ball more early in the game. He still manages a double-double on a regular basis, but he doesn't get as many touches as he should in the first half. Dordt did a great job defending him to start, though.

Something to watch for tonight: Chase Walder is nine points away from 1,000 for his career. He's scored at least 20 points for the past few games, so that shouldn't be a problem for him. That will be an exciting moment.

The women played well against Dordt, but they have so many injuries right now you can tell they get tired pretty easily. I think it could be a bit of a different game if everyone was healthy and coach Christensen could sub when he wanted to/needed to. They're going through some growing pains, but I think there's plenty of potential.

Off to the Palace to set up for the game. Who ya rootin for?

Fall season is officially over

2010-11-15T13:27:00.000-08:00

Well, the all-conference teams are being announced, which means only one thing: the fall sports season must be over. I can't believe it's done already; it seems like it was just September and I was freaking out about getting everything going and figuring everything out! Now it's on to winter sports -- basketball and wrestling -- and, unfortunately, winter weather. Yuck.

This blog isn't about weather, though, and really -- I've lived in the Midwest my whole life, so nasty weather is nothing new to me.

Anyway... it was quite a fall sports season for several of our teams here at DWU. The football team wrapped up its season with a loss to No. 7 Morningside College Saturday afternoon. The Tigers finished 5-5, which is the second-best record in coach Brad Pole's six years at the helm. A few slight changes here and there and the Tigers could have been 7-3... but that's all in the past, and 5-5 is nothing to be ashamed of. DWU had some big wins, set a few records (Josh Endres for the most rushing yards in a game, Anthony Muilenburg for the most catches in a game) and learned a thing or two. It's sad to see all the seniors go, but exciting to think about what next year brings.

Both soccer teams made it deep into the GPAC playoffs. The men made it to the semifinals in their first-ever trip to the GPAC tournament, and lost in double overtime. It was an exciting game, and a hard way to end the season, but again -- nothing to be ashamed of. The women made it to the GPAC title game for the second straight year, but fell to Hastings, which seems to be a step ahead of everyone in the league this year. Goalie Dani Richardson is the league's co-Defensive Player-of-the-Year for the second straight year, and the Tigers had four girls (Richardson, Ellie Peterson, Kasha Roberts and Sarah Weidler) on the All-GPAC First Team.

Since fall sports are over, we've got to have something to fill our time here in the athletic department. Lucky for us, the basketball teams both have had a fairly full nonconference schedule for the past few weeks. The Tiger men are 5-1 with a few huge wins under their belts. Their only loss was to Southwest Minnesota State, a (very good) NCAA Division II school. DWU beat No. 6 Black Hills State in overtime, and most recently, beat in-state rival Dakota State by 14 points in overtime.

As expected, Brady Wiebe is having an excellent season, and senior Chase Walder is also having a fantastic year. He scored 28 points -- all in the second half and overtime -- against Dakota State, and his 3-point shots have kept the Tigers in games. Newcomers German Madueno and Kris Wilson have also played big roles for the Tigers.

The Tiger women are young this year, and are 0-5 as I write this with a game at York College tonight. DWU starts a freshman, two sophomores a junior and a senior, but is dealing with quite a few injuries and, of course, the learning curve that comes with having so many true freshmen on the roster.

The Tiger men and women open GPAC play Saturday (Nov. 20) when they host Dordt College. Should be a fun game. Who ya rootin for?

Basketball season is here!

2010-10-29T13:39:00.000-07:00

Well, ready or not it's officially basketball season. I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off for the past two days trying to get everything ready. I had myself really worked up for awhile, but I think everything's under control. We'll find out in about two hours when the Dakota State/Graceland University game tips off at the Corn Palace!

This weekend, the DWU Fulton State Bank Classic will be the public's first look at the brand new DWU men's basketball team. I know I'm curious to see how things are going to go, and I work at the school! I haven't watched any practices yet, so tonight will be interesting, and telling.

Tonight will also answer questions that have been lingering since June when former coach John Hemenway announced his resignation. Will Shane Murphy be able to keep the Tigers at the level off success they've been at for the last few years? Will DWU be able to survive without Preston Broughton and Darrin Dorsey? And who are Larry Swann, Tristan Washington and German Madueno, and are they any good?

Madueno and Swann, along with Demetrius Davis, were the probable starters for tonight along with two very familiar faces -- Brady Wiebe and Chase Walder. I am curious to see what the team dynamic is like this year, and how everything is going to look. And also -- who's going to do the dunking now that both Broughton and Dorsey are gone?

One thing that sticks out to me about losing some very key players and having a group of unknowns is the 2008-09 season. That was the year that we lost Broughton before the season started, Colby Fitzgerald went down with a knee injury a few games in and every other player on the team got hurt at some point or another. Even that year, the Tigers made it to nationals, and experienced a great deal of success. We have enough returners this year, and talented newcomers, that as long as we stay healthy, hopefully we can retain the success that the program and its fans have become used to.

Off to the Palace for last minute preparations. Who ya rootin for?

Basketball.. already??

2010-10-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

I'll just skip my little intro about how fast time goes at DWU and get right into blogging this time since it's been... well... a little while since my last blog.

The Tiger football team faltered a bit after an amazing start. They got to 3-0 before giving up fourth-quarter, last-minute touchdowns to both Midland University and Nebraska Wesleyan University, so they fell to 3-2. Both games were heart breaking to watch and listen to. Against Midland, DWU was fourth and inches -- literally -- away from a first down and, likely, a touchdown and then the win. In the NWU game, it was a bad punt and (I'm guessing) a few missed tackles that allowed the Prairie Wolves to return a punt for a touchdown in the last minute and pull away for the win.

What a day the Tigers had last week against Hastings, though. That was fun to watch. Correction: Josh Endres was fun to watch. He went off for 316 rushing yards, three touchdowns and a school record, and all of his touchdowns came just when the Tigers needed them most. Watching him from the top of the press box at Joe Quintal Field, you can tell he used to be one of the state's top high school Class B sprinters. He left the Broncos' defenders in the dust when he broke free for his 65- and 73-yard touchdown runs. Josh is the co-GPAC Offensive Player of the Week this week, but didn't get the NAIA award. Apparently someone threw for more than 600 yards in a game.

Leif Evers was also recognized by the GPAC this week after yet another solid game. For someone who just made the switch from soccer to football this fall, he's doing exceptionally well. He's missed just two point-after attempts, and both of those were in the Dordt game. Saturday, he hit two field goals, including a 46-yarder. (I thought that might be at least close to a school record... not quite. The school record is 60 yards. He's got a ways to go.) Leif is this week's GPAC Special Teams Player of the Week.

Now comes the tough portion of the Tigers' schedule. They're at top-ranked Sioux Falls this week but, call me crazy, I think it will be close. USF isn't nearly as dominant this year as it has been in the past, and if you look at stats, the two teams are actually similar. Except at the quarterback position, where Jon Eastman has just been dominating the GPAC. But if DWU's offense plays like it can, Endres has another big day and Jon Bane throws for a few yards... you never know. That would be epic.

But... I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll see on Saturday. After that, DWU travels to No. 15 Northwestern before hosting Briar Cliff and No. 8 Morningside to end the season. 6-0 would have been pretty great right now... but you can't change the past, you can only control your destiny, so I'll just keep hoping for a Tiger win.

Even though we still have four more football games left, I've been having to think about basketball an awful lot lately because the men start their season in less than TWO WEEKS! The Tigers host the DWU Fulton State Bank Classic Oct. 29 and 30. Crazy. I'm excited, but wow. Basketball in October? Who knew!

I think I'll leave writing about basketball for the next post... that will give me a reason to write later this week (as opposed to next month). Go Tigers!

Good starts all around

2010-09-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

It's crazy how time manages to escape me every day. I think I'll have a few minutes to update, and something else comes up. Such is life in the world of college athletics!

The fall sports season is well under way at DWU, and all of our teams have tasted success early in the year. The football and women's soccer teams are undefeated, the volleyball team hosted its first-ever tournament at the Corn Palace and the women's golf team has a lead after the first GPAC qualifier, to name a few.

The biggest talk around campus, of course, is the football team. The Tigers are 2-0 for the first time since 2002 and shut out an opponent for the first time in GPAC history. DWU's offense and defense both rolled last Saturday in its 56-0 win over Concordia. DWU gave up less than 100 yards of offense but finished with 471 yards of total offense. Freshman QB Jon Bane has been solid in both starts, and Brennon Flannery, another freshman, has been a steady backup. Raymond "Boogie" Blossom and Josh Endres seem to be the go-to guys for the running game, and Russell McGuire is fitting in nicely with the receiving corps after seeing time as backup QB for the last two years.

The Tigers' special teams unit is glad to have senior Nick Tolsma back. Not that it suffered last year with Derek Carlson, but Tolsma is back near the top of the NAIA for average punt yards and is making sure DWU opponents don't get a short field.

The women's soccer team hasn't lost to a GPAC opponent since the 2008 season and is 5-0 so far with three shutouts. The Tiger men are a single win away from matching last year's win total just seven games in. Both opened league play Wednesday; the women won 4-0, while the men lost 3-2.

The volleyball team is 4-11 so far, but has shown flashes of brilliance against some top-ranked teams. The Tigers held a lead against No. 24 Dordt for much of the second set in their three-set game, and played strong all three sets. DWU hosted a volleyball tournament at the Corn Palace for the first time ever this past weekend, and it seemed to be a success.

Dani Bellet and the women's golf team got solid starts in the conference race. DWU hosted the first GPAC qualifier of the season, and Dani shot a 1-under 71 to take a nine-stroke lead while the Tigers snagged an eight-stroke team lead. The men took third at the first qualifier, led by sophomore Travis Johnson's second-place finish.

The cross country team hosted an invite for the first time since 2008 earlier this month. Gail McIntrye took eighth individually and the Tiger women took third as a team.

Football has the weekend off, but soccer hosts Dana and cross country is at the Dakota State Invite. No home games next week until Saturday when volleyball plays Morningside at Hanson High School in Alexandria, S.D., and the soccer teams host Concordia.

Here's hoping that the next few weeks go as well as the last few weeks for Tiger sports!

And... the 2010-11 season is here!

2010-08-27T14:57:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy few weeks of trying to get myself acclimated at Dakota Wesleyan and getting everything in order for the upcoming sports seasons. Well, ready or not, it's here! The volleyball team is at the Northwestern Red Raider Classic today and tomorrow in Orange City, Iowa, and the women's golf team also made the trip to Orange City for a Northwestern invite. Bring on the stats and scores!

Before the seasons get too far under way, I wanted to put in a shameless plug for Dakota Wesleyan athletics online. Our athletics website will always be updated, but there are several other places to check scores, stats and anything else you might want to know about your favorite Tiger athletic team. Individual mug shots should be up very soon for all of the fall sports, and we're working on getting winter and some spring sports up, too, so you can see who's who on the teams this season.

There is always, of course, this blog, or you can follow DWU sports on Twitter. That's a general Twitter account kept up by me for all sports. DWU football, wrestling and softball also have their own Twitter accounts you can check on.

Then, of course, everyone's favorite -- Facebook. On my (ever-growing) to-do list is getting DWU Athletics on Facebook, but that hasn't happened yet. You will be the first to know when it does, however. In the meantime, DWU golf and wrestling have Facebook pages. Head volleyball coach Eric Viney also has a blog for the Tiger volleyball team and Brad Pole will keep you up to date on football in his football blog.

So, if you're surfing around the internet and need a new place to visit, check out one of those many links! I'm going to try to keep Twitter updated with scores, and I'll try to do more up-to-date recaps each week on this blog.

Go Tigers!

That time of year

2010-08-10T08:35:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or did summer just fly by?

I suppose that's what happens when you switch jobs mid-summer and take on a Sports Information Director position just weeks before the athletic seasons start.

Perhaps I should introduce myself -- my name is Leah Rado, and I'm the new SID at Dakota Wesleyan. I took over July 26 for Matt Higgins, who is now the Assistant to the Executive Director (anyone watch The Office? Anyone?) for the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

I come to Dakota Wesleyan after three years at The Daily Republic, Mitchell's six-day-a-week newspaper. I was a sports reporter for a year (with Matt as my boss) and then sports editor for two years before making the jump to 'the other side' -- public relations.

So far, so good with the new job. My to-do list is getting more and more manageable by the day, although I don't think I will ever get completely caught up. Football moved in today, and the rest of the sports check in later this week or early next week, so things will only get busier from here!

One of the first things I got to do with my new position was make the trek to Lincoln, Neb., for the Great Plains Athletic Conference football media day. I'd never been to something like this as anything but a reporter, so it was neat for me to watch and listen (and not have to worry about pounding out a story on deadline).

The one thing that struck me as each of the coaches spoke was the respect between the coaches. The University of Sioux Falls and Morningside were picked first and second, respectively, in the preseason coaches' poll, but they got up and praised other teams and admitted that each team in the league should be tough this year.

It was also neat to hear the coaches talk about some of the hardships the league suffered this summer. Dana College closed its doors in late July, sending ADs and GPAC Commissioner Corey Westra into a scheduling frenzy. A few weeks later, both Midland Lutheran and Dordt lost a student athlete in an accident. It seems that all the GPAC coaches offered help and support to the two campuses who lost an athlete, and the entire GPAC community pulled together to find a place for Dana students to play, live and study.

That just goes to show that, despite the intense rivalaries these schools may have, everyone understands there's more to life than winning and losing.

OK, enough with the heavy stuff. Fall sports seasons start soon, so there will be plenty going on in the coming weeks. The DWU football team was picked to finish sixth in the preseason coaches' poll an the volleyball team was tabbed 11th. If I had to guess, I would say both will surprise a team or two in the 2010 season.

Redemption

2010-04-10T11:31:00.000-07:00

For anyone who read the recap on the DWU athletics site about yesterday's baseball doubleheader (CLICK HERE), you already know about the fascinating win in game one win, in which DWU turned a 5-0 deficit into a 6-5 walk-off win.

If the Tigers go on to win the GPAC (currently a half-game behind Mount Marty in the standings) I think they'll point to this win as the one where they really started to put it all together. The way they played in the final innings and the resillience they showed in coming back was impressive to say the least.

There were several stars in that win, but obviously the discussion has to start with Casey Solem. A GPAC Gold Glove winner a year ago, Solem misplayed a bases-loaded, two-out fly to center that resulted in three runs and the 5-0 hole for the Tigers. So what did the DWU star do to atone? Only drill an RBI double to help spark the comeback, and then deliver the game-winning, walk-off hit with two-on and two-out in the bottom of the seventh. In baseball, players make mistakes, but you can learn a lot about a player from how they respond to those mistakes. I think everyone at Cadwell Park and possible the entire conference learned a lot about the kind of player, and person, Casey Solem is on Friday.

I was almost equally impressed with the resolve of Ethan Opsahl. After pitching a heck of a game, it's entirely possible for a pitcher to come unraveled after his defense makes a game-changing error like that. However, Opsahl kept his composure beautifully and kept putting up zeroes as the offense finally came alive and got the Tigers back into the game. Opsahl was rewarded with the win, and it was certainly well-deserved after a great performance.

Also, Nick Loera's growth as a hitter was evident Friday. After battling with injuries last year, it was still evident the shortstop had loads of a talent - a great glove and a good bat. But lately Loera has really blossomed. His opposite-field home run started the scoring in the comeback, and he added a huge RBI single to get DWU within a run in the sixth. His hitting has really made the Tiger lineup dangerous.

In the second game, there were a few interesting storylines as well. The first is DWU's 1-2 combo of Solem and Mario Mendoza. If there's a better combo in the GPAC, I can't wait to see it. The two was at its best after Northwestern tied the game 2-2. Solem led off the next inning with a blast over the right-field wall. In a great display of one-upsmanship, Mendoza came up and hit an even deeper bomb. Fittingly, both players are tied for the team lead in home runs with seven apiece. It was almost as if once Solem hit one, Mendoza had to hit one too to get back in a tie for the team lead. It will be fun to watch these two battle for the team's home run crown the rest of the way.

By the numbers, Mendoza is hitting .472 with eight doubles, seven homers and 27 RBI. Solem is hitting .462 with six doubles, five triples, seven homers and 37 RBI.

The other important development Friday is the improvement of starting pitcher Jeff Sanchez. He gave up just two runs over six innings in game two for his second great start and second-straight GPAC win, and he's developed into a solid No. 3 starter for the Tigers behind Phil Johnson and Opsahl.

Hopefully the Tigers can play well again Sunday. Defending GPAC regular-season champ Nebraska Wesleyan comes to Cadwell for a 1 p.m. doubleheader. Though the Prairie Wolves are off to kind of a slow start in GPAC play, they still have a great team and some of the league's best pitching, so another sweep would be a huge step towards challening for this year's league title for Steve Gust's squad.

Also, let's hope Sunday's doubleheader goes quick. I have to head out of town immediately after the games so I can get to Minneapolis for the Twins' first game at Target Field on Monday afternoon. Here's hoping for a pair of shutouts Sunday, and clear skies in the cities for outdoor baseball!

Tournament Time

2010-03-25T17:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of blogs after the onslaught of them in Branson, but the truth is that National Tournament can be draining. I'm sure some people think it's all golf courses and hospitality rooms for an SID at the National Tournament, but I felt like I was working almost the entire time we were there, and after the deflating way it came to an end, I think everyone involved needed a little break.

Plus, I always have some scheduled vacation for right after the National Tournament. Since college, my friends make a point to all get together for the first four days of the NCAA tournament, and this year was no exception. I spent a long weekend in the Minneapolis area watching basketball, seeing some great people I don't get to see often enough, and finally relaxing after the hectic stretch that is fall and winter sports. Spring sports are busy too, but not the way the fall and winter are. It was great to stop and catch my breath before moving on to spring. Oh, and I got to go to an open house at Target Field. That was OK, too.

It was back to business in a big way yesterday with both the DWU baseball and softball home openers. I hope the softball team will be encouraged with the way they play in a pair of 2-0 and 4-0 losses to Dordt College. Simple enough, the Tigers need to hit. I was impressed by their freshman pitchers, Roni Nekrassoff and Kelsey Timmons, and the defense was solid save for one crucial inning, but if DWU's bats can come around, they can win a lot of games with that pitching and fielding. I like the athleticism in the outfield, and if this core sticks around, this could be a great team in a year or two. They could use a finished press box at their new field, too, so I can actually block some of the glare that made my computer nearly impossible to see.

I got over to the baseball doubleheader just in time for the drama of game two. In a tie game in the bottom of the seventh, it appeared like DWU had stolen the winning run into scoring position with one out, but the umps called the runner out on batter interference and despite a great bit of arguing out of the Ron Gardenhire or Lou Pinella's book by head coach Steve Gust, the call stood and Southwest Minnesota State dodged the bullet.

However, it couldn't dodge the big bullet an inning later when Casey Solem blasted a walk-off home run, setting of a classic home-plate mobbing. What a way to end the home opener. I don't want to brag either, but that blast was called by a certain SID up in the press box. That makes me 2-for-2 this year after also predicting Anthony Muilenburg's kick return for a touchdown during football season. Now, there are probably some people who are going to say I misfired on a few calls during the year during football, volleyball or basketball (quiet down, Clint Farrar and Jon Hart) but as far as I'm concerned, I'm still batting 1.000.

Getting this blog going during the NAIA National Tournament has re-energized me for this type of writing, so I'm hoping to start another blog soon. I'll keep this one purely Tiger related, and I'm hoping to use the other as an outlet to share some thoughts about my other favorite teams - the Twins, Gophers, Packers, etc. - as well as music and entertainment. To start to get in the flow, here are some of my quick hit thoughts about the NCAA Tournament thus far.

-There's no "I" in "Team" but according to Digger Phelps there's an "R" in "Washington."

-When will CBS figure out the dream announcing team for the Final Four and Championship game is Gus Johnson with Bill Raftery. They're the best. Give Jim Nantz some time off to get ready for The Masters. Nantz is perfect for golf, chess and the national spelling bee, but give me Gus and Raftery for any big basketball game.

-Thursday was probably the single best day of First-Round action I can ever remember. I loved the first day in 2000 too, when you Mitchell people will recall Mike Miller's game-winner to help Florida beat Butler, but almost every single game this Thursday was excellent. And I partly loved that 2000 tourney becasue that's where the March Madness tradition was born with my friends, crammed into Room 169 in Frontier Hall at the University of Minnesota. Since then, it's been my favorite time of the year.

-I was born and raised a Big Ten guy, and I love seeing them put the most teams in the Sweet 16, even with Michigan State and Purdue missing their stars. And Evan Turner is hands-down the best player in college basketball this season. Hands down. However, the maroon and gold that runs through my veins had me rooting hard for Wofford, and silently celebrating Cornell's thrashing of Bucky. I'm a fan of any situation where Andy Bernard celebrates, and Bo Ryan (a great, great coach) goes back to selling used cars.

-I am so sick of that "Bags Fly Free" commercial. And every single ad for that movie where the girl is out of the guy's league. Awful.

-It's 7:27 p.m. on Thursday, Syracuse just got a huge alley-oop dunk off an inbounds pass and Gus Johnson just yelled "INSIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!" He's the best.

-What's your favorite "little" aspect of a basketball game? Mine is when a jump shot hits only backboard and comes flying back off. Always hilarious.

Alright, that's enough for now. I'll check back in this weekend with my final thoughts from the NAIA tournament. Good luck to all the DWU teams on the road, and if you're like me, enjoy the next four days of college hoops!

Quick Pregame Update

2010-03-12T17:51:00.000-08:00

Checking in quick from courtside before DWU tips off. Indiana Wesleyan is beating Eastern Oregon and former Tiger coach Adam Tyhurst 57-46 with 4:09 left, and I am inclined to call Indiana Wesleyan the best team I've seen here so far. I haven't seen a few squads like No. 1 Walsh, but Indiana Wesleyan appears to have it all ... and they've hit some clutch shots here down the stretch.

The game before this was No. 2 Oregon Tech vs. No. 15 Saint Francis, and St. Francis pulled off the upset to advance to Saturday's Elite Eight. The winner of our game will meet St. Francis tomorrow at 6 p.m. If you remember, one of our five losses came to the Cougars in Chicago at the St. Xavier tournament, so if you're going to play anyone without any prep time, it might as well be someone you've already seen. For the box score of that game, click HERE.

Tonight's game against Cornerstone will be a tough one. They're a good, versatile team with lots of size, but if we play well, I think we've learned that we're as good as anyone else at this tournament. Hopeully our guys are focused and ready to go.

There's 2:20 left in this game now, IWU still up 10. Looks like they'll move on. Time to sign off and get ready to watch the Tigers hopefully play their way into the Elite Eight. Again ... who ya rootin for?

QUICK NOTE: Up until this point, Darrin Dorsey is leading the tournament in assists per game. Let's hope he keeps that up.

Another photo blog

2010-03-12T15:13:00.001-08:00

Hello from the Keeter Gymnasium's media room. I've been wanting to post these pics, and finally got some time now while our coaches are scouting the Oregon Tech-St. Francis game, because we'll hopefully face the winner tomorrow night in the Elite Eight.

Anyway, here a look at some of Tuesday's best moments.

It's possible that Associate A.D. Cory Aadland and I were able to get in 18 holes of golf on Tuesday. We played at John Daly's Murder Rock up in the mountains, and fortunately we picked the nicest day. It was a little windy, but I was in shorts and a polo shirt and won't complain compared to the weather in Mitchell.

DWU A.D. Curt Hart, with the Tiger team as his backdrop, addresses and thanks the crowd at our pre-game reception at the Hotel Grand Victorian Tuesday afternoon. Roughly 100 fans showed up to with the Tigers luck before the game that night.

Our Honorary Coaches, Eric and Chris, run out for introductions before the game. They run the best Mexican restaraunt in Branson, Cantina Laredo. Actually, it could be the best Mexican restaraunt anywhere.

Mitch Bain is introduced to the crowd.

Kevin Ball recevies a Champion of Character award before the game.

The Tigers take the court for tip off.

Cue One Shining Moment...."The ball is tipped..."

Coach John Hemenway gladly answers questions from Tim Smith and Bob Sprang during the postgame interview on KMIT. Always easy to go on the radio and talk about a great win.

And finally, DWU Associate A.D. Cory Aadland said he was leaving Thursday to head back to Mitchell, but if that's true, then why was he suited up for Virginia Wise? Curt, you better look into this.

Photo by the talented Matt Culhane.

I'm gonna run and watch the second half of OIT and St. Francis, so I can have some insights in case we end up playing one of them tomorrow.

I'll end this post with a quick story from today. On the way back from our noon shootaround, everyone on the bus heard a car horn frantically honking. We looked up, and in the Wal-Mart parking lot we saw some dedicated DWU fans all hanging out of a van and going crazy cheering for the bus. It's possible they were Tiger football players. But as we got off the bus a minute or two later, everyone was still laughing and smiling, and Coach Hemenway even said, "That just made my day." Just a glimpse at the great fan support we're getting down here. Tiger Fever is spreading throughout Branson!

Tip off in two hours. Who ya rootin' for?

Another eventful day

2010-03-11T22:32:00.000-08:00

I'm sure today was a great off-day for the DWU players and coaches to get rested, refocused and ready to take on No. 10 Cornerstone tomorrow in the Sweet 16. It didn't feel like much of an off-day for me, though. At least I got to sleep in.

Today the Tigers had a short shoot-around with a little bit of prep at Branson High School. It was pretty low-key, and with the possibility of playing both Friday and Saturday if all goes well, it seemed like a good idea to get in the gym and loosen up a little, but stay away from anything too taxing to conserve our energy for Cornerstone and, hopefully, beyond. One interesting thing about these type of events is some of the connections out there. Embry-Riddle from Daytona Beach, Fla., had the court before us, and one of their players was exicted when he saw Brady Wiebe take the floor for our shootaround. Apparently this kid had spent a year at Dakota State in Wiebe's hometown of Madison before transferring to Embry-Riddle. You wouldn't think players from DWU and schools in Florida would know one another, but as that scary ride at Disney taught me, it's a small world.

After that, I had the pleasure of typing our entire box score from last night into our stats program. Without getting too boring, our conference uses a program called Stat Crew for all our sports statistics. The NAIA uses a different program (and other conferences do as well) so I can't use their stat file at all...I need to make my own. Which means typing in each players' stat line and all the team stats. Exciting, right? Thanks, NAIA.

For all you stat-heads out there, you may have noticed that our stats from last night aren't good. I don't know exactly who was doing them, but Preston Broughton had to have more than three rebounds, Mark Mingo got a steal that didn't make it in, Brady Wiebe was down for a missed 3-pointer, but I don't remember him ever letting one fly from that far out. One would think that a National Tournament would take things like official statistics very seriously, and maybe our game was an anomaly, but I'm hoping it's better Friday night.

After getting our stats squared away, I wrote my official preview (link at the bottom) for tomorrow's game. I put most of my limited analysis on Cornerstone into that preview, but here are some things I didn't include ... Their big guys are very good, and they do a lot of different things for them, and the whole team plays really hard. However, I really like our guards to have big games. This seems like the type of game where Darrin Dorsey could really control things the whole way, and I think Mitch Bain could also have a big night. If our big guys can just play their post players to a draw, which is entirely possible, I think our guards can win it for us.

Having said that, we need to avoid foul trouble. Brady Wiebe and Preston Broughton need to be on the court. I wrote down the time when each guy picked up his second foul in the first half of Wednesday's game, hoping those times would end up being insignificant, which they did. However, they'll have to do a good job again Friday of staying on the floor. On the flip side, if we could get their three bigs into foul trouble, that could really swing things in our favor.

Finally, I was not impressed with the way Cornerstone handled itself down the stretch. The Golden Eagles just never seemed comfortable or poised in the win over Ozarks. They were up six with just over a minute left, and I said to a few different people that they would be lucky to win, and they were. Ozarks hit a 3, got a turnover, scored and then had the ball and a chance to win but didn't execute on the final posession. I didn't like how Cornerstone handled its posessions down the stretch. They didn't run enough clock or take very good shots, and they even passed up some WIDE open looks from the perimeter. Meanwhile, we've been extremely poised in crunch time and have played well in the final minutes of close games since New Years, so even if we're behind and the clock starts winding down...have faith.

After getting some work done, I joined our coaches at the Eastern Oregon-Davenport game. Congrats to Coach Tyhurst and Eastern Oregon on a good win after Davenport shot the lights out from the outside in the first half. Then we had dinner at our sponsor's restaraunt, Cantina Laredo, which was amazing. They've been great hosts as part of the "Honorary Coaches" program, where the tournament pairs a business or two up with each team so you can feel connected to the community. Our honorary coaches - Chris and Eric - have been great since we arrived, and seriously, if you like Mexican food and are in Branson, go there. It's down on the landing (link also coming later in this post).

At dinner I got caught up on how the players' expedition to the go-kart/mini-golf place was this afternoon. I'm happy to report that everyone surivived the go-karts without injury. And according to Mitch Bain, he was the best at mini golf, while Darrin Dorsey and Bo LaCroix were the worst.

Finally, I finished my night back at the gym. Northwesern College's SID, Matt Bos, runs the media room at the National Tournament and writes most of the content for the NAIA site about the tourney. While I'm down here, I volunteered my releases for our games to help him out and I also offered to write the NAIA story for the Hastings-Cardinal Stritch game. I went back to the gym a little early and caught the end of the Jamestown-Oklahoma Wesleyan game. Jamestown had good chances but couldn't make free throws or threes down the stretch, and this is not the same OWU team that won the title last year. It's still a very good team, but not quite as good as the 09 version.

Here's my shameless plug for this blog: I flashed some pretty quick hands catching an errant pass at the press table in the second half of the Hastings game. Cardinal Stritch's SID, David Sneig, was doing their radio broadcast right next to me and even gave me a shoutout for the catch on the air and I got thumbs-up from Tim Smith and "The Coach" Bob Sprang from their seats. However, it was quickly forgotten as minutes later a Stritch player crashed through Pete Hansen's TV monitor on the press table and into the first row of seats while trying to save a loose ball. Fortunately, the player went back in after a quick examination and the TV monitor was restored to working order.

Hastings won, making a 3-0 sweep for the GPAC in the first round. It definitely helps our conference's national rep that we've got three of the Sweet 16. However, the Broncos made it interesting by shooting just 3-for-28 from three. Their freshman center took over and had a huge game, including 14 points in the final 5 mintues as Hastings came back from 15 down in the second half. If you're scoring at home, DWU is the only GPAC team that DIDN'T need a miraculous comeback to advance. Hopefully that will have us fresher for Friday.

Alright. It's bedtime. Here are some links:

CLICK HERE for my preview of DWU and Cornerstone.

CLICK HERE for LA Sports Riot's latest pod cast, featuring DWU head coach John Hemenway, which was taped this evening while we were at dinner at Cantina Laredo. You may recognize some of the info Logan Anderson uses during the interview as things that were broken first by this blog...

CLICK HERE for College Fanz' video highlights of DWU's first round win. (if it will play for you...still loading for me).

CLICK HERE for the DWU Tiger Fan Blog...lots of great updates about the tourney.

CLICK HERE for the Daily Republic's preview of the Cornerstone game.

CLICK HERE for Leah Rado's Tiger Zone blog as she makes her way to cover the team in Branson.

And finally, Cantina Laredo's site. Delicious, and now great friends to the Tiger program.

Now I'm really going to bed. Final thought...

Best comment to an official at the tourney so far: (while holding up a cell phone) "This must be your phone because it has three missed calls!"

Looking back a great win

2010-03-11T14:15:00.000-08:00

So the monkey is off our backs, the cat is out of the bag or any other dumb saying you can think of. Regardless, DWU has a tournament win and is hopefully just getting started. Last night the Tigers played great in stretches and just OK in stretches - including a long field goal drought in each half - but they did enough to win pretty convicingly and were hopefully working out some of the nerves and getting acclimated to their surroundings. It was a great win, we had an oustanding crowd, and people will remember this win for a long time.

Here are some links with stories from last night:

CLICK HERE for the official DWU release

CLICK HERE for the Mitchell Daily Republic's story

CLICK HERE f0r the NAIA's story (wow...it's a lot like mine!) and a good picture of Darrin Dorsey

CLICK HERE for the NAIA's Day One recap, featuring a photo of DWU's devoted fans

I'm heading to the gym now to watch former DWU coach Adam Tyhurst's Eastern Oregon team, then we have dinner at our sponsor - Catina Laredo (highly recommended if you're in Branson and like Mexican food). I'll check in later with a look ahead to Cornerstone and some pictures from last night's game. It sure feels Sweet to be in the Sweet 16.

Before I sign off...here's yesterday's Observation of the Day from DWU A.D. Curt Hart...

"Wow, this is a nice campus. They even have a house for their geese!"

It's true, Ozarks has a pond on campus, with a little house on an island in the middle of the pond.

Finally, thanks to all our fans for the great support yesterday and for the great turnout at our reception at the hotel. There were around 100 Tiger fans in attendance, and it was a great way to kick off the tournament.

And we're off...

2010-03-10T07:19:00.001-08:00

Hello from a luxury courtside seat at the first game of the tournament. Two of our od friends, Sioux Falls and Grand View, are playing about how you'd expect for 8:30 a.m. ... sluggish and pretty sloppy. Sioux Falls led 16-8 early, but Grand View is up now 25-24. Today's most frequent officiating trend thus far: the carry. Keep that hand on top of the ball tonight, boys.

It's about 12 hours til tip off, so here are some previews of tonight's game.

CLICK HERE for the official DWU preview.

CLICK HERE for the Mitchell Daily Republic's preview.

CLICK HERE for McPherson College's preview.

Grand View is still a step ahead of Sioux Falls, 35-33 with 11:33 left. High scoring is not how one would describe this game.

For fans who made the trip, just a reminder to come to today's social in Bransn at the Hotel Grand Victorian at 4:30 p.m. The team will be there from 4 to 5 p.m. and the athletic department will have refreshments on hand.

If you're still in Mitchell, the Sherman Center will be showing the game tonight, with the doors opening at 9:30 p.m. for the 9:45 p.m. tip off.

Whatever you do, wear blue and white and think positive thoughts for our first National Tournament win since 1947. Go Tigers!

Practice Pics

2010-03-09T20:54:00.000-08:00

Here are the photos I took at today's practice. The official DWU SID camera isn't necessarily equipped to take top-notch action photos, but you get what you pay for. Still, here's a good look at the Tigers' Tuesday workout at Branson East Elementary School.

The team gets loose at the start of practice as the coaches have a deep conversation in the background.

Brady Wiebe and Chase Walder do some tandem stretching as a Branson East gym class looks on.

The Tigers huddle up to officially get the workout started in front of a captive audience.

Preston Broughton throws one down.

Darrin Dorsey dunks. Elementary school kids cheer.

Bo LaCroix gets in on the dunking fun.

The Branson East PE class looks on attentively, save the girl second from right.

Someone should have told her the Tigers have the longest active winning streak in the nation.

Jordan Long, Preston Broughton and Chase Walder go for the rebound on a Darrin Dorsey free throw.

The National Tournament tips off tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. with USF/Grand View. There may also be a top-notch breakfast in the hospitality room. That means it's bed time. Goodnight. Go Tigers.

Preview and Practice

2010-03-09T20:16:00.000-08:00

It's been an eventful day in Branson, and I'm happy to report that the Tigers appear ready and poised to open tournament play tomorrow. I'll post links to all the previews I can find for tomorrow's game when I get up in the morning (likely from the gym during USF's 8:30 a.m. game), but here's a quick idea of what to expect from McPherson.

Athletic. Quick. Up-tempo.

The Bulldogs are a guard-oriented team led by six players that all average between 7 and 13 points per game. They'll press, they'll run and they'll hit the glass extremely hard.

One thing they won't have is two All-Americans in the front court. They do have one very good, very athletic 6-6 big man in senior forward Antowine Lamb (10.3 ppg, 8.5 rpg), but DWU will counter with Brady Wiebe (18.0 ppg, 9.9 rpg) AND Preston Broughton (15.5 ppg, 8.8 rpg). My guess is Lamb matches up with Broughton because of both player's athleticism, which should leave Wiebe with a pretty favorable matchup inside. McPherson hasn't played a lot of zone, but they might have to try it against the DWU frontcourt. And typically, when you force teams to do things they're not accustomed to doing, it's almost always a good sign.

That doesn't mean DWU's guards aren't also capable of having great games. Darrin Dorsey (18.3 ppg, 5.8 apg, 5.0 rpg) and Mitch Bain (10.3 ppg) should match up pretty well with McPherson's good backcourt of Mike Reece (13. ppg) and Marlon Dominique (9.9 ppg). If the Tigers can control penetration and avoid getting killed on the offensive glass, they should have a great shot to win and advance for the first time in the DII tourney.

Today's practice at Branson East Elementary was a good one for the Tigers, and coach John Hemenway said he was pleased with the way his guys got after it and prepared. I've seen quite a few DWU practices over the last three years, and one thing I took away from today's session was the Tiger coaches do a great job of tweaking even basic fundamental drills so they help the players prepare for an opponent or a style of play. They did a lot of little things that should help against the press, and there's just a little different feeling this year. A little more confidence, a little more focus. Dakota Wesleyan is ready to go.

The other thing I took away from today's practice - with how good DWU's starters are, it's easy to forget just how talented and athletic some of the reserves are. I was particularly impressed after getting an extended look at freshmen Bo LaCroix and Matt Dykstra. Both are MUCH more athletic than I thought, and both have shown flashes of their potential this season. I think big things could be ahead for these two as their playing time increases throughout their careers.

One interesting twist at practice: since it was at Branson East Elementary, the Tigers had 2nd and 4th grade PE classes observing from the sidelines. A couple dunks really excited the young crowd, I just hope none were taking notes and giving them to Ozarks in case that's our second-round matchup.

The best off-court story today? Darrin Dorsey's desire to ride the Branson Ducks. While the team was planning how to spend the afternoon after practice and lunch, Dorsey actually started a "Ducks" chant on the bus. Some people might ignore this, but I think it's a good sign that DWU's star is embracing all Branson has to offer. Hopefully Dorsey and his teammates can keep us here awhile so he can see all the sights. Quack...quack...quack...

I'm gonna post this quick, then try to follow with some pictures from today's practice. Enjoy!

Lucky Charms

2010-03-09T12:09:00.000-08:00

Hello from the Hotel Grand Victorian in Branson. I'm checking in with a short post before Coach Hemenway and I have to run over to the College of the Ozarks for our respective S.I.D and coaches' meetings in about a half-hour. I'll check back with more later, including pictures and thoughts from today's practice and more.

So it's no secret the Tigers enter the National Tournament with the nation's longest active winning streak at 16 game. To the casual fan, it may appear that the team's talent, balance, coaching and cohesiveness are the factors that have led to such a remarkable run. But that's where the Tiger Talk blog can take you behind the scenes to the REAL answers. There are two much bigger factors that have come in to play to make this winning streak happen.

Earlier this season, assistant coach Matt Culhane deicded to wear a a chain with a St. Christopher medal on it for the road game at Morningside, which the Tigers won. He donned it again for the big home win against UW-LaCrosse. However, Cully didn't have the chain for the team's December games, which included losses at Sioux Falls, at the St. Xavier Christmas Tournament, and at the Tigers' home classic against Cardinal Stritch.

After the calendar flipped to 2010, Cully made the lucky charm part of his every-game wardrobe, and the Tigers haven't lost since. If you're scoring at home, St. Chris is 18-0.

The other huge factor is assitant coach Andrew Duffy's hair. Early in the season, Duffy was bringing some serious class to the Corn Palace with a slicked-back Pat Riley-style hairdo. After a loss, Duffy re-evaluated his look, and its affect on the team, and he's been au natural ever since.

That loss that made him make the swtich? To Cardinal Stritch on Dec. 29. Since the slick disappeared, it's been 16-straight Tiger victories. As you can see above, Coach Riley is pumped the Tigers are winning, and he's happy to have his hairstyle all to himself again.

Feel free to ignore this and give all the credit to the players and their hard work if you want. I just know I'm not going to tell St. Christopher he hasn't played a part in the streak, and I'm definitely not giving Duff a tube of hair gel. Let's hope the team can continue to ride these ridiculously good omens Wednesday night and beyond.

Need more Dorsey?

2010-03-08T15:23:00.000-08:00

Hello Tiger fans. I'm coming to you today from the passenger seat of a DWU chrysler sebring as myself and Assoc. A.D. Cory Aadland are on our way to Branson for the Men's Basketball National Tournament. Just to start rubbing it in, we're just south of Kansas City and it's 63 degrees here with no snow in sight. It is a little cloudy. Oh well, maybe we'll get even better weather tomorrow. It's not like our golf clubs are in the trunk or anything...

BIG NIGHT/MORNING FOR BASEBALL

A quick update on the DWU baseball team ... though the Twins don't want the Metrodome anymore, we'll take it. Last night/early this morning the Tigers swept Hamline University out of the Twin Cities by the scores of 6-3, 3-2. DWU came from behind to win both games, and Clayton Grimstad and Ryan Santiago both went yard in the doubleheader to put us at 6-2 overall and 4-0 in the Dome. Cadwell's great, but we should just start using the Dome as our home field til the snow melts (aka May). Although that may mean we'd have to play more games like last night's 10:45 p.m. doubleheader. I was confused all day. I thought it had to be 10:45 a.m. I received the stats from Hamline's SID at 3:30 a.m. I'm actually kind of surprised we haven't played at this time before, with how in-demand our Wellness Center is!

"OTHER" NATIONAL UPDATES

The men's basketball team isn't the only one at nationals this time of year. Our wrestlers had a tough run this weekend in Oklahoma City. All four ran into an opponent ranked No. 7 in the nation or better, and the close matches just didn't go our way. However, Malik Stewart finished off his career with an NAIA Scholar Athlete honor, and 2009 All-American Jordan Harer also wrapped up an outstanding, record-setting career. Congrats to Coach Matt Sedivy and his guys for a great season and thanks to the seniors for your great Tiger careers.

Also, Coaches Pat Belling and Casey "Tibbs" Collins had the Tiger track team at Indoor Nationals in Johnson City, Tenn., where there were some good performances. Natalie Wipf set a new school record in the 200-meter dash and all the Tigers represented the school well. Congrats, and good luck in the outdoor season.

DORSEY MEDIA BLITZ

With the national tournament about to begin, I know exactly what you're thinking. You want more of GPAC Player-of-the-Year Darrin Dorsey. Well, you ask and I deliver...

CLICK HERE to read Leah Rado's column about Dorsey from this weekend's Daily Republic. (Hurry and read it online today before my former employer charges you for it!)

CLICK HERE to find the lastest LA Sports Riot Podcast with Logan Anderson and his special guest...you guessed it...Darrin Dorsey. A great interview. (It's in the podcast player in the top right corner)

OTHER NATIONAL TOURNAMENT STUFF

Since I'm in the car, and have been working for about the last three hours, I'm just going to provide some links and log off for now, and I'll check in again soon from the south's version of the Wisconsin Dells (that's the only thing I can think each time I go to Branson, being a Wisconsin native - although you have to replace "waterslides" with "country music").

CLICK HERE for the National Tournament page I put together, and add this one to your favorites. I recommend checking out the PDF of the DWU National Tournament media guide for a good look at the season so far. This will be the place for any and all DWU National Tournament info.

CLICK HERE for a press release about DWU's special events surrounding the National Tournament, and make sure to come to our pregame get-together if you're in Branson.

CLICK HERE for our Twitter feed, which will be updated often during our stay in Branson.

CLICK HERE for the DWU Tiger Fan Blog...Jon Mueller does a great job with the fan's perspective of Tiger basketball and offers some great insight and lots of great links. I check it daily.

That's it for now. Probably my turn to drive again. See you in Branson, or I hope we can hear you cheering all the way from Mitchell.

Putting all the pieces together...

2010-03-04T14:18:00.000-08:00

Another busy day in the athletics office with Branson nearing every day and two teams off at nationals today. I haven't gotten any updates from wrestling or track nationals, but check back for updates/results.

As far as Branson goes, we just planned a social for any fans heading down there to support the team. It will be at our hotel, the Grand Victorian, in the breakfast room Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. The team will be there from 4:30 to 5 p.m. and there will be refreshments. If you're in Branson, make sure to swing by this event to wish the team luck before its game!

Today I worked on finishing up the media guide supplement for the national tournament and the "Track the Tigers" tournament Web page so there is one online location for all your DWU tournament needs. I'll link to both when they're online and ready to go.

However, I will give you a sneak preview of the media guide. Here's the outlook I wrote for the media guide supplement about the season so far. Enjoy...

A Season of Firsts
By MATT HIGGINS
Sports Information Director

The Dakota Wesleyan University men’s basketball team has been associated with the word “first” a lot throughout the 2009-10 season. As in: first place, first-ever Great Plains Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament titles, first automatic bid to the NAIA Division II Men’s Basketball National Tournament, first team in school history to win 27 games overall and 16 games in conference play and first team in Tiger history to win 20 or more games for four-straight seasons.

However, there’s still a big “first” looming for head coach John Hemenway and his talented squad on March 10 – the first round of the National Tournament. This will be Hemenway and the Tigers’ fourth-straight trip to the National Tournament, but they’re still looking for that first win.

Dakota Wesleyan enters the tournament with high hopes after an unforgettable regular season. The Tigers knew they had plenty of talent heading into the 2009-10 campaign, but questions of chemistry and depth swirled around the team’s preseason expectations, even as they were picked to win the GPAC and ranked fourth in the nation in the Preseason Top 25. How would All-American Preston Broughton bounce back after missing last season with a knee injury? What kind of impact would newcomer Darrin Dorsey have? Could returning All-GPAC players Brady Wiebe, Mitch Bain and Chase Walder continue their progress? How will all the talented pieces fit together?

Four months later, those questions have been answered with a 27-5 overall record, a 16-2 GPAC mark, GPAC regular season and postseason tournament championships, a No. 7 national ranking and a boatload of individual honors. Prior to this season, the Tigers had knocked on the door of both GPAC championships, but this year they didn’t just open that door and go inside. Dakota Wesleyan kicked it down, took both titles and now head to the National Tournament looking for more.

However, the Tigers didn’t have the answers to all those questions right away. This year’s team was a work in progress over the first two months, then a juggernaut over the next two. Broughton got back to 100 percent after knee surgery kept him on the sidelines in 2008-09, but it took him a little while to get all the way back to form. Dorsey showed flashes of his immense potential from the start with a triple-double in his first game, but it also took some time for the playmaking guard and his teammates to learn how to maximize all of their talents. But once the calendar flipped to 2010, everything clicked into place as the team began an incredible run.

After a Dec. 29 loss to Cardinal Stritch University, the Tigers sat at 11-5 overall, however, the team bounced back to beat a good Jamestown College team the next night and they haven’t lost since. Now, 16-straight wins later, DWU enters the National Tournament with the nation’s longest winning streak and more momentum and confidence than the team could have ever imagined.

The perfect record in 2010 is the result of the talent and balance in the Tigers’ starting lineup. Since New Year’s, Dorsey has become a bona-fide star. The junior from Phoenix, Ariz., became the first player in GPAC history to win both Player-of-the-Year and Defensive Player-of-the-Year honors in the same season (he shared the latter with Hastings College’s Jeremiah Slough). He was joined on the All-GPAC First Team by Wiebe and Broughton, who have become one of the best frontcourt tandems in the country. Bain also averaged in double figures and was named to the All-GPAC Second Team, and Walder continued to hit big shots and play good defense to earn his second-straight All-GPAC Honorable Mention award.

However, even with two GPAC trophies and a school record for wins in hand, the Tigers still have unfinished business. This team isn’t happy just earning another trip to Point Lookout, Mo., for the National Tournament. There are still a couple more “firsts” the Tigers want to cross off their list.

Lots of Basketball News!

2010-03-03T15:57:00.001-08:00

I don't have much time or energy for an update now, but at least wanted to get all the basic info on here...

Queen said it best. We Are the Champions. DWU prevailed in a predictably intense game over a tough USF team, and Mitchell appropriately celebrated. Another trophy. Another net cutting. Another great footnote on an unbelievable season.

That leads us to today's two big announcements: The All-GPAC awards and the National Tournament bracket. Darrin Dorsey cleaned up, as I hoped he would, with GPAC Player-of-the-Year, Co-Defensive Player-of-the-Year with Hastings' Jeremiah Slough, and a spot on the All-GPAC First Team. Brady Wiebe and Preston Broughton joined Dorsey on the First Team and finished second and sixth on the ballot, respectively. When three of the top six players from a 13-team league are on one team, that teams goes 19-2 against the rest of the league and wins regular season and tournament titles. Glad the GPAC coaches got this right.

To top it off, Mitch Bain is on the Second Team and last night's hero, Chase Walder, got an Honorable Mention nod. Congrats, fellas. All well-deserved awards.

The team also got seeded right where it was ranked - seventh - in the tournament bracket. The Tigers will open tournament play with the last game on Wednesday night against McPherson College from Kansas. Tip off is 9:45 on March 10. Obviously much more on this, and the entire bracket to come.

I will be spending my next several working hours finishing a supplement to our media guide for the national tournament, and I'll be hoping they all get used because we went deep in the bracket.

To close, kudos to everyone at the Palace last night and at our Selection Show event today. The atmosphere at both was incredible, and I'm sure it's something our players and coaches will remember for a long, long time. Cheers, Tiger fans.

For more on all this, and previews of this weekend's wrestling and track national meets, stay tuned to www.dwu.edu/athletics.

It's Championship Tuesday!

2010-03-02T07:22:00.001-08:00

The day has arrived. DWU vs. USF. No. 1 vs. No. 2. No. 7 vs. No. 17. A bitter rivalry with a title on the line. Championship games don't get much better than this.

First of all, I'm glad these teams will get to face each other on this stage. It just wouldn't seem right if they just split the season series with each home team winning. This rivalry needs a rubber match, and the fact that it's for a title and hopefully in front of a huge audience seems to validate exactly how good these two teams - and their rivalry - are.

I'm also glad it came down to the Tigers and the Coo because I've seen every good team in the GPAC in person this year - with the exception of Hastings - and since December I've thought these are clearly the league's two most talented teams, with a group of Hastings, Briar Cliff and Dordt right behind. The 1-2 finish in the regular season proved that, and the fact that both teams held their seed and advanced to the tournament against some tough competition proved it again. Because of that, now everyone gets to enjoy an absolute top-notch championship game. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Time for some thoughts and analysis on the matchup. Even though DWU played USF close at their place and won a close one at home, I don't feel like the Tigers played very well in either game. The strange thing about this rivalry is that there is so much raw emotion that it might keep the teams from playing their best basketball. They play extremely hard and give it 110 percent and insert another sports cliche' here, but I would LOVE to see the Tigers come out and have a great game on offense from an execution standpoint. DWU was pretty much great in all phases of the game in Saturday's second half. It would be a lot of fun to see them play that way for a whole game against their archrival.

Does it scare anyone else that Thomas Frames is averaging 30 in the tournament? Matt Malloy commands so much attention, that it doesn't surprise me at all that Frames has been able to have some huge scoring games in the tournament, and he's always had a knack for hitting big shots. Somehow, DWU will have to find a way to slow Malloy down and keep him out of the lane while still keeping Frames in check. Not an easy task, and though the Tigers just shut down Briar Cliff's high-scoring backcourt for the second time, Sioux Falls' guards present different problems.

Having said that, I'd guess the Coo are just as worried about stopping Preston Broughton and Brady Wiebe. Broughton has been incredible in the tournament, with 19.5 ppg and a ridiculous .850 shooting percentage from the floor. Thursday, his only two misses were a tip-in and an attempt at a reverse/360 dunk where the pass kind of took him out of position and he still tried to throw it down. The only shot he missed Saturday was a 3-pointer. Other than those three attepts, he's been perfect, and a lot of the shots he's made have had a pretty high degree of difficulty.

Wiebe is playing some great basketball lately inside as well. He had a little bit of a scoring lull at the end of the regular season, but he's had three-straight double-doubles and has been a terror in the paint and on the boards.

Part of their effectiveness has also been how well DWU's two All-American bigs share the ball with each other. I don't know if I've ever seen a team with the kind of interior passing Broughton and Wiebe give the Tigers. It makes both players much more dangerous, and must be frustrating for other teams.

I would expect DWU to try to use the same blueprint for beating USF as last time out. The Coo got a heavy dose of Broughton and Wiebe throughout the course of the game, which opened things up for Darrin Dorsey and Mitch Bain down the stretch. As always, it's gotta be inside-out for the Tigers tonight.

However, DWU is going to need to make some outside shots...and it would help if they're early in the game to loosen up the Cougar defense a little. Chase Waler, Jake Kneeland, Bo LaCroix, Mark Mingo, along with Dorsey and Bain ... if those guys can just hit two or three from deep it makes everything easier for DWU. If the Tigers get outside shots and solid perimeter defense - probably the two biggest variables - I love their chances. It also doesn't hurt that they've won 15 in a row and have really learned how to win in almost any situation.

I'm also hoping the championship feels more like a home game this year. Unfortunately, last year the DWU students were on spring break, which took away a lot of the home court advantage. This year, USF can bus students over if it wants, but this year the Tigers should still have them outnumbered.

Now that you've got my thoughts on the game, there is only one more big question ... how do I make the next eight hours go by fast until tipoff?

Here are some links to other previews of the game and DWU basketball links to get you ready for tonight:

DWU's Official Preview (This is worth it just for the photos from the last DWU-USF Game)
The Mitchell Daily Republic's Preview
The Sioux Falls Argus Leader Preview
DWU Tiger Fan Blog

Tonight's game can be seen and heard in a few different ways. The Mitchell Daily Republic will offer a live video Web cast, and the game will be on local radio and streamed online by either 105.9 FM KMIT or KOOL 98. (I'd guess KOOL 98).

'SELECTION WEDNESDAY' SPECIAL

For any interested Tiger fans, we'll be hosting a Selection Show party for the men's basketball team tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. in Room 101 (aka The Matt Higgins Press Room) in the Christen Family Recreation/Wellness Center on campus.

The College Fanz Sports Network will be doing a live selection show on their Web site at 3 p.m. to announce the NAIA DII National Tournament bracket. It should be kind of a cool event. We'll be announcing DWU's All-GPAC selections and hopefully hearing from Coach Hemenway and a player or two. The cheerleaders will be on hand and we'll have refreshments, but most importantly, we'll find out who and when we'll play in the National Tournament. This should be a pretty cool thing for any Tiger basketball fans, so definitely come out if you're free.

Time for me to post this blog and move on to some of the little behind-the-scenes things that need to get done for tonight's game. See you at the Palace at 7 p.m. Wear Blue and White, and blow the roof off that place.

Monday Morning Links

2010-03-01T08:53:00.000-08:00

I'm hoping to check in with some details from baseball/softball's results from the weekend later today, as well as a look ahead to tomorrow's GPAC title game, but if you need some Tiger sports dialogue to cure that case of the Mondays here are some Monday Morning links for Tiger fans who want to read/interact about DWU basketball as much as humanly possible.

DWU TIGER FAN BLOG - A great look at Tiger basketball from a fan's perspective.

COLLEGE FANZ NAIA DII MEN'S BASKETBALL MESSAGE BOARD - Discussion board about all things NAIA DII Men's Basketball. This "Bracketology" post is one of the best on the board this time of year and a great look ahead to the National Tournament.

COLLEGE FANZ GPAC MEN'S BASKETBALL MESSAGE BOARD - Same as above, only specific to the GPAC. Fun place to see different fans' opinions from other schools and some good insight/analysis.

LA SPORTS RIOT BLOG/PODCAST - Great GPAC-related blog and podcast. Current posts are about the GPAC Men's/Women's Player-of-the-Year race and some great podcasts with GPAC Commish Corey Westra about the conference tournaments.

And, as always, stay tuned to the DWU ATHLETIC WEB SITE for all Tiger sports news, or follow us on TWITTER.

Good day to be a Tiger

2010-02-27T16:42:00.000-08:00

So far it's four games and four wins for Dakota Wesleyan's sports teams today. The biggest one was the seventh-ranked Tiger men beating Briar Cliff 73-55 in the GPAC Tournament semifinals. DWU will host the rival University of Sioux Falls in the championship game Tuesday at the Corn Palace after the Coo came back to force overtime, and beat Hastings 113-108 in OT.

However, Dakota Wesleyan's had a great day on the diamond as well. The Tiger baseball team avenged yesterday's loss with an 8-2 win over Bacone University to improve to 3-1. Steve Gust's team is on the field right now playing another game against York College. DWU also plays York tomorrow at 12:30.

And congrats to Marie McCarthy and the Tiger softball squad. The young team opened the season with two wins today, beating Sterling college 4-3 and 7-2 in Wichita, Kan. DWU will try to make it 4-0 tomorrow against Friends University.

However, since I wasn't at either of the baseball or softball games, I'll predictably keep today's thoughts to the Tigers' win over The Cliff today on the hardwood. It's hard to find words to describe the first half, but the ones that keep coming up are "weird" and "strange." There wasn't a lot of flow either way, but DWU clearly played better in the final 6 minutes of the half, and Preston Broughton's late 3-point play and Darrin Dorsey's long three just before the buzzer seemed to give the Tigers some great momentum and it got the crowd going.

That momentum appeared to be short lived, as Briar Cliff scored four quick points to tie the score, and then the team's traded baskets, but then DWU played possibly its best 12 minutes of the season as it took over with a 16-0 run, and the rest was history.

People I talked to had a range of opinions on how we'd fare against a Briar Cliff team that was fighting for its only shot into the NAIA DII tournament. Some thought we'd be in real trouble. However, I was in Sioux City for the teams' first meeting and the Chargers just don't match up well with us really at any spot. Their stars - Kyle Semprini, Chase Vander Feen and Matt Geelan - all average more than 11 points per game, but today they combined for just 24 (7, 1o and 7, respectivey). Perhaps the best move by the Tiger coaches was putting Dorsey on Geelan, who is kind of a point-forward, and letting Mitch Bain and Chase Walder/Jake Kneeland stay in the face of Semprini and Vander Feen, who are basically just shooters. DWU's defense, which can be up and down, looked downright dominant in both matchups with the Cliff, and a lot of that has to do with matchup advantages at almost every spot.

How efficient has Preston Broughton been in the playoffs? 19.5 ppg, 8.5 rpg on 17-for-20 shooting (.850). One other underrated aspect of DWU's home games is how loud the crowd gets when one of the supporting cast makes a big basket. Two of the loudest ovations Saturday came after huge 3-pointers from Kneeland and Bo LaCroix.

So Sioux Falls comes to town Tuesday. I'll save my analysis for this game for another blog either tomorrow or Monday...but start planning to get to the Corn Palace early. Fill that place up to the rafters and enjoy one of the great rivalries in small-college basketball. The first two games were outstanding, and with the GPAC title on the line, expect the rubber match to be another instant classic.

As always, keep up with DWU athletics on our Web site: www.dwu.edu/athletics/ and on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dwusports. If you're reading the blog, please leave a comment or a question. I'd love to do a "mailbag" type entry if I get a few inquiries from Tiger fans! I'd also love to get suggestions of what you'd like to see in the blog...more of the same? More coverage of a certain sport? Ask and you shall receive (within reason).

Resurrected...

2010-02-25T17:05:00.000-08:00

I swear I went into this school year with the intentions of blogging more, but somehow my second year as the SID at Dakota Wesleyan has managed to be even busier then my first, and in the little free time I've had since Labor Day I spent it doing things other than blogging. However, as our winter sports gear up for their respective NAIA National Championships, it's time to get Tiger Talk back up and running.

(To prove that I'm really stretching for spare time to blog, I'm writing this from press row at the Palace during the fourth quarter of the Hanson-Kimball girls basketball district game, which precedes our men's playoff game tonight).

THE BEST....AROUND?

A great 80s song from The Karate Kid and a good subhead? You bet.

But I'm not talking about Daniel-San...he proved he was the best with the crane kick. Instead, I'm talking about DWU's Darrin Dorsey. Heading into the season, people thought the newcomer was probably the third or fourth best player on this team, but after the season he's had - especially the last six weeks - the conversations shifts to ponder if Dorsey is the best player in the GPAC...and possibly the nation.

I got a great e-mail about Dorsey's stats from DWU assistant Matt Culhane today. Matt had done some digging and found out that Dorsey is the only player in the entire NAIA Division II who is averging 18 points, five rebounds and five assists per game (and that doesn't even factor in his 2.9 steals per game). I recently read an artcile about NCAA D1 basketball that wondered if Evan Turner from Ohio State could average an unthinkable 20 points, 10 rebounds, five assists...which he has the chance to do. That article got me thinking about the all-around impact from Dorsey, so it must have been fate that Coach Culhane was thinking the same thing and dug up those numbers. The only comparable player, statistically, is Oregon Tech's Justin Parnell with 17.5 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.0 assists, also great, great numbers. According to our old friend coach Adam Tyhurst, who is coaching out in Oregon now, Parnell is easily their conference MVP and possibly a top-3 candidate for NAIA DII Player of the Year. Players that wowed us at last year's national tournament are also top candidates like Oklahoma Wesleyan's Steve Briggs and Evergreen's Nate Menefee (the player I was most impressed with last year), but I firmly believe that Dorsey is the GPAC Player-of-the-Year, and definitely a candidate for NAIA DII Player-of-the-Year. Maybe not the winner, but an extremely deserving candidate.

Beyond the stats, if anyone thinks there's someone other than Dorsey (or potentially Brady Wiebe or Preston Broughton) who is the best player in the GPAC, there are certainly some numbers they could lean on. But my argument would be: watch him. Jeremiah Slough from Hastings is a great player and actually has similar stats to Dorsey. Matt Malloy from USF is clearly one of the best guards and scorers in the league. But Dorsey does things night-in and night-out that players at this level just typically don't do. Against Northwestern, they KNEW Dorsey was the main option, and their defense never came remotely close to slowing him down, as he finished with 34 points and led the Tigers back for an 88-86 win. It was just the latest example of how rare a player Dorsey is at this level. Dakota Wesleyan is lucky to have him (and several of our other players) so enjoy watching him every chance you can.

This girls game is winding down, so I better get ready for our men to take the court. As always, stay tuned to www.dwu.edu/athletics/ for all the DWU athletics news you can handle, and please start following us on Twitter for the absoultey quickest way to get DWU athletics news, scores, announcements and schedule changes. The URL is: www.twitter.com/DWUsports

It's great to be back, and go Tigers! Here's hoping we'll host two more home games after tonight...

The calm before the storm...

2009-03-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

Just got back from watching Eastern Oregon, which was rolling with 10 minutes left thanks to some impressive shooting in the second half. The same crew of officials that Morningside had this morning were doing this game, and they weren't any better. They actually had to go to the replay to determine who an early foul was on in the lane, when myself, Adam Tyhurst and Matt Culhane all clearly saw who it was from the other end of the court. How did our six eyes see the right number from there, but the six eyes on the court didn't?

It seems like a guarantee that there are going to be a few touch fouls on the perimeter called in the opening minutes no matter what. That could be a factor, as we'll be up on Grand View's shooters. We'll have to play them close, but keep our hands off.

Today's shoot-around was pretty good. I spent most of the time chatting with our "Honorary Coaches," Mark Sill from Hiland Dairy and Kevin Gerard from Country Mart. They're both great guys and have been really accommodating during our stay. The honorary coaches program is pretty cool, and a good way to tie teams into the region and give them someone in the area to give some support.

One interesting thing I took from today's shoot-around: during the team's layup drills, Ike Muoneke and Preston Broughton were standing under the basket to give guys a little contact or a hand in their face while they were going up. Since these tournament games are typically a little rougher inside, hopefully this tactic paid off to get our guys used to the contact down low.

Today hasn't been quite as long as I thought it would be, although maybe it's been worse for the players. However, everybody seems relaxed and adaquately prepared. We'll be going to the gym to see the game prior to ours, which is No. 1 Oklahoma Wesleyan and Fisher. The winner of our game will face that winner, so it will be a good chance to get a little scouting in, and I think it's good because it mirrors our regular season routine. If I can, I'll check back in with one more post from the gym before tip off.

**The DWU women's basketball team has signed two recruits thus far, and both are on display this weekend in the Class B State Tournament. Click here to read about Sully Butte's Elizabeth Lamb, and here to read about Summit's Brittany Hills, both courtesy of the Aberdeen American News.

**I actually found one place in Branson that carried the Big Ten Network so I could watch my Minnesota Golden Gophers beat Northwestern to advance in the Big 10 tourney and hopefully clinch a spot in the big dance. I wasn't the only Gopher fan in the Branson area today. Another guy who actually graduated from Minnesota's journalism school the same year as me was in town for business and looking to watch the game and a family from the cities also showed up to watch the game. So it's been a good day of basketball for me so far, now let's hope it continues tonight.

Some Game Day Links

2009-03-12T08:50:00.001-07:00

Good morning from Branson. Just got back from watching most of the Morningside game. The Mustangs hung on for a 2-point win, so the GPAC is now 2-1 at the tourney. Kind of a weird, sloppy game with lots of turnovers and not a lot of flow. Also, another game with strange officiating.

The team is watching film on Grand View right now, with lunch to follow and a shoot-around at 2 p.m. I'm heading to Branson's only sports bar to catch my alma mater, the University of Minnesota, in the first round of the Big Ten tournament before meeting back up with everyone before practice.

At the tournament, each team gets to warm up during halftime of the previous game, so we saw Black Hills State and Cal-State East Bay warming up, and we came away with one impression. One of CS-EB's players looks EXACTLY like Kobe Bryant. I'm not sure what that means, but if he plays like Kobe, the Hills could be another upset victim.

Here are a few links regarding today's game to get you pumped for the Tigers' tip tonight at 9:15 p.m....

-Click here for my preview of the game.
-Click here for the Daily Republic's preview, and also click here for their Tiger Zone blog. Leah Rado has a few blog entries leading up to the game that are worth checking out.
-Click here for Grand View's men's basketball page.
-Click here for DWU's tournament page.

That should tide you over for now.

USF?

2009-03-11T19:47:00.001-07:00

I'll just mention it quickly and then move on, but USF is in the Sweet 16. We were at the Keeter Gym for the last few minutes of their upset of No. 3 Cedarville, which stands as the biggest upset of the day. USF matched up well with Cedarville, and made enough plays at the end to hold off the heavy favorites. We just got back to the hotel after the Parade of Champions and the first half of the Ozarks-Aquinas game. The winner of that one will play USF Friday, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I won't be surprised if the Cougars streak continues. March Madness indeed.

Speaking of March Madness, I wanted to share a quote I overheard from a reporter in the green room tonight: "They call the NCAA Tournament March Madness, but if basketball people really want to experience March Madness, they should spend the week at this tournament. This is truly March Madness. The other one is Money Madness." Interesting take. It certainly is a crazy scene on the Ozarks campus, but the two tournaments obviously have very different setups. Imagine if the NCAA's field of 65 was at one site with just two off-days. It's the nature of the beast.

Speaking of the green room and comparisons to the NCAA tournament, here's one I feel confident making: the NAIA DII hospitality room blows the Final Four's out of the water. I was lucky enough to get a press pass to the 2001 Final Four at the Metrodome when I was a sophomore journalism student at Minnesota, but that spread doesn't hold a candle to what they offer in Point Lookout. They have two tvs with live feeds of the games going on, couches, tables, chairs, etc., and an unbelievable spread of food and snacks. In fact, I might be getting up for Morningside's 8:30 a.m. tip just to take advantage of the breakfast there.

Click here to read the preview I wrote for tomorrow's game vs. Grand View. Here are a few thoughts of my own that I couldn't put in the preview after seeing a little of the Vikings on tape in the last game - the MCC title game vs. Iowa Wesleyan, which they lost by a point.

-Their point guard Grant Burns is a real playmaker and they have two excellent outside shooters in Aussie native Rohan Greaves and Greg Schulz. On the tape I saw both those guys not only hit threes with ease, they hit them from really deep. Burns is a terror in the open court too, and if he can get into the lane and either create and score or kick to those shooters, they seem to be at their best.

-I didn't see much from their inside game, although Iowa Wesleyan had a very good inside player which could have been a big part of it. Cory Viet averages 17 and 7, but I'd guess Brady Wiebe and Ike Muoneke and even Mike Long could have big days inside.

-Grand View only gives up 62 on defense, but its hard to tell from the tape we saw how much of that is chalked up to style of play and competition. They seemed to pressure the ball OK, but they occasionally lost shooters and cutters, so if we get our offense moving and everyone works themselves into the flow, there could be decent scoring opportunities for us in the half court.

-The officiating down here is weird, to put it nicely. They seem to let a lot of contact go uncalled under the hoop, but guys get whistled for a lot of touch fouls away from the basket. Whichever team adjusts quickest to the way the game is being called could be at a huge advantage. Hopefully that's where our Branson experience pays off.

That's all for now. I'll be back with another round of photos tomorrow at some point, along with any other thoughts leading up to the tip. Remember, there are a lot of ways you can follow the game, all the links are on our special tournament page. Also, there will be a viewing on the DWU campus in the Sherman Center, so feel free to go there to root the Tigers on with other fans.

Tomorrow's going to be a long day.

From the Media Room...

2009-03-11T14:24:00.001-07:00

Checking in quick from the Media Room at Keeter Gymnasium. Our guys are watching No. 10 Mount Vernon Nazarene and Bellevue right now, so I just stopped in here to get a little work done. I just sent out my official preview for tomorrow's game, so I'll link to it once it goes up on our site.

We caught the second half of Evergreen State's win over Bluefield, in which 5-11 Nate Menefee went off for 48 points to lead his squad to a comeback win. He just missed the tournament single-game record, which is 53 points. It was an incredible performance. He did most of his damage going to the basket, and he almost did it in spite of his teammates. They weren't going out of their way to get him the ball, which was crazy for how well he was playing. For movie fans, he reminded me of Kyle Watson from Above the Rim.

After this, we're heading out for a dinner with our honorary coaches, and then back to Keeter tonight for the parade of champions. I'll hopefully have some photos from that. Look for another update from me this evening.

Wednesday update

2009-03-11T11:41:00.000-07:00

Hola. Here's a quick update with some random thoughts with a few free minutes between practice and lunch. After lunch we'll be heading to Keeter Gymnasium to take in some of the afternoon games, and I'll be working on a preview of tomorrow's matchup with Grand View either on press row or in the media room, which is run by Northwestern SID Matt Bos. Nice to have a GPAC connection in a convenient spot!

-I'm shorter than most of the players, so I can't imagine how some of them are dealing with the Quality Inn's shower. I'm 6-0, and the shower head is right at my shoulder. The bathrooms in this joint definitely weren't designed with a basketball team in mind.

-Last night we had some Papa John's delivered to the hotel. Our delivery guy's name? "Dad" according to his nametag. He left us with this deep thought: "You know, a lot of people go on to do great things with their lives. Then they order pizza from me." Quite an experience.

-Ike Muoneke and Mitch Bain are vying for the team's American Idol award. Ike was singing a number from The Lion King on the bus the other day, and yesterday at Taco Bell Mitch was singing "I'm not gonna write you a love song." Then they joined together for a rendition of "Billie Jean" as we were getting on the bus. Spectacular.

Off to lunch at Wendy's. I'll check back in later with thoughts from the games we see, and some notes on Grand View. GPAC starts 0-1 after a rough second half by Briar Cliff this morning.

Photos from Tuesday's Practice

2009-03-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

There has to be a better way to do this, but here's my attempt at sharing some photos from Tuesday's practice.

Coaches Matt Culhane, John Hemenway and Clint Farrar oversee the action.

A view of practice from the track.

Coach Hemenway goes over some half-court defense

Mike Long shoots a free throw

The Blue and White teams huddle up

Brady Wiebe shoots a free throw

Mark Mingo, Preston Broughton, Kevin Ball,

Adam Tyhurst and Clint Farrar look on from the sideline

Ike Muoneke goes to the basket

Ike Muoneke, Chase Walder and Scott Nelson stretch out at the end of Tuesday's workout

Coach Hemenway introduces the Tigers to the honorary coaches

And finally....

The baddest assitant coaches in Branson.

Seems like a good note to end on for now...

First update from Branson

2009-03-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

Hello from Branson, Missouri! I don't want to rub it in, but it's gorgeous here today ... T-shirts and shorts weather gorgeous ... so we're enjoying that while it lasts. The weather is supposed to take a turn for the worse tomorrow.

Just got back to the Quality Inn from the Tigers' 11 a.m. practice. I have a bunch of photos that I'll post later on today when I get a chance. Practice went well. The guys were shooting the ball pretty well, and some of the offensive sets looked real crisp - especially towards the end. When practice wrapped up, the team had a brief meeting with the honorary coaches (local businessmen who sponsor the teams down here) and we're about to head out for lunch.

The trip down was long (about 10 hours), but not too bad. We had a quick stop for lunch at a McDonald's somewhere in Iowa, and from there the trip actually went pretty fast. I spent a good portion of it watching The Dark Knight on my laptop. Great movie.

Once we got checked in at the hotel and settled, we had dinner at one of the best BBQ places I've ever been - Rib Crib. If you're coming down this week for the game, make sure to get there. Assistant Coach Matt Culhane,possibly the most loyal reader of this blog, was so excited for Rib Crib he spent time Sunday night browsing their on-line menu, so he already knew what he was getting before we were even seated.

After lunch today, we'll be heading over to the Ozarks campus for both coaches and SID meetings at 3 p.m. Tonight the players will be going to the Dixie Stampede with the honorary coaches. I'll check back in later today with another update and the photos from practice.

Gearing up for Branson

2009-03-06T08:45:00.000-08:00

Well, the wait is over and all the details are official. The Dakota Wesleyan University men's basketball team is headed back to Branson, Mo., for the NAIA DII Men's Basketball National Tournament, and this time we even managed to get a seed (even if it is the last one).

The 16th-seeded Tigers open tournament play Thursday in the final game of the two-day first round. DWU will tip off against Grand View College from Iowa at 9:15 p.m. I'd guess that No. 16 might be better than 14 or 15 though, because if we would've been put in one of those spots, we couldn't have played GPAC rival Briar Cliff, who plays No. 15 Indiana Southeast. So if we were in either one of those places, we likely would have played against the host school, College of the Ozarks, which is a first-round draw no one wants. Instead, Ozarks will play the team that knocked us out a year ago, No. 14 Aquinas. We'll take our chances with a neutral-court game against Grand View rather than a road game in a hostile environment against Ozarks.

I'll do an in-depth preview of the first-round matchup likely on Tuesday, but here are some quick facts. Grand View is 24-8 and the eighth at-large team selected to the field. DWU and GVC actually have several common opponents, Dordt, Briar Cliff, Midland Lutheran College, and more, so these teams should be able to learn a little about one another before Thursday. It might not be the guessing game that some of these tournament matchups can be.

The team (and me) leaves Monday morning at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday there are coach and SID meetings at College of the Ozarks, and Tuesday night the teams all attend the Dixie Stampede with the first round tipping off Wednesday morning at 8:30 a.m.

For all your tournament needs, we've created a special page with info and links about the Tigers trip to the National Tournament. Click here to view the page. Feel free to send me suggestions of other things that should be added, and use the "comment" feature on this post to start talking about your hopes and expectations for Branson. I'll be blogging frequently during the trip, so feel free to ask questions and check back often for updates on everything.

Now, let's take a quick look at some of the other Tiger sports in action this week...

Jordan Harer had a great start to the NAIA Wrestling National Championships yesterday with a pair of wins to reach the 141-pound quarterfinals. This morning, Harer was slated to wrestle the No. 1 seed in his part of the bracket, but I wouldn't be surprised if he kept winning and moved on. All the other DWU wrestlers went 0-1 on the first day, and will begin wrestlebacks this morning. Click here to read the release from Day One.

I just received word from Florida that DWU baseball won its first game today against St. Xavier University, which puts the Tigers at 14-2 overall and extends the winning streak to nine games, including all seven in Florida. DWU will wrap up its "regular" spring break schedule this afternoon against Notre Dame College, and tomorrow it will play in the Spring Break Championship, likely as the No. 1 seed. Click here to read about the first six wins in Florida. And for curious fans, the Tigers moved up to fifth in the last conference ratings, and the next NAIA poll comes out on Tuesday, March 17. It will be interesting to see if we can stay hot, and whether or not that will get us into the rankings.

Softball also opened its season in Florida, and coach Marie McCarthy has been happy with how her young team has played in its 2-2 start. DWU's roster is just three sophomore and 10 freshmen this season with no seniors or juniors, so calling it a young team would be a colossal understatement. But the Tigers have been solid thus far against some good competition and appear to have some solid players to build the program around. Click here for the first day recap, and here for the second day.

And finally, the Tiger track athletes will compete at the National Indoor Meet today, all around 3 p.m. Natalie Wipf runs the 400 at 2:55 and Frank Thompson and Alex Liberty will compete in the high jump at 3 p.m. Stay tuned for updates.

Thoughts on Upset Thursday

2009-02-27T08:59:00.000-08:00

So Dakota Wesleyan survived on a crazy night in the GPAC, and somehow, we were the only ones. On a night where No. 1 Morningside, No. 3 Briar Cliff and No. 4 Northwestern all lost, the No. 2 Tigers found a way to escape the quarterfinals with a 67-65 win over Dordt. If you weren't there or haven't heard how we pulled it off, click here for my release and here for The Daily Republic's story.

Other than Hastings' blowout of Northwestern, the other two games were insane too. Briar Cliff scored four points in the final 10 seconds to force overtime, but Concordia scored a late basket in OT and benefitted from a technical on the Chargers (called a timeout with none left) to win by four. And Morningside nearly pulled out another miracle victory, but Thomas Frames blocked a last-second shot to give Sioux Falls the win.

Click here to read about the Briar Cliff-Concordia game. Click here for the Argus Leader's USF story and here for the Sioux City Jounal's take on Morningside's loss. Here's the Argus Leader's "College Roundup" leading with the Tigers.

Now for some of my thoughts on Upset Thursday:

1. How hot is Sioux Falls right now? They certainly looked better than their record when they beat us at home last Saturday. Then they went on the road and took down Dana, who many considered to be a solid sleeper in the GPAC tournament, and added Morningside to their victim list on the road. The Cougars hit the road again tomorrow to take on Hastings at 3 p.m. in what should be a good game between two teams playing really good basketball at this point. Wouldn't it be something to have a DWU-USF rematch for the tournament title Tuesday at the Corn Palace? Although it will take impressive wins by both South Dakota teams for that scenario to become reality, it's fun to thinking about having another shot at the Coo with a title on the line.

2. How helpful is the bye? With three out of four top seeds losing at home after having most of the week off, it begs the question of how helpful the bye actually is. It's entirely possible that the GPAC's best team were hurt a little by the extra time off, while their foes were able to stay in rhythm and generate some momentum heading into Thursday's games. I know at this point of the season, rest is huge, especially for a team like DWU where injuries have taken a toll on depth, but I also think teams get used to a certain schedule or rhythm, and when the conference tournament throws that off, weird things can happen. However, as the lone remaining top seed, let's hope the weirdness is over and things play out according to seed from here on out.

3. Officially Branson bound? The speculation about DWU's third-straight trip to the National Tournament is that the Tigers are locked after last night's win, especially with Briar Cliff and Morningside losing. DWU should leapfrog Briar Cliff in the final poll, and it could pass Morningside with one or two more wins. Either way, the Tigers appear to safely be in the field. However, the big question now centers on how many teams the GPAC will send to the tournament. Morningside is a lock with the automatic bid for winning the regular season title. DWU is a lock for an at-large bid, and could win the automatic bid for the postseason title. However, beyond that it's not so crystal clear. It could be just the Mustangs and Tigers, it could be three or even as many as four. Briar Cliff should be in the field with an at-large bid, but stranger things have happened. If there are a bunch of upsets across the country in the conference tournaments, and teams that weren't originally headed to Branson steal some at-large bids, the Chargers could be on the outside looking in, the way Dordt was last season. However, it's also plausabile that either Hastings, USF or Concordia wins the GPAC postseason title and gets a bid, and both DWU and Briar Cliff are selected for at-large spots, giving the conference four teams. After last night, none of these scenarios would surprise me. After hearing that the GPAC has been "down" all season, it would be a pretty interesting twist to see four schools head to Branson.

4. Home-Corn-Palace-Advantage. Going by the numbers, DWU should really benefit from having home-court advantage the rest of the way in the tournament. The Tigers are 13-1 at home this season and have won 13 straight games, with their only loss coming to No. 5 Black Hills State in overtime in the season opener. In the past three seasons, DWU is 40-6 at home, and its won 18 straight home games against GPAC opponents. However, as we learned Thursday, home court advantage doesn't guarantee anything.

5. Finding the right formula. By now, it's clear that Brady Wiebe and Mitch Bain are going to have to lead the way for the Tigers to be effective, and they'll need one other starter to score in double figures, along with a few key contributions from the bench, even if they're small. Last night, it was Ike Muoneke adding the extra scoring punch with 10 points, including some huge baskets in the second half, and Jordan Long came off the bench to give the Tigers six first-half points that kept DWU in the game. The Tigers will need a similar formula Saturday to beat Concorida and move on. I thought that Long's minutes in the first half were huge, and I liked what DWU did substitution-wise. By working in Jordan and Mike Long, Jordan Miller and Rocky Nelson early and often, it kept DWU's starters fresh enough to finish off the crucial final stretch. If that group can give the Tigers a little lift off the bench, we instantly become much more dangerous.

6. Deja Vu. So it was just 10 days ago that DWU played an intense GPAC game against Concordia in the Corn Palace, and here we are doing it again. Click here to read the recap of that game, when the Tigers scored the last eight points of the game to earn the seven-point win. Check our DWU Men's Basketball Page later today for my official preview of Saturday's game. It should be a good one, and with four area high school playoff games serving as the opening act, there should be a good crowd on hand. Try to get to the Corn Palace at 8 p.m. to see if the Tigers can move on to the title game.

Action-paked Saturday

2009-02-20T13:37:00.000-08:00

If you're a DWU sports fan, it doesn't get much better than Saturday's schedule.

The track team is in Lincoln, Neb., for the GPAC Championships. The wrestling team is in Hastings, Neb., for the NAIA North Regional. The baseball team is in Kansas taking on Bethany College and Peru State College. And there are also a couple of basketball games in Sioux Falls, in case you hadn't heard.

On top of that, our volleyball team and men's soccer team both just announced the start to their 2009-10 recruiting classes, and we have a new athletic director.

It's been a busy week to be a Tiger, and that continues on right through Saturday.

For previews of everything going on this weekend, check each team's individual sport page on the DWU Athletics Web Site. They should all be online by early evening.

Also, make sure to stay tuned to the Daily Republic's Tiger Zone Sports Blog throughout the weekend for news, previews, game stories and photos from DWU's action this weekend. All Tiger fans should have that URL either memorized or bookmarked.

If any baseball or softball fans, friends, parents or families are reading this, the Tiger team and individual pictures are now available for sale on the Inertia Sports Media site. Click here for baseball and here for softball. HERE is the link to Inertia's college sports photos site, where any DWU games they shot this year would be listed. This is another spot that DWU parents and fans should keep an eye on. They should be putting up a few of our basketball games soon.

I don't know about you, but I plan on being in Sioux Falls tomorrow to see our basketball teams close out the regular season. Both the women's and men's games have seeding implications for the GPAC tournament, and obviously the men can clinch a GPAC title, the No. 1 seed in the tournament and an automatic bid to nationals with a win over the Cougars.

The USF men are on a five-game slide, so it will be interesting to see how they approach this game. They lost at home to Mount Marty on Wednesday, so it would be easy to assume the wheels have completely come off, but I'd bet they'll be pretty excited to have a chance to beat DWU on the last day of the season with the GPAC title on the line, so expect USF to play better tomorrow than they have the last two weeks. Having said that, hopefully the Tigers play to their potential and earn their share of the championship, and let's hope Dordt can do us a favor and knock off Morningisde so the Tigers can have the title all to themselves.

For a breakdown of all the seeding implications for both the men and the women, and all the possible playoff scenarios, see their individual sport pages this evening for my official previews.

Good luck to all the Tiger teams this weekend in Sioux Falls, Lincoln, Hastings and Kansas, and safe travels to all the DWU fans and families that are hitting the road to cheer the Tigers on. Hopefully next week there will be a lot to celebrate at Dakota Wesleyan!

Wild night in Sioux City

2009-01-29T12:59:00.000-08:00

If you were in Sioux City, Iowa, last night for the DWU-Morningside game, I'm jealous. I listened on the radio, and it sounded electric. What a game bewteen two great teams, and what a statement for DWU to go into that environment and pull out as big a road win as its had in awhile.

A few thoughts from last night's game:

-Brady Wiebe should be starting to generate some GPAC Player-of-the-Year buzz. That was his second 27-15 game in 10 days. And the thing that is probably starting to scare teams the most: he's just a sophomore. Also, I read a thread on a GPAC hoops message board yesterday where fans were trying to predict the award winners, and all the Coach-of-the-Year votes were going to Todd Barry from Briar Cliff. Really? If DWU wins the league without its top two players, I think John Hemenway should be a lock for his second GPAC COY award.

-All day yesterday, I kept getting the feeling Ike Muoneke would have a huge game, and I'm glad I was right. What a monster job on the boards against a tough, physical Morningside front line, and it seemed only fitting that Ike was the one to seal the game from the free throw line.

-Mitch Bain's play at the point is getting more and more efficient. Last night: 5 assists, 1 TO. If they can keep getting just one turnover from their primary ballhandler, the Tigers will be in good shape the rest of the way. It doesn't hurt when he scores 17 like he did last night either, and his back-to-back threes in the first half gave DWU some extra cushion it ended up needing.

-How many times do announcers refer to a "rare four-point play?" Well, how about an even more rare five-point play. Things were looking awfully good for the home team when they went up three late, but Wiebe's 3-point play, plus the technical on Morningside coach Jim Sykes, instantly put DWU up two. Kudos to Wiebe for knocking down all three from the charity stripe with the fiesty Morningside students trying their best to be a distraction.

-Anyone else who listened on KMIT heard Tim Smith talk about the respectful handshakes beteween teams following the game. Great display of character and respect by both teams after going to war with each other for 45 of the most intense minutes of the entire season.

So now DWU is alone at the top. The key, obviously, is staying there. It's probably a good thing that Mount Marty's only league win was against Concordia, who was leading the GPAC at the time. So its would seem the Lancers are the perfect opponent for Sunday - it SHOULD be a game Weselayn can win easily, but at least the Tigers know the Lancers are capable of pulling a stunning upset. Hopefully they can recover from Wednesday's battle and take care of business Sunday to earn another 20-win season, which are becoming the norm for Hemenway-coached teams.

Wrestling throws a shutout

How often do you get to see a shutout in wrestling? Not often, I've found in my years covering the sport, but last night was an exception at the Wellness Center as now-No. 19-ranked DWU dropped Minnesota West CC by the score of 51-0.

The Bluejays were open at three weight classes, so the Tigers essentially started with an 18-0 advantage. But DWU did a great job in the seven matches that were actually wrestled. Jordan Harer, now ranked third in the NAIA at 141 pounds, and Derek Ashley were impressive with first-peroid pins, and Jeff Holmes, Ray Rickenbach and Danny Hutcheson all really got after it to earn three of the quickets technical falls I've seen. Tanner LaValliere had a nice win in the night's closest match, and Brandon Goodwin also earned a solid victory.

Dakota Wesleyan has been really good in its last three appearances, and it will be fun to see how they fare Wednesday when it takes on Morningside and Grandview College in Sioux City on Tuesday night. If DWU can score a pair of wins that night, it will really be rolling as the postseason gets closer.

Here are some links to the coverage of last night's DWU events:

-Here is the official relese from the 51-0 wrestling win. The men's basketball and women's basketball releases should be online later today. I'll link them once they're online.

-Click here for the Mitchell Daily Republic's Tiger Zone Blog, which features all their coverage from last night's game. Or click here for wrestling, here for men's basketball and here for women's basketball.

-Click here for the Sioux City Jounal's story from last night's men's basketball game. There are some interesting quotes from Morningside coach Jim Sykes, and an interesting interpertation of Ike Muoneke's rebounding. Click here for the women's story.

-Click here to see the Siouxland Sports Authority's photos from last night's men's game.

Enjoy. Just a reminder - basketball polls come out Monday afternoon and wrestling polls follow on Tuesday...it will be interesting to see if we can move up in both.

Pre-game

2009-01-28T14:20:00.000-08:00

First and foremost, congrats to the DWU wrestling team. The Tigers are now tied for the No. 19 ranking in the country and junior Jordan Harer moved up to the No. 3 spot in the NAIA at 141 pounds. DWU will put its ranking on display tonight at home against Minnesota West Community College. Bring a radio and an earpiece and come out to the Wellness Center so you can see the Tigers at home for the final time this season, and still keep up with the basketball action in Sioux City. Click here for the complete NAIA rankings.

Gearing up for the Games

Here are some links previewing tonight's basketball action - DWU at Morningside - in Sioux City, Iowa.

-Preview story from the Mitchell Daily Republic
-Preveiw story from the Sioux City Journal
-The official DWU release
-Morningside College's preview of the women's game

In tonight's huge men's game, I can't shake the feeling that points in the paint and free throws are going to be big. Last year when the Tigers handed No. 1 Morningside its first loss of the season, they did a lot of their damage after halftime from the free throw line. DWU has shown a knack for getting to the line in its recent winning streak, especially sophomore forward Brady Wiebe, and getting those fouls and points against the Mustangs tonight will be really important. I thought it was interesting in the Sioux City Journal's preview that Coach Sykes was worried about some the matchups. Hopefully the Tigers can identify those early and take advantage. Don't be surprised if the Mustangs focus on Wiebe and Mitch Bain, and as a result, Ike Muoneke or Scott Nelson takes advantage and has a really big game on offense tonight, or if someone comes off the bench to provide a huge spark like Rocky Nelson or Mike Long.

Conversely, DWU is defintely going to want to avoid fouls on the other end. Without Colby Fitzgerald, our depth isn't quite what it was two weeks ago. Staying out of foul trouble tonight will be key.

I've also spent a lot of time thinking about what will happen with the tempo. I know I addressed it yesterday, but I just can't predict if Morningside will try to run with DWU, slow the Tigers down, or find some sort of middle ground. The saving grace here is that our defense has been much improved since the first half against Dordt, so if it turns into more of a grind-it-out game, the Tigers should be better equipped to hang with that style.

The women tip off in an hour and 19 minutes, wrestling starts an hour later, and men's basketball shortly after that. I'd say it's a big night for DWU sports, but that'd be quite an understatement. Enjoy the games!

Some links for Wednesday...

2009-01-27T16:29:00.000-08:00

Here are some links with pretty good coverage leading up to Wednesday's DWU at Morningside basketball games.

DWU Website
-The preview story I wrote today should be up on our men's basketball and women's basketball web pages sometime tonight. A pretty in-depth, stat-heavy look at both teams.

Morningside Website
-Extensive weekly preview done for the men's game by Morningside SID Dave Rebstock, who turned 50 today. Happy Birthday, Dave!

Mitchell Daily Republic
-Leah Rado's column about the Tigers' continued plight despite the key injuries to Colby Fitzgerald and Preston Broughton
-Story about Mitch Bain's POW award, the Tigers' jump to No. 14 and the Bo LaCroix signing.
-The Daily Republic's new Tiger Zone blog can be found: here. All DWU coverage will go up on this blog, as well as other insight and bonus coverage. This should be a great resource for DWU fans. Their preview of Wednesday's game should be up on here later tonight.

Sioux City Journal
-Story about the latest NAIA polls, and a little about Wednesday's games.
-Story from this weekend about Morningside's games against Concordia and DWU.

How to keep up with Wednesday's games
-Link to 105.9 KMIT's Web site - the official Tiger Radio Network. Click "Listen Live" for Tim Smith and Bob Sprang's call.
-Link to Morningside's live Web cast of the games. Click "Video Streaming" starting at 5:30 p.m.
-Link to live stats from both games.

That should be enough fodder about Wednesday for now. I'll check back tomorrow during the day with any new links, and some extra thoughts and analysis leading up to the games.

Don't forget. DWU wrestling is also home tomorrow against Minnesota West Community College. Come to the Tigers' final home dual at the Wellness Center at 7 p.m. or follow the action live on the Web. Log onto InterMatWrestle.com and click on the "Live Scored College Matches" link. Select "Dakota Wesleyan University" and "NAIA" with the appropriate dates to find the live scoring link.

Good Time to be a Tiger

2009-01-27T09:43:00.000-08:00

Other than last week's knee injury to senior star Colby Fitzgerald, the Dakota Wesleyan University men's basketball team has enjoyed two pretty spectacular weeks, setting up Wednesday's huge showdown at Morningside. This will be the first in a series of blogs over the next 48 hours leading up to the tip in Sioux City, so to start, let's recap how we got here...

The Tigers ran off four-straight wins at home, including a 27-point blowout of Dordt and a 22-point thrashing of No. 13-ranked Briar Cliff despite losing Fitzgerald for the season early in the first half. DWU also added wins over an underrated Nebraska Wesleyan team and Hastings to improve to 18-5 overall and 9-2 in the GPAC.

In the past two weeks, DWU jumped from the "Others Receiving Votes" portion of the Top 25 poll to 22nd, and then all the way to 14th yesterday. The team's recent tear apparently hasn't gone unnoticed.

Also, the Tigers had the GPAC Player-of-the-Week in each of the last two weeks, and frankly, I doubt either player received too much competition for the honor. Brady Wiebe took home the award on Jan. 19 after averaging 21.5 points and 12 rebounds in the wins over Dordt and NWU. He shot 63 percent from the floor and 95 percent from the line.

Mitch Bain was also honored this week for his role in the wins over Briar Cliff and Hastings. Bain averaged 21.5 points, 7.5 assists, 3.0 steals and 3.0 rebounds in the two wins, and he set a new career high for points in each game. His 19 points Wednesday was a new high for the junior, and he set the bar even higher with 24 points Sunday.

On top of all of that, Coach Hemenway added another recruit in the process. Hurley, S.D., star Bo LaCroix signed his Letter of Intent Friday, and we released the signing yesterday. Things are going pretty good when you can do so well in the present and build for the future at the same time. This is a nice signing for the team. LaCroix is 6-7, can play four positions and has won state titles in both basketball and football in high school. When a school like DWU can land a proven winner who's averaging around 27 and 14 this season, that's a good get.

So these incredible two weeks bring us to the present. Wednesday, No. 14 DWU travels to No. 15 Morningside with first place in the GPAC on the line. I can't wait.

I'll check back later today with some links leading up to the showdown in Sioux City.

Defense does it

2009-01-15T16:20:00.001-08:00

It seems like the prevailing thought from Dakota Wesleyan's 86-59 win over Dordt last night at the Corn Palace can be summed up in one word: wow.

11:25 into the game, there probably weren't any people in the Corn Palace who thought the Tigers would end up winning by 27. At that point, DWU was down 18, 29-11, and the Defenders had just ripped off an 8-0, bookended by 3-pointers.

However, DWU came back with its own 6-0 run behind baskets from Ike Muoneke, Chase Walder and Mitch Bain, and then something drastic happened -- the Tigers turned up the D. The final 26 or 27 minutes, DWU played as good on defense as I've seen in my two years watching the Tigers. After the initial 18-point deficit, DWU outscored the Defenders 75-30 over the game's final 29 minutes, and they made life very uncomfortable for Dordt -- particularly leading-scorer Logan Kingma, who managed just five points.

The other promising trait that emerged Wednesday was the way the Tigers buried Dordt. DWU displayed an absolute killer instinct that, if they can carry it over, could serve them really well down the stretch. A team like the Defenders is more than capable of making a big run at almost any point, and the fact that DWU suffocated them and didn't allow that to happen should give the team confidence that it can put anybody away once it gets a lead in the second half.

In my experience, this isn't a trait teams simply possess, it's something they have to learn. Hopefully Wednesday was a sign that it's ingrained with DWU now. We'll see how this trait develops this weekend against Nebraska Wesleyan, who should be a decent test and a huge contrast of style, and especially Wednesday night when Briar Cliff comes to the Corn Palace.

If DWU can carry the two things it found Wednesday night - suffocating defense and the ability to put teams away - into the final month of the regular season, the Tigers should be right in the running for the GPAC crown.

However, a long look at the remaining schedule shows it won't be easy. DWU still goes to Morningside, Briar Cliff and Sioux Falls, and hosts the Chargers, Northwestern and conference-leading Concordia. It will be very interesting to see how many losses the GPAC champ finishes with. Morningside and Concordia have a little easier time with more games against the southern schools, so DWU's head-to-head matchups with those schools will be huge.

One last point - with how good DWU was on defense last night, it's easy to overlook what it did on the offensive end. However, the Tigers were shooting around 20 percent from the floor 12 minutes into the game. They finished above 50 percent as a team, including 70 percent in the second half. Part of that comes from getting hot, but a lot of it comes from running the offense efficiently and getting good shots and easy baskets. The Tigers got a lot of looks in close, and a lot of layups in transition. Once they started getting in the groove, the 3-pointers started falling too, to the tune of 75 percent in the second half. It was a snowball effect on both ends of the floor last night.

DWU will host three big games over the next week and a half -- Sunday vs. Nebraska Wesleyan, Wednesday vs. No. 11 Briar Cliff and next Sunday vs. Hastings. Do yourself a favor and catch them on this home stand -- they'll need to play well and build momentu before traveling to Morningside.

Resolutions for 2009...

2009-01-09T08:35:00.000-08:00

I've never been the type of person that made New Year's Resolutions, but for some reason, I decided to try to make a few in 2009. The reason I'm writing this, is because one of them is to re-dedicate myself to keeping this blog fresh now that the calendar has flipped to January. Things have been exceptionally busy in the DWU athletics office this year, and I let some of my other responsibilities take precedence over blogging, but I'm going to do a better job of it from here on out, so to start off on the right foot, here's a super-sized blog to kick off what looks to be a great 2009 for Tiger athletics.

What a Wrestling match...

It isn't often that a wrestling dual meet goes down to the wire the way a basketball game or a football game can, but Wednesday the Tigers hosted Hastings College, and the winner wasn't decided until the third period of the final match of the night. DWU had a nice crowd in the Wellness Center on Wednesday, and they were treated to a heck of a match.

Click here to read my official press release about the win, which details Kyle Henderson's thrilling victory to give DWU the win. Since that release has most of the details, I'll use this space for some extra analysis, but Henderson's clutch win ended up being the difference, and he deserves tons of credit for stepping up in a huge spot.

Sometimes in a match like Wednesday's, the way a team loses matches can be just as crucial as some of the wins. For example, I think Blake Hodne was kind of an unsung hero of the win, despite an 11-3 major deicison loss. Hodne was up against Hastings's Jameon Rush, who is ranked No. 6 in the NAIA. Though Rush ended up getting four points for the Broncos, Hodne really wrestled well, especially early, and the fact that he avoided getting pinned or even a technical fall was a boost for the Tigers. It's clear the Broncos count on Rush to score big points for them every time out, but Hodne did a solid job staying with him, and he was never in any real danger of getting pinned. That was smart wrestling.

Malik Stewart and Billy Murtha also had impressive wins Wednesday. Stewart had one of the most exciting matches of the night, as he willed himself to a late reversal to score a 4-2 win. And Murtha, in his first action of the season, notched a solid 6-2 win to build up the DWU lead at the time.

It was good to see the Tigers win a close dual after dropping a close one to open the GPAC season at Briar Cliff. Hopefully they can keep it rolling with three more duals at home this month. Dana is here on the 15th and Sioux Falls comes to Mitchell on the 21st, and those will both be big matches for DWU.

So close...

Football is often described as a game of inches. It's hard to use the same analogy with basketball, but it certainly seems like it applies itself to the DWU women's basketball team thus far this season.

Right now, the Tigers sit at 9-9 overall and 2-4 in the ridiculously difficult GPAC. However, if a few shots would've fell at key times or the ball had bounced a slighty different direction a number of times, the Tigers could be in a much different position.

Let's just start by looking at two games: one-point losses to Dakota State and Sioux Falls. Both games could have very easily gone the other way. Had that happened, DWU is sitting at 11-7 overall and 3-3 in the GPAC. Compare that to 9-9 and 2-4, and a few points really make a huge difference on the landscape of the entire season.

To go a step further, the Tigers had chances to beat Jamestown, Kansas Wesleyan, Doane, Northwestern and Mount Marty (many of which are nationally ranked). All those losses were between six and 10 points, and DWU held second-half leads in many of those losses. If even two of those games could have gone DWU's way, then the team is sitting 13-5 overall with maybe a 4-2 or 5-1 record in the toughest women's basketball conference in the country. That would get a team into the rankings, and bolster national tournament hopes.

Instead, the Tigers have hovered around the .500 mark all year. After winning 18 games last season, hopes were high for DWU in Aaron Kahl's second season, and it's possbile to just look at the Tigers' record and say that they didn't take another step forward this year as expected.

However, I beg to differ. I think that when you factor in the number of ranked teams DWU has played, and how close most of its games have been, the Tigers are perilously close to being an upper-echelon team, both in the GPAC and the NAIA.

The second half of the season will provide ample opportunity for DWU to turn some of those close losses into victories, starting with Sunday's trip to take on No. 9 Hastings. The Broncos desparately need a win, so they'll be ready for DWU, and winning on the road in the GPAC is never easy. After Sunday's game, DWU will host four in a row, all winnable, so that could be just what the Tigers need to build some momentum for a late-season surge.

I'll check back early next week with some thoughts on the men's basketball race for the GPAC title. Happy New Year!

Soccer scores a POW, too.

2008-10-21T15:36:00.001-07:00

The Dakota Wesleyan University women's soccer team became the latest Tiger squad to get into the GPAC Player-of-the-Week act when sophomore GK Danielle Richardson won the honor on Tuesday afternoon. Richardson saved 14 shots to shut out Doane Saturday in a 2-0 win, and it was her fourth shut out in the past five games. Click here for the official GPAC release, and my release should be up soon on the women's soccer site.

Fun facts about Richardson's award: she is the first DWU women's soccer player to earn the league's POW award, and she shut out the GPAC's Offensive Player-of-the-Week (Doane's Samantha Exstrom) en route to her honor.

Meanwhile, click here to read my release on the women's soccer teams first two signings, which were also announced today.

And for those of you basketball fans who can't wait until the season tips off, the NAIA DII men's and women's preseason top 25 polls are less than a week away -- they'll be released on the NAIA site on Monday, Oct. 27.

Finally, check out these Tiger blogs. DWU head football coach Brad Pole's blog is a must-read, and if you don't think greased pigs and stealing pumpkins has anything to do with football, you are dead wrong, my friend.

There's been an update to the DWU men's golf blog, maintained by senior captain Brett Abbotts, as well. Stay tuned for other updates on Tiger sports blogs, as there are many more in the creation stages.

Another POW

2008-10-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

For the third week in a row, the Dakota Wesleyan University football team has been honored with one of the GPAC's Player-of-the-Week awards. This time, however, it was the offense that snared the honor after defensive players Kyle Meier and Eric Adolph were honored the past two weeks.

Junior WR Bubba Slaba is this week's GPAC Offensive Player-of-the-Week after his latest incredible performance. He had nine catches for 174 yards and three TDs, and 246 all-purpose yards. To read all about it, click here for the official DWU release.

Also, if you follow Tiger football, you know that Slaba and DWU QB Jon Doom were also teammates at nearby Wagner High School. In today's story by Leah Rado at The Daily Republic, she talks to the prolific passing combo about how long they've been friends and how that has translated to their football success at Wagner and now at Wesleyan. A very good read.

DWU didn't jump into the Top 25 yesterday, and in fact, they stayed at their essential No. 28 ranking despite receiving 10 more votes this week. USF stayed at No. 2, so while this Saturday's match up won't technically be a game between ranked teams, it will still be about as big as they come.

Women's soccer signs two

One other news item from the DWU athletics office today: women's soccer coach Dale Roden has announced his first two signees for 2009-10, and both players -- Courtney Dickson and Abby Hubbard -- are All-State First Team players from the Huron soccer program. The press release should be up this afternoon, so check the women's soccer page throughout the day for all the details.

A good day to be a Tiger...

2008-10-20T07:53:00.000-07:00

Saturday was quite a day for the DWU sports teams and their fans, and if it wasn't for a big second half by the Doane men's soccer team, it would have been pretty close to perfect.

To recap (with links): the Tiger football team clinched its first .500 season in the GPAC era with a 41-7 win at Briar Cliff. The DWU volleyball team cruised to a 3-0 sweep over York College, but more importantly, raised money and awareness for breast cancer research with their "Dig Pink" event at Mitchell High School. The Tiger women's soccer team earned a huge 2-0 win over Doane to even up at .500 (6-6-2, 3-3-2), and the DWU men were up 2-1 on Doane at the half, but couldn't quite hold on after halftime.

Tigers in the News

This is definitely playing catch-up from last week, but here are a few links to some stories in the media about DWU athletics.

From the Mitchell Daily Republic:
-Game story from DWU football's win at Briar Cliff.
-Story about Satuday's "Dig Pink" volleyball event.
-Preview story for Saturday's footbal game.
-Game story from DWU's volleyball match against DI North Dakota.
-Leah Rado's column about DWU's defense.
-Story about DWU soccer at Morningside.
-The "Dig Pink" preview story.
-Game story from DWU volleyball's win over Dakota State.
-Story about Eric Adolph's GPAC and NAIA Player-of-the-Week honors.

From the Brookings Register:
-More coverage of Adolph's big week.

From the Rapid City Journal:
-A great feature on DWU punter Nick Tolsma.

The big game...

Today will be an interesting day in terms of the hype machine for Saturday's home football game against the arch rival University of Sioux Falls. After DWU's impressive win Saturday, it's possible that the Tigers could get into the NAIA Top 25 when the weeky poll is release late this afternoon. Holding a national ranking while hosting the second-ranked Cougars (it's likely their ranking won't change) would certainly add some drama to what already figures to be a huge game. Mark your calendars to come out to the "Q" on Saturday for a 1 p.m. kickoff.

Continue to check this blog for updates and analysis of Saturday's big game as the week goes on. I'm still strugging to find a lot of blog time with the basketball media guide deadline looming, but I'll make more of an effort this week -- especially becuase it will be a way to channel my excitement for the big game! Feel free to share any thoughts or predictions for Saturday's game in the "comments" section.

Dig Pink

Even though DWU's "Dig Pink" event has come and gone, their fundraising efforts for breast cancer research could still use your help. Visit the team's official donation site here to make a donation or track the Tigers' fundraising progress.

Soccer moved!

2008-10-06T15:08:00.000-07:00

Quick scheduling update:

Tuesday's men's and women's soccer games against the University of Sioux Falls have been moved from Cadwell Park in Mitchell to USF's Sanford Health Sports Complex in Sioux Falls due to field conditions in Mitchell.

The women's game still starts at 2 p.m. and the men's game still starts at 4 p.m. No time changes, just location.

A dominant DWU weekend

2008-10-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since I last checked in, but things have been extra busy in the DWU sports information office with homecoming looming this weekend (and the Hall of Fame inductions) and the basketball media guide deadline coming quick.

However, this was an exceptional weekend for DWU athletics, so I'm just going to list out the highlights, and provide links to where you can find more about each topic, but to summarize, the football team upset a previously-unbeaten and ranked opponent, the volleyball team won two GPAC matches and had some career milestones in the process and the DWU golf team won its home tournament and set a bunch of new records. Pretty incredible.

Football

The Tigers took down No. 19-ranked Midland Lutheran 19-14 thanks to a pair of late defensive stands. Click here for my game recap and click here for The Daily Republic's story. Also, here is the Argus Leader's college football round up, with news on DWU's win as well as other GPAC and area schools.

In other football news, Monday DWU senior DE Kyle Meier was named the GPAC's Defensive Player-of-the-Week. Meier put the exclamation point on a great performance by sacking the Warriors' quarterback on fourth-and-five with just over a minute left to seal the victory. Click here to see the GPAC's release.

Also, catching up on some links from last week: here is a GPAC roundup from The Daily Republic prior to Saturday's games.

Volleyball

What a huge weekend for Eric Viney's team. The Tigers beat Midland Lutheran 3-0 Friday night in front of a wild crowd that seemed to really enjoy the new bleacher set up in the Wellness Center. Click here for the recap.

DWU followed up Friday's win with one of the most exciting volleyball wins anyone could ever see. After falling behind two games to one, DWU won game four 25-23, and outlasted Dana 19-17 in game five to earn the victory. Here's my recap, and The Daily Republic's story is here.

To add to the excitement, two DWU seniors acheived career milestones over the weekend. Maria Wieneke recorded her 1,000th career kill Friday, and Dena Kopfmann had her 1,500th career dig on Saturday. I'll have a full release going up on this later today, so I'll add the link when it's available.

Men's Golf

The DWU men's golf team didn't just win the Fourth Annual Hampton Inn/Palace City Classic over the weekend in Mitchell, it set three new school records in the process. On Friday, the Tigers broke the school record for 18-hole team score with 287, and Nick Gates tied the DWU school record for lowest 18-hole individual score with a 65 (7-under-par). Click here for my recap of Day 1.

The Tigers finished off the field on Saturday, and finished with a new school record for 36-holes while winning their fourth tournament of the fall in the process. Here's the recap, here are the final results and here is The Daily Republic's story.

GPAC Basketball Polls

I don't think it's a big surprise, but the DWU men were unanimously tabbed as the preseason favorite to win the GPAC title by league coaches when the 2008-09 GPAC Men's Basketball Preseason Coaches' Poll was released Monday. Northwestern got the lone first-place vote that didn't go to DWU, and here's a hint where it came from: coaches couldn't rank their own team in the poll. Here is the official GPAC release and complete poll.

The women's team, which was vastly underrated prior to last season, was picked to finish sixth, which is pretty darn good in the GPAC when you consider that the top four teams in the conference went to the Elite Eight last year, with three advancing to the Final Four and Northwestern winning the National Championship. DWU and Doane were a toss-up at five and six, so it will be fun to see if the Tigers can out-play their ranking once again. Here is the official poll and release.

The one interesting twist that came out of the two polls is this: the Morningside women were 18-0 in the GPAC a year ago, advanced to the Final Four and return everyone from that squad, yet the DWU men were the unanimous pick. Maybe that just speaks to how top-heavy the GPAC women's league is, but it also says something about the expectations for John Hemenway's team. Let's hope 12 GPAC coaches can't be wrong.

I'll be updating and adding a few links to this post later today, so check back for some more Tiger sports news. This is going to be a busy week in DWU sports land, but it also should be really exciting. I'll try to do a better job of blogging this week, especially as the weekend gets close.

Above .500!

2008-09-22T09:02:00.000-07:00

Congrats to the Tiger football team for its 41-10 win at Dana on Saturday. I'm sure you know this fact by now, but this is the first time a DWU team has been over .500 (2-1) in the GPAC since the league was formed in 2000. It's another step in the right direction for Brad Pole's program, and there are a lot of positives the Tigers can take away from Saturday's victory as they prepare for a huge home game Saturday against Hastings College.

For the nuts and bolts of Saturday's win, click here for my release and here for Leah Rado's game story for The Daily Republic.

The dominance of the running game and the offensive line was a great subplot from the win. Now, in a pair of victories over Nebraska Wesleyan and Dana, DWU has proven it can win with the pass (291 yards vs. NWU) and the run (264 yards vs. Dana), and if it can put it all together, the Tigers will be tough for anyone to stop from here on out. The addition of Justin Guzman (107 yards on 15 carries) was big for the DWU running game, and the trio of Guzman, Boogie Blossom (102 yards and a score on 15 carries) and Jim Williams (43 yards and two TDs) gives the Tigers a deep and versatile running attack.

At the same time, plenty of praise needs to be heaped on the offensive line. Starters James Hansen, Zach Zephier, Dennis McDaniel, Cody Bier and Kirk Byrd and a few key backups did a great job run blocking one week after a spectacular pass-blocking performance. I'm sure the guys up front are happy about springing a pair of 100-yard rushers, especially in the fashion that it happened. DWU flat-out wore down Dana's defense and did a good job of putting the game far out of reach with its dominant running performance in the second half.

The defense also continues to show improvement and a flair for big plays. A week ago, Eric Adolph's 40-yard interception return for a TD put away the Prairie Wolves, and Saturday it was the defense that got the scoring started. Daniel Wysong scooped up a fumble, then during the return he flipped the ball back to Ryan Deibert who took it the rest of the way for an early Wesleyan lead. The Tigers did a good job of making life difficult for four-year starting QB Marcus Sladek and company, and for the third-straight game DWU didn't allow its opponent to rush for 100 yards as a team. In two games, the Tigers have allowed just two touchdowns and a field goal, and one of the touchdowns was aided by two 15-yard penalties and the other came in the final minute of Saturday's blowout. If the Tigers can keep holding teams to 7-10 points, the wins should keep coming.

Saturday's game against Hastings will be a huge test for the Tigers, and it's exciting to have such a big game on our home field. But we'll worry about looking ahead later in the week. For now, it's time to just enjoy being 2-1 and headed in the right direction.

Super Saturday

The footbal team wasn't the only Tiger team to earn a win Saturday. DWU volleyball got its first home win in a nonconference sweep of overmatched Presentation. Things were sort of sloppy in the first game (at the scorer's table as well as on the court), but it was fun to see the Tigers play really well in games two and three to win convincingly (25-14 and 25-11) to put away the Saints. Maria Wieneke had a great hitting performance -- it seemed like anytime she had a chance for a kill, she put it down. Also, DWU was able to use its bench and a lot of girls contributed to the win. Click here to read the recap.

Both soccer teams also played well Saturday. The men won a heated game against Midland Lutheran, 4-1, and one particular stretch in the second half stood out. Jordan Werner made a great diving save on a Warriors' penalty kick, and the Tiger defense survived another strong MLC rush in which it looked certain the Warriors would pull within 2-1. Instead, DWU kept them off the board, and followed with a goal from Matt Dutt just a few minutes later to really swing the momentum. Midland Lutheran eventually did score, but DWU answered right back again for a nice finishing touch to a solid home win. Read the recap here.

The women's team also played well in a 3-1 loss. DWU held a distinct advantage in most of the statistical categories, but the bounces didn't go their way. It's probably frustrating for the young Tigers to play so well and still come up short on the scoreboard, but they should take solace in the fact that they're clearly moving in the right direction, and with experience and improvement, those bounces will start going their way and the wins will start to come. It's all part of growing as a program. The recap from Saturday's game is here.

This week

It's actually kind of a light week for DWU sports in Mitchell. Men's golf is on the road today and tomorrow, volleyball travels to Morningside Wednesday, women's golf is at Hastings Thursday and volleyball is at York Friday. The only home events for the week are football and soccer on Saturday, and the cross country team returns to action Saturday at Dakota State.

There's also a pretty big baseball series going on at the Metrodome this week in case you haven't heard. I'll be glued to FSN Tuesday-Thursday while monitoring the Tigers on the road.

Quesitons?

If you have a question about Tiger athletics or an idea for me to address in the blog, either write it in the "comments" section, or send me an e-mail at mhiggin@dwu.edu. I'd be glad to answer or address any items that reach my inbox.

Friday night update

2008-09-19T18:47:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to check in with two big items before a busy day on Saturday.

I didn't want you to think I was forgetting to preview this weekend's football game at Dana, but I was working on a new feature for the football Web site, so I wanted to wait until that was up and running before I plugged it.

Each week I put together a DWU Football Gameday preview for the media to use in preparation for each game, and I wanted to make those available to everyone on the Web site. Our Web guru, Dave VerSteeg, has put a new graphic on the Tiger Football home page, and if you click on it, it will bring up the most recent Gameday preview. Click here to see the new feature. The document includes a look ahead at Saturday's game, complete two-deep rosters for each team, complete DWU stats and both team and individual stat comparisons with the opponent, news and notes, GPAC schedules, standings and results, and a look at the NAIA Top 25 Coaches' Poll (which notably features the Tigers this week under "Also Receiving Votes").

Also, Dave will be adding a link for each preview to the schedule page (click here) so you can go back and look at all of them at any point during the season.

So for my take on tomorrow's big game at Dana, check out the new Gameday preview feature on our site, or click here to read my official release on the game. I really don't have any additional analysis other than what's in those two pieces, other than the Tigers have to approach this game with the same gusto as their home opener a week ago. Dana is coming off a 70-0 thrashing from Sioux Falls, so if DWU can get them down early, they might go in the tank again. This will be a good test for the Tiger secondary. Dana's QB, four-year starter Marcus Sladek, is one of the GPAC's most experienced signal callers, so DWU will need to bring some heat and blanket the Vikings' wideouts. Also, if Tiger junior QB Jon Doom (three-year starter) outplays Sladek, it will really tip the scales in DWU's favor. Look for the Tigers to also try to establish the run more than they have in either game thus far, largely due to the fact that Dana gave up over 350 yards and 10 touchdowns on the ground last week. A little balance will go a long way...

DWU, Baseley win again

The Tiger women are victorious again after obliterating the field at the Briar Cliff Invite this week. DWU beat the runner up -- NCAA D1 South Dakota -- by 44 shots (658-702) this time for another convincing win.

DWU junior Kelli Baseley won medalist honors for the fourth time this season with a 154, and teammates Danielle Bellet (2nd, 160) and Carly Hayes (4th, 167) joined her in the top five. Click here to read my release, and click here to see the complete results.

This blog is barely a week old, and I feel like I've already written this a million times, but it's really amazing what Adam Anderson's teams are accomplishing this season. And next week I'll be doing some research to see if any DWU golfer has put together the kind of season Kelli Baseley is having. She's the Tiger Woods of small-college women's golf in the tri-state area, except without the knee problems.

Fore!

2008-09-19T07:30:00.000-07:00

Thursday, the DWU men's golf team proved that their 12-shot conference lead couldn't be simply chalked up to home-course advantage at the first GPAC Men's Golf Qualifier. Instead, the Tigers actually increased their lead over the rest of the league with another great team performance in Lincoln, Neb.

The men shot a 297, with all five golfers in the 70s. Brett Abbots led the field with a 72, Nick Gates (the overall leader) tied for second with a 73, Andrew Farrand shot a 75, Chris Pritchard shot a 77 and Tyler Evenson carded a 79. For the complete results, click here to read the release, click here for the second-round scores and click here for the GPAC totals after 36 holes.

The Tigers now lead second-place Nebraska Wesleyan by 19 shots, and they're at least 36 shots ahead of anyone else. DWU is set up pretty nicely for a run at another league title.

Also in golf action Thursday, the DWU women ran out to a huge lead after the first 18 holes at the 36th Briar Cliff University Lila Frommelt Classic. The Tigers shot a 333, and are 19 shots ahead of second-place Baker University heading into today's final round.

It's no surprise that DWU junior Kelli Baseley has a 5-shot lead over the rest of the field after shooting a 76 Thursday. Baseley has played in four tournaments this year -- she's been the medalist three times and the runner-up once. Teammates Dani Bellet (3rd, 83) and Carly Hayes (4th, 84) join Baseley in the top five. Click here for results, and check the athletics home page tonight or tomorrow for the final results and a wrap-up.

Bittersweet opener

The Tiger volleyball team finally hosted a home match Wednesday against Mount Marty after playing 14 straight on the road to open the season. It was a festive night inside Fosness Arena, but the Lancers stole a 3-1 GPAC victory to put a bit of a damper on the whole evening. Click here to read the recap from the match, because I'd rather use this space to talk about the atmosphere.

As usual, the gym was completely packed for the Tigers' match. The volleyball team is one of only two teams (wrestling) that actually play their home events on campus, and that seems to really affect the student turnout at games. The DWU section was great in this one, complete with body-painted fans and plenty of cheers and chants.

Now, the only trick is figuring out the best way to mobilize this kind of fan support to the teams that play in off-campus venues in Mitchell. The crowd at the first football game was great, and a few basketball crowds were really impressive a year ago, but those sports just don't have the same consistent crowds the volleyball team does. Winning helps, but even that isn't the whole answer.

Busy weekend

Three Tiger teams host home games Saturday. The volleyball team is back on its home floor Saturday with a varsity-only, nonconference match against Presentation at 1 p.m., and the men's and women's soccer teams host Midland Lutheran College at Cadwell Park. The women's game is at 1 p.m. with the men to follow at 3 p.m.

DWU also goes for another football victory with a GPAC game at Dana Saturday. Catch Tim Smith's broadcast live on KMIT.com.

Tigers in the news

DWU men's golf is prominently featured on the GPAC site today. Click here to read about Thursday's qualifier and click here to read about Abbots and Baseley earning Golfer-of-the-Week honors. Also, The Daily Republic's story about the Golfers-of-the-Week is here and click here to read the paper's story from Wednesday's volleyball home opener.

Just for the heck of it, here's one more story I found amusing as a Packer fan. My how things can change in a few weeks' time.

Good luck to all the Tiger teams this weekend.

DWU Doubles up

2008-09-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

More good news today for the Dakota Wesleyan University men's and women's golf teams. The GPAC announced this morning that Tiger senior Brett Abbotts is the GPAC Men's Golfer-of-the-Week and junior Kelli Baseley is the Women's Golfer-of-the-Week.

After doing some research on the GPAC site, a team has only swept men's and women's golfer-of-the-week honors three times since the weekly awards began, and all three times that school has been ... you guessed it ... Dakota Wesleyan. Also, the last time it happened, Abbotts was the men's winner.

Congrats to both golfers for their awards. If you want to read more click here for the men's golf page and here for the women's golf page. The stories should be on our site sometime this afternoon. Both had some great things to say about how they played so well last week to earn the GPAC awards.

Hemenway a Hall-of-Famer

More congratulations are in order for DWU head men's basketball coach John Hemenway. This weekend, Hemenway will be inducted into the Coyote Sports Hall of Fame for his outstanding basketball career at the University of South Dakota.

Hemenway was a two-time All-Conference performer and an All-Region selection for the Coyotes. A point guard, Hemenway is still fourth on the school's career assists list. For those of you who know what kind of coach Hemenway is, it probably doesn't surprise you at all that he was also proficient at running an offense on the floor at the college level as well.

Hemenway will be honored at a reception Saturday morning in Vermillion, and again during a halftime ceremony of the Coyotes' football game that afternoon. If you want to read more, click here for our press release and here for another story, complete with Hemenway quotes, from Leah Rado at The Daily Republic.

Following up...

2008-09-16T10:57:00.000-07:00

Quick follow-up on my post from earlier today.

When I was typing about the Tigers' passing attack, I forgot to give a lot of credit to the immaculate pass protection from the offensive line. Cody Bier, Kirk Byrd, James Hansen, Dennis McDaniel, Zach Zephier and company gave Doom all the time he needed to pick apart the Prairie Wolves. Job well done by the guys up front.

Also...wanted to open your eyes to some other blogs about DWU sports:

Click here to read the Tiger Football Blog. Great insight from head coach Brad Pole, and it offers tons of resources for the players' parents to connect and stay in touch.

Click here to read the DWU Men's Golf Blog, maintained by senior captain Brett Abbotts. Definitely fun to read about the defending GPAC champs through the eyes of a player.

Have a great Tuesday, and hope to see you at the Wellness Center on Wednesday to finally cheer our volleyball team on at home after opening with 14 road games!

What a weekend

2008-09-16T08:42:00.000-07:00

What a weekend it was (including Monday) for DWU athletics. The football team rolled in its home opener, the golf keeps keep dominating, the women's soccer team continues to make 2008 its best season ever and the men's soccer and volleyball teams went toe-to-toe with some of the top teams in the NAIA. It's been really fun to be a Tiger fan over the last week.

Saturday's football home opener was the most complete performance by Dakota Wesleyan in my one-plus seasons around the team. Nebraska Wesleyan was essentially ranked No. 26 in the preseason (the first team receiving votes) and the Tigers dismantled them. The game wasn't even as close as the 27-7 score, because DWU could have come up with points on a pair of first-quarter drives as well.

Junior QB Jon Doom looked every bit like a third-year starter Saturday. From my perspective, Doom did it all. He picked apart NWU's secondary all day and made pretty much all the throws you could ask a quarterback to make. He was razor-sharp in the short passing game, and the two times DWU took shots downfield, Doom lofted perfect spirals that hit junior WR Bubba Slaba in stride for a 56-yard gain and a 50-yard touchdown. Tiger fans are fortunate that high school teammates Doom and Slaba decided to bring their aerial attack to DWU.

The Tigers also learned their lesson about turnovers on both sides of the ball. The offense didn't give it to NWU even once, and the DWU defense came up with three big interceptions -- two by Mitchell native Ryan Wagner and one by senior CB Eric Adolph. Adolph's was the back breaker. He jumped a route on the NWU sideline, picked off the pass and raced 40 yards for the Tigers' final TD of the day. Adolph watches as much film as anyone, so I wasn't surprised to see him step in front of that pass like he knew what the play call was.

The TD was a fitting way for the defense to cap off a fine perfromance. They could have been looking at a shutout if it wasn't for a pair of 15-yard penalties, including a questionable, drive-changing facemask on a sack, on the Prairie Wolves' lone scoring drive. There is just so much improvement in the defense from a year ago. It was fun to watch the improvement -- especially in the tackling -- on Saturday.

Look for a better preview of this Saturday's game against Dana later in the week, but if DWU can win on the road this weekend, it will be the first time since the GPAC started that DWU would have a record above .500 in conference play.

DYNASTY?

After one GPAC Qualifier apeice, the Tiger men's and women's golf teams have a huge lead in the conference standings. The men will try to make a 12-shot advantage stand up over the final three qualifiers, and the women are 18 strokes ahead of the field following Monday's meet in Sioux City. Adam Anderson's program, both genders, are clearly becoming the class of the conference.

It's interesting, becuase golf isn't usually thought of as a team sport, but it's clear that at DWU the Tigers approach each season with a team-first attititude, and it's paying off.

However, that doesn't mean that the golfers aren't doing phenomenal as individuals as well. Mitchell native Nick Gates is tied for the GPAC lead in the men's standings, and the other four Tigers are all in the top 10. Freshman phenom Dani Bellet shot a 76 Monday to take a four-shot lead over the women's field. However, Bellet might have to hold off teammate Kelli Baseley, who is tied for second with an 80 and has already won medalist honors three times this fall. Another Tiger, Heather Love, is in fourth with an 82.

If DWU's teams continue to play to their potential, it might not be a question of whether they win the conference, but by how many strokes, and which Tiger comes out on top individually.

WOMEN'S SOCCER MAKES HISTORY

Congrats to Coach Dale Roden and the Tiger women's soccer team for tying the school record for wins in a season (3) and already scoring the most goals in a season in school history (16). The record-setting goal came in the form of a game-winner Monday afternoon in a 2-1 win at the University of Great Falls. Sophomore Ellie Peterson (MF) scored both goals in the victory and Danielle Richardson earned the win in goal.

While it might seem on the surface like these acheivements aren't that impressive, they really signify a huge leap forward for the program. In just six games the team has already won more games (3-2) and scored more goals (16-9) than it did in 18 games a year ago. It's not just improvement ... it's dramatic improvement, and it really seems like the fourth-year program is really taking flight.

TIGERS IN THE NEWS

Here are some links to DWU stories and news.

Click here to read Daily Republic sports editor Leah Rado's story from Saturday's football game, and click here to read her column about how an actual win was much better than a moral victory on Saturday.

Click here for the story on DWU's performance at the first GPAC Women's Golf Qualifier, and click here to read more about the women's soccer team's win on Monday. Good stuff from both coaches in each story.

Also, this is a must read for Tiger sports fans. Click here to read an opinion piece from The Daily Republic about DWU athletes making a difference in the community. It's great to see that people are taking notice of all the good things our teams are doing, on and off the field.

THIS WEEK

Wednesday

Volleyball, home vs. Mount Marty, varsity at 7:30 p.m.

Women's soccer at Dordt, 2:30 p.m.

Men's soccer at Dordt, 5 p.m.

Thursday

Men's golf at Doane

Women's golf at Briar Cliff

Friday

Women's golf at Briar Cliff

It's finally kickoff...

2008-09-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

Hello, Tiger fans. This is my first official blog post on DWU Tiger Talk, which will be my spot to write a little more creatively and in-depth about the world of Dakota Wesleyan University athletics. Check back often to see how our teams and individuals are doing in the GPAC and the NAIA.

It's been quite the week in the Dakota Wesleyan University athletics department. We hosted a home cross country meet last Friday, the first GPAC Men's Golf Qualifier last Saturday and a two-day women's golf meet Monday and Tuesday. However, it will really feel like fall season is in full swing tomorrow when the Tiger football team kicks off their first home game.

DWU hosts "Battle of the Wesleyans" tomorrow when Nebraska Wesleyan University rolls into Mitchell for a crucial GPAC game. It should be a big game in the standings as both teams will fight for position in the league's upper-middle class all season, but it's just as big for both teams' confidence. The Tigers opened last weekend with a 31-7 loss at No. 7 Morningside, and NWU had the good fortune of facing No. 2 Sioux Falls, one of the NAIA's powerhouse programs, in its home opener. The Cougars took down the Prairie Wolves, 35-0.

A few things to watch in tomorrow's game...

-The turnover battle. DWU was -4 against the Mustangs last Saturday, and the two clear differences in the loss were turnovers and Morningside's big plays in the passing game. Junior QB Jon Doom needs to do a better job taking care of the football (5 int last week), but he also won't be facing the Mustangs' stud secondary again. Look for Doom to bounce back and play with the confidence of a third-year starter tomorrow in front of the home fans, and look for the Tigers to try to force a few more takeaways on defense. They learned a valuable lesson about turnovers a week ago.

-Experience on defense. DWU is a relatively young team, but it has several key seniors and returners back on defense. Seniors Daniel Wysong (LB), Kyle Meier (DL), Ryan Deibert (S), Eric Adolph (CB) and Steve Viereck (CB) are all impact players in the Tigers' 3-3-5 defense, and if they play well tomorrow, look for the team's talented youngsters to follow their lead.

-Options in the backfield. Last week, sophomore RB Raymond "Boogie" Blossom was the workhorse in the backfield, with 22 carries for 90 yards and the Tigers' lone TD. This week, expect to see more of Boogie, but also look for more production out of USD transfer Jim Williams. The Alexandria native was eased into the game plan in Week 1, but its no secret that Williams can be a difference maker in the GPAC, and he and Blossom could become the exceptional "Thunder & Lightning" tandem that Tiki Barber and Ron Dayner never were.

Right now it feels like the calm before the storm. We've been prepping all week for tomorrow's big game and Football Alumni Reunion, and now all that's left is to watch the time tick by until kickoff. Hope to catch you at Quintal tomorrow, and if not, tune into KMIT, or catch The Daily Republic's Web cast.

QUICK HITS

-How 'bout that DWU men's golf team. In the history of the program, the best team score the Tigers have ever turned in is a 289, in 2006. In DWU's last two meets, the men equaled that score, and came close to going even lower. GPAC schools are going to have a tough time de-throning Adam Anderson's crew as the league champs. Upperclassmen Brett Abbotts and Nick Gates (the Co-GPAC Player of the week) have played great golf thus far, and Anderson is really pleased with the continual development of standout freshman Andrew Farrand. The team definitely misses graduated Tom Hoek, but Farrand has filled in just fine thus far. This weekend will be one of the team's biggest measuring sticks as it plays against an absolutely loaded field at the Mount Mercy tournament in Iowa.

-Speaking of golf, Kelli Baseley has been absolutely on fire for the women's team. The Tiger junior has been the individual medalist at all three tournaments the team has played in this fall. Her most impressive outing came this week, when she rallied from a shot back after 18 holes to cruise to victory at the Lady Tiger Fall Invite. In the process, she also led the DWU team past USD and USF for the team title. Winning is always fun, but it seems to be even better when DWU comes out on top against other teams from The Mount Rushmore State.

-The DWU volleyball team is on the road again to finish off a killer stretch away from home. The team will play four matches at a tournament in Hastings, Neb., this weekend to end its 14-game road trip to start the season. For you Minnesota baseball fans, that's the same amount of games as the Twins just played on the road when they had to leave town for the Republican National Convention (I would've left town, too...). The Tigers are FINALLY home Wednesday against Mount Marty College at 7:30 p.m., and it's possible that first-year coach Eric Viney and his team will take a cue from Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and open the game by yelling, "There's no place like home," in the pregame huddle. At least things will come full circle in October, when DWU plays nine games on its home court and 10 games in Mitchell.

-The Tiger soccer teams both head west this weekend for their final nonconference games before GPAC play begins. The DWU men lost a 5-0 game at Westminster College in Salt Lake City this afternoon, and it has another really tough game Sunday against Embry Riddle (Ariz.). The women's team, which has already equaled last year's win total, is at Rocky Mountain College on Saturday. both soccer teams have played well and been in some really exciting games in the season's opening weeks.

Good luck to all the Tiger teams this weekend, and let's all cheer for a victory against Alex Linden's alma mater and current employer tomorrow!