Worldly Bulldog women’s hockey team set for St. Lawrence series
If last season proved anything to the UMD women’s hockey team it was to shoot for the sky, because even the loftiest of projections is not out of reach.
Year 2 starts this weekend, and when St. Lawrence comes to the DECC to take on the Bulldogs Friday and Saturday nights it will be some evidence of how much difference a year makes. Especially when it’s a spectacular, league-championship, final-four type year.
None of the nation’s established eastern colleges wanted to venture out west to play a small college in its first season, so UMD had to go east to play the top teams.
“We went out to Lake Placid for a tournament and we beat St. Lawrence out there,” said UMD coach Shannon Miller. “We beat ’em 3-1, but they were small and incredibly fast. They’re only about two hours from Montreal, and they’ve recruited seven or eight Canadian players, including a couple I tried to recruit.”
They would be defenseman Isabel Chartrand and large forward Gina Kingsbury. So, having reloaded an already-potent attack, and with appreciation for what Miller has built at UMD, St. Lawrence became the first of four eastern colleges more than willing to come to Duluth this year to engage one of the nation’s elite teams. ECAC powers New Hampshire, Harvard and Northeastern are scheduled to come to the DECC for consecutive UMD series in December and January.
“And Dartmouth wanted to come out and play us too, but we didn’t have any room on our schedule,” said Miller. “What a difference a year makes.”
St. Lawrence will be a stirring first test for the Bulldogs, who have to prove they can stay at last year’s high plane. And to do that, they’ll have to find enough goals to replace the 93 that Jenny Schmidgall figured in, with her 41 goals and 52 assists. Schmidgall is taking at least the first semester off to have a baby, although she is skating through some of the team’s lighter drills at practice, just to stay sharp.
“I think a lot of people will score on this team,” said Miller, after Monday’s typically high-spirited practice session. “Maria will score, Erika, Hanne, Sanna, HempelÂ…”
Deciphering the coach’s run of first, last and nicknames, she is counting on the international flavor of her Team World personnel: sophomores Maria Rooth and Erika Holst from Sweden, and Hanne Sikio and freshman Sanna Peura from Finland, plus Jenny Hempel fromÂ…Hopkins.
“Maria will shine, big time,” said Miller. “She and Erika are playing so well together. And Hanne is playing with a lot more confidence. Sanna has good hands and is making a very good complement to her linemates.”
Peura’s linemates are center Joanne Eustace and winger Sikio, while Holst centers Rooth and Hempel on another explosive unit.
“I think we have two lines that can score consistently,” said Miller, who learned last year that even the nation’s elite teams didn’t have more than two lines that could score, and few, if any, could stay with the Bulldog sharpshooters.
The Bulldogs have more depth than a year ago, and while freshman Sheena Podovinnikoff centers Laurie Alexander and Michelle McAteer for now, at least, the coach said she anticipates rotating several other players through on a fourth line.
Defensively, Thulla Puputti will be in goal, while defensive pairs are Brittny Ralph and Navada Russell, Pamela Pachal and freshman Satu Kiipeli from Finland, and Jessica Smith and Jenni Venho make up a third unit, with freshman Tricia Guest rotating in.
Miller said her most pleasant surprises in this, the team’s second training camp, have been the improvement shown by Finnish freshmen Peura and Kiipeli, and the individual effort that has been shown by Hempel and Shannon Mikel.
“The two Finns surprised me, not so much by how good they were, but by how much they’ve improved in the two weeks of camp,” Miller said. “And Hempel has proved that she worked so hard she’s pulled ahead of some of the players that were pretty even with her last year. Shannon, also, has worked hard and you can tell by how much she’s improved.”
The players seem to reflect Miller’s confidence and optimism.
“The new players look good, I think,” said Rooth, who is being counted on to improve on her lofty scoring totals of last year, when she was a freshman from Sweden. “They’re a little nervous right now, about the first game, but that’s how we were last year.”
If the rookies rise up to perform the way Rooth, Holst, Sikio and Puputti did last year in their transitional first season, the Bulldogs could, indeed, live up to their lofty expectations.
BULLDOG NOTES/Miller and her coaching staff, as well as players who started on the UMD club team, were shocked at the death of Julie Enberg last weekend. Enberg, 38, had coached the club team and remained as one of the staunch boosters of the team when it became a varsity squad last year. She was discovered last Saturday, having died in her sleep.
The freshmen are forwards Sheena Podovinnikoff from Kamsack, Saskatchewan and Sanna Peura from Jyvaskyla, Finland, defensemen Tricia Guest of Estevan, Saskatchewan, and Satu Kiipeli from Oulu, Finland, and goalie Patricia Sautter from Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
Concordia’s 1-2 punch overruns record-setting Bulldogs, 37-27
UMD’s football team was not erased from the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference championship picture by Saturday’s loss to Concordia of St. Paul, and it shouldn’t have even been a big surprise that the Golden Knights pinned a 37-27 setback on the Bulldogs. The surprise was how they did it.
UMD had a lot of big things going on its behalf. Ricky Fritz and Steve Battaglia dazzled a homecoming crowd of 4,632 at Griggs Field with an 85-yard touchdown pass on the first play of the game, and the pair of Bulldog sophomores went on to connect for three touchdowns and set three UMD school records in the game. UMD had the added incentive of trying to expand its own surprising 5-0 record, because the 1980 UMD team, including retired coach Jim Malosky, was introduced on the field at halftime, and that 10-0 team was the last Bulldog outfit to put up a perfect record.
Also, in case more incentive was required, Concordia had entered the Northern Sun last season, and the fledgling program had added some insult to UMD’s rebuilding-season injury with a 35-27 beating last season in St. Paul — an eerily similar score in the only previous meeting between the two.
But don’t blame the Bulldogs for faltering. Instead, give credit to Concordia for being by far the most impressive opponent UMD has faced this season. Quarterback Mike Allen and running back Chris Washington always elusive and almost always unstoppable for the Bulldog defense, but the Golden Knight defense completely stymied UMD running game that had been impressive enough to add balance to Fritz’s passing attack.
Allen, a 6-foot-2, 185-pound senior quarterback from St. Paul Central, and Washington, a 5-foot-9, 198-pound sophomore running back from Minneapolis North supplied the 1-2 punch that put Concordia in command by 30-14 at halftime, and ultimately left both teams tied at 3-1 in conference play and 5-1 overall. Concordia’s only loss came at Northern State, where UMD must go this weekend. Winona State remains unbeaten atop the NSIC.
Allen was 17-for-31 passing for 241 yards and two touchdowns, and he carried the ball 13 times for 114 total yards — including two more touchdowns, one a 56-yard back-breaker that built the Golden Knights lead to 37-14 to open the third quarter. He also was chased and caught enough times to reduce his net yards gained to 86 for the day, which still was impressive because it was second only to Washington’s 125 net yards on 31 rushes, scoring one touchdown and setting the stage for most of the others.
Either one compiled considerably more than UMD’s total team net rushing yardage as Concordia outgained UMD 231-13 on the ground. Erik Conner, who had been dominant for UMD in the past few games, and had credited his offensive lines for carving the generous holes through which he could run, carried only six times, with no holes, gaining two total yards and losing three for a net rushing figure of minus-1. “They were good, solid,” said Conner, who caught two passes for 14 yards while little-used Jared Murray of Hermantown was UMD’s top rusher with 18 net yards on three carries, including the only touchdown Fritz and Steve Battaglia didn’t record.
“We got lucky,” said Battaglia, from Cloquet, who plays one split end while his freshman brother,Tim Battaglia, plays flanker on the other side. “We hit a few big ones early. I was hoping they’d keep calling my nmber. I felt I had to take full advantage of any chances, because we had to have a little spark. We had a chance to come back in the fourth quarter.”
It appears Concordia, a school known for things other than football right up until last year, may be the large beneficiary of being the only college in the Twin Cities that awards scholarships, other than the University of Minnesota. Many of the best high school football players in the Twin Cities aren’t quite big enough or hefty enough to be recruited by the Gophers or other Division I colleges, and while many of them have made the trek to Fargo, as the nucleus of North Dakota State’s perennial Division II powerhouse.
Apparently, there are a few more around who might prefer to stay closer to home and can’t afford the numerous strong but costly Division III college programs from the MIAC, if Allen and Washington are examples.
“They were the toughest two players to contain for us this year, so far,” said UMD coach Bob Nielson. “They’re a good football team. They outplayed us and outcoached us a little today. They returned everybody from last year’s team, and their quarterback both ran and threw the ball well at critical times. We had enough opportunities, but we did a poor job of converting. I take the blame for that.”
Almost all of the opportunities were supplied by Fritz, despite being chased and hurried all day by Concordia’s defense.
“They were good — the best team we’ve played,” said Fritz, who could take no satisfaction from this two new scoring records. “We had to pass too much, and they were good both on offense and defense. They had big tackles, and they’d just anchor themselves and hunker down and we couldn’t run against them.”
Fritz, from Eden Prairie, set two school records — for pass attempts and passing yardage — while going 24-49 for 413 yards. His 49 throws broke Trevor Theelke’s record 42 attempts two years ago against Northern Michigan, and the 413 yards wiped out Theelke’s mark of 312 from that same game. Seven of his passes went to Steve Battaglia, who went the distance for touchdowns on three of them, and accumulated a school record 246 yards for the day. That obliterated the record set just last year b y Jeff Wenngatz, who gained 166 yards against Crookston. Battaglia also scored on a 63-yard pass from Fritz in the third quarter, and caught a 12-yard scoring pass to close the score from 37-14 to the final 37-27.
“In high school, I don’t think I ever broke 200,” said Battaglia. “But it turned out, we had to pass too much because they were so aggressive defensively. They’re underrated. They’re really a good team, the best team we’ve faced.”
While the Bulldogs still had a fleeting chance to continue their comeback on their two final drives in the fourth quarter, one ended when a third-down Fritz pass got away from Chris Walker in the end and a Cash Langeness field goal try was blocked, and the Knights defense ran the ‘Dogs out of downs on their final chance.
The big crowd expected big things, and got them, right at the start. After the opening kickoff, the Bulldogs stunned Concordia on the first play, when Fritz connected with Battaglia for an 85-yard touchdown strike. Just 26 seconds into the game, UMD led 7-0. If that put things in the proper festive atmosphere, it came while several hundred fans were still outside, trying to enter while ticket officials for some reason had closed off all but the one central gate.
By the time they got in, Concordia had started coming back. The UMD defense stiffened and forced the Golden Knights to settle for David Gottschalk’s 29-yard field goal, but the momentum already had switched sides. Concordia next moved in after a punt exchange and scored when Allen looked at a third-and-12 at the 16 and hit Brent Rohne over the middle for a touchdown.
That put Concordia up 10-7, and the Golden Knights were off and running. They stretched the lead to 16-7 on an 80-yard drive in the second quarter, with either Allen or Washington doing the running or passing on all 10 plays, and Washington going the final four yards for the touchdown.
UMD freshman Cash Langeness blasted off for a 62-yard kickoff return, which led to a 6-yard touchdown by Jared Murray, closing the gap to 16-14. But Concordia responded with another quick, 80-yard drive, capped by Allen’s 22-yard pass to Nick Johnson. Andrew Wood recovered the fumble when Fritz lost the ball trying to scramble free of the rush, and Concordia went in for Allen’s sneak from the one to gain the 30-14 halftime bulge.
“Whenever we scored touchdowns, they responded and scored themselves,” said Nielson. “When we get behind early, we are not going to be as effective, because we’re not the type of team that can throw every down. We got three scores down, and we never really got the chance to use the running game. We didn’t have time to hammer it in.”
Instead, they got hammered on.
(2000-2001 UMD hockey roster…)
2000-2001 UMd HOCKEY ROSTER
Goalies:
Rob Anderson, sophomore
Adam Coole, freshman
Jason Gregoire, sophomore
Defensemen:
Mark Carlson, junior
Adam Coole, senior
Jesse Fibiger, senior
Beau Geisler, sophomore
Jay Hardwick, freshman
Craig Pierce, senior
Andy Reierson, junior
Steve Rodberg, sophomore
Craig Weller, freshman
Forwards:
Nate Anderson, junior
Nick Anderson, freshman
Derek Derow, senior
Jon Francisco, sophomore
Ryan Homstol, senior
Mark Gunderson, senior
Chad Kolar, freshman
Junior Lessard, freshman
Matt Mathias, sophomore
Judd Medak, junior
Mike Miskovich, sophomore
Jim Murphy, freshman
Tom Nelson, junior
Drew Otten, sophomore
Jerrid Reinholz, freshman
Tyler Williamson, freshman
Conner sees homecoming as symbol of UMD’s ‘upside’ season
Every football team has an annual homecoming game, which usually involves something festive. UMD’s football team has homecoming this weekend, but for Erik Conner, the 3 p.m. Saturday game against Concordia of St. Paul is far more than just another game, or even just another homecoming.
And it’s not just that Concordia’s Golden Bears are better than most anticipated, having beaten previously undefeated Bemidji State last weekend to stand 2-1 in the Northern Sun Conference and 4-1 overall as a tough challenge to UMD’s perfect record. It’s more a personal matter for the players who have been here through UMD’s changing times.
“In my four years, I’ve seen the upside and the downside,” said Conner, a senior tailback from Milwaukee. “In every game, you approach it focused on one thing — to win the ball game. But as a senior on this team, this is not just a game, and not just a homecoming game. This one has a little extra incentive, because you’re not only playing for yourself and your team, but for all the UMD football players back through history.”
One of the historic celebrations of Saturday’s game will be a ceremony at halftime at Griggs Field to honor the 1980 Bulldog team, the only one that went undefeated and untied through a season, at 10-0-0. That’s perfect, to underscore the tradition Conner was talking about, and 20 years after the fact, the current UMD team stands 5-0.
Conner, a quick-cutting, 5-foot-10, 205-pounder who can hammer into the line or sprint to breakaway chances, is one of the primary reasons for the current “upside,” generating constant offensive threats as both a runner and receiver. He already has scored seven touchdowns, and is exactly 20 yards short of becoming the ninth Bulldog running back to reach 2,000 career rushing yards. But he suggests the guys from the 1980 team, and any of their fans who show up this weekend, had better be prepared for a different style of play from UMD.
“UMD football used to be run-run-run, and maybe pass three times a game,” said Conner, who has bridged the gap from the end of Jim Malosky’s successful reign, to the low times of the past two season, and now to the flashy style of Bob Nielson’s regime. “Look at us now — we’ve got a receiving corps with excellent hands and vision. We were scoring on some long plays, and the last couple of weekends we also proved we could control the ball.”
The current ups are amplified, Conner says, coming after some of the downs. Conner came in as a freshman, without much pressure, and had a big season. He never started a game, but he had 108 rushes for 610 yards, and nine touchdowns. “Coming out of high school, where I scored 19 touchdowns my senior year, I thought college would just be the next step,” Conner said. “And I had a good year, and the team chemistry was really there.”
That turned out to be Malosky’s last active year as coach, because the next year, 1998, Malosky was recovering from the effects of a stroke, and Vince Repesh and Jim Malosky Jr. co-coached the team through a dismal season. All year, Conner seemed like a lightning bolt waiting to show the striking power of his freshman year. But the strike never came. He started six games, had 134 rushing attempts, but gained only 435 yards, scored only five touchdowns, and never ran longer than 31 yards on any one play.
Last season, as a junior, Bob Nielson was the new coach, installing a new offense, and Conner started all 11 games. But the Bulldogs were still sputtering, and in 143 carries, Conner compiled 564 yards and scored only four touchdowns. He also was put to use as a pass receiver, and, after catching only four passes in each of his first two years, he caught 14 last year.
“Of course it was frustrating,” Conner said. “I expected better things as a sophomore, and then as a junior, and pretty soon you start to wonder. I never had any doubts about my own ability, but when you come out of a game and you’ve only gotten 50 yards, you wonder, ‘Could I have done something better?’ I always wanted to make sure I was keeping my side of the page up.”
Nielson, who said he was first impressed with Conner when he was coaching at Wisconsin-Eau Claire and preparing to face UMD, was well aware of both Conner’s potential and his frustrations. Malosky’s style, eminently successful, was to run the ball hard at opponents, passing only rarely, and when you ran, you ran the play as designed, at the hole, or else. That has changed, gradually at first, and now totally, under Nielson. The transition had to be at least as frustrating for the coach as the players last year.
“Last year, we had a hard time running the ball — period,” said Nielson. “In our system, the tailback carries the ball a lot. This year Erik is averaging 20 carries a game, and he’s the type of back who, the more he carries, the better he is. Also, the type of running game we run gives the back three directional choices, so Erik can pick his hole, and he’s a cutter, so he’s very well suited to what we’re doing.
“Also, our offensive line has gotten better. Even just over the course of this season, they’ve gotten much better.”
Nielson still has concerns about UMD’s consistency, but not with Conner, who has been the perfect model of consistency through the first five games. In beating Mankato, Conner carried 21 times for 63 yards and scored one touchdown. In beating St. Cloud State, Conner carried 22 times for 48 tough yards, but caught two passes, one that he turned into a 73-yard touchdown. In beating Crookston, Conner carried 20 times for 73 yards. On the road, UMD beat Southwest State 35-24 two weeks ago and Conner had 20 carries for 86 yards, and scored three touchdowns. Last week at Moorhead, Conner carried 20 times for 101 yards, including a 36-yard touchdown run.
Conner was quick to praise his linemen, who toil in comparative anonymity while quarterback Fritz and Conner get more of the glory roles.
“You’ve got to credit the whole line,” Conner said. “A running back can’t make any plays unless the linemen are performing. Execution had been one of our downfalls the last couple of years, and this year it’s one of our assets. As a running back, you can see the different mentality. When we get inside the 20 yard line, you line up next to a guy and the only question is, ‘Who’s going to win?’ When they open a hole, it makes my job easier, and when they see I can make something of the hole they make, it becomes something of a domino effect. We feed off each other.”
Nielson said Conner also has become a team leader. “He injured his ankle on the first play last Saturday, but he played the rest of the way on the sore ankle,” said Nielson. “That’s just one of the examples of the way he’s shown good leadership.”
Still, the Bulldogs realize Concordia won’t be easy.
“In this conference, every team can come out and give you a shot,” said Conner. “Last year, who would have thought we’d beat Winona State? We came into this season, and nobody expected much from us. So far, everything has gone great, and we feel that if we play our game, nobody can beat us.
“No matter what I do, one experience I will never forget, is playing football at UMD.”
Last year, in Concordia’s first year in the NSIC, the Golden Bears beat UMD 35-27 in their first and only meeting to date. But that was last year, and revenge will not be required for incentive this time around. It’s homecoming.
Sandelin agonizes over the difficulty of his first UMD hockey cuts
As excited as Scott Sandelin is to finally be a head coach in the WCHA, and to take on the challenge of rebuilding UMD’s hockey fortunes, he had to admit, Thursday afternoon, that it’s not all fun and games.
“This is the day you don’t like to be a coach,” said Sandelin, after he and assistants Steve Rohlik and Mark Strobel made the tough decisions and completed the cuts of the first team of their regime.
There were some surprises. John Conboy, a sophomore defenseman from Silver Bay who played some last season, was a victim of the cuts. So was Tim Schneider, a big, hopeful defenseman who spent last season practicing and hoping to earn a spot. Another was Mark Pohl, a big, likeable kid who redshirted last year as a freshman and worked hard all summer with his brother, Gopher star Johnny Pohl, in hopes he could improve his quickness enough to earn a spot.
Forward Dave Shields, a scholarship freshman recruited from Melville, Saskatchewan, also was cut. So were two Iron Rangers, Andy Sacchetti from Eveleth and Josh Miskovich from Greenway of Coleraine, both of whom accepted UMD offers before playing junior hockey last season in the USHL. Walk-ons Rheese Carlson, from Duluth East via the USHL, and Kyle Nosan were the other cuts, running the total to eight.
“We’ve got 28 players now, and I think we might carry 28,” said Sandelin, who carried out the moves he and his staff had promised, to rate everybody on performance in camp, not on reputation. “I spent a lot of time with my assistants discussing everybody, then we had to make the moves we thought were best, and move on.”
There also were some surprises who made the roster. Four walk-ons made the team. Defensemen Jay Hardwick, from Warroad by way of Lincoln in the USHL, and Tyler Williamson both made it, as did forwards Chad Kolar from Hibbing and Dubuque of the USHL, and Jim Murphy.
“The Hardwick kid played very well and was a pleasant surprise,” said Sandelin. “The biggest surprise of those defensemen is their consistency. Up front, Murphy did some good things, and Kolar seemed to have the puck a lot.”
Sandelin, however, was clearly moved by the emotional meetings he conducted with his staff and each player being dismissed.
“We all sat in there with the kids, one at a time,” Sandelin said. “There are a lot of quality kids there, first-class kids. I’m sure all of them were disappointed, and some of them might have been mad, but they all handled it with class.
“For some of them, like Shields, it probably hasn’t hit him yet. We’ve all been through it ourselves as players, whether in the pros or college, and it’s tough. But for some of them, as negative as it seems now, it could also be a positive for the future. Josh Miskovich, Sacchetti, and both Conboy and Pohl are still eligible to play junior. They need to be playing, more games, and gaining more experience. From our standpoint, we’ll do everything we can to help them get onto a USHL team.”
Players who leave college to play junior could return to the same college and play, but would have to sit out a year if they went to a different college to play.
“The bottom line is, you’ve got to be able to make some tough decisions,” said Sandelin. “Then you make ’em, move on, and live with it.”
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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