BCS formula upset on final weekend
Football is
bowled over
The college football Bowl Championship Series (BCS) could have been neatly packaged if either Kansas State or UCLA — but not both — had won last Saturday. That winner would play unbeaten and No. 1 Tennessee for a unanimously acclaimed NCAA championship in the Fiesta Bowl.
Instead, No. 2 Kansas State lost a 36-33 thriller in two overtimes to Texas A & M, and No. 3 UCLA lost an equally phenomenal game, 49-45 to Miami, throwing the bowl games into chaos, and exposing the BCS for having a needless middle initial.
Voters should treat the full season increasingly in perspective as the season progresses, when calculating recent results, but recent results always take precedent. Florida State and Ohio State, both idle, vaulted past both Kansas State and UCLA to No. 2 and No. 3 behind unbeaten Tennessee, bumping Kansas State to No. 4 and UCLA to No 6. Why? Because voters demoted K-State and UCLA for the immediacy of their losses. Tennessee was lucky, staying unbeaten at No. 1 only by scoring the last two touchdowns Saturday to beat No. 25 Mississippi State 24-14.
Florida State, Ohio State, Kansas State and UCLA all have lost just once. Kansas State lost to No. 8 and very potent Texas A & M. UCLA lost another thriller, 49-45 to steadily improving No. 24 Miami. Florida State was idle, and its loss was long enough ago that voters may have forgotten that it came at the hands of unranked North Carolina State. Ohio State, also idle, lost previously to unranked Michigan State.
If we wait a few weeks — until around the first of the year — and reviewed the season, we might say that the best of all those once-beaten teams is Kansas State, simply because its loss was to the highest-ranked opponent. UCLA might rank next, followed by Florida State or Ohio State, about dead-even.
The actual bowl scene shows Tennessee-Florida State in the Fiesta, UCLA-Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, Ohio State-Texas A & M in the Sugar Bowl; and twice-beaten Florida vs. thrice-beaten Syracuse in the Orange Bowl. And Kansas State? K-State gets relegated to the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio against Purdue. Purdue!
Wouldn’t it be great to see Tennessee-Kansas State in the Fiesta for the title? How about Florida State-Texas A & M in a killer Orange Bowl? A UCLA-Ohio State shootout would make a great Sugar Bowl, while Arizona could play Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.
Resurgent Greyhounds face long game
Duluth East’s rugged schedule, which included two early losses to Twin Cities powers Elk River and Hill-Murray, did not cause coach Mike Randolph to divert his gaze from the overall picture. Playing a lot of players should pay rich dividends in the next couple of weeks, when the schedule remains difficult but the games actually get longer.
The Greyhounds are taking advantage of the state high school league’s allowance to experiment with longer periods during two holiday games, and next Tuesday’s game at Edina will feature 20-minute periods instead of the normal 15 minutes.
“We’re going to play 20-minute periods in our game against Apple Valley during the holiday break too,” said Randolph.
Other big games Up North this weekend include Hibbing (5-1) at Greenway (3-1) in a Saturday night special. Grand Rapids journeys to Edina and Bloomington Jefferson for a Friday-Saturday 1-2 punch. And in girls hockey, Bemidji plays the Duluth Dynamite Saturday at 1 p.m. in Pioneer Hall. Bemidji traveled to Hibbing for a Friday night game, and Hibbing comes right back to play Apple Valley at 3 p.m. Saturday in a rematch of last year’s state championship game — a 1-0 classic Apple Valley victory in overtime.
The East boys spent a few games finding themselves, but seemed to click into focus in Tuesday’s 6-1 triumph over Cloquet at the DECC.
“We’d been playing in spurts, but that was the first time we put everything together,” said Randolph, whose team also played at Silver Bay Thursday night and goes to Moorhead this weekend (Saturday) before heading for Edina.
“We used four lines most of the way against Cloquet, and it was the best we’ve moved without the puck and to support the puck. We made a lot of little 5-foot passes.”
East got Mark Anunti back from a season-starting injury, which bolstered the defense, but then the ‘Hounds lost sophomore defenseman Jon Hedberg on a heavy hit against Superior. Randolph moved some players around to fill and the response showed flashes the coach hopes will recur.
The Greyhounds anticipated a rugged test from Cloquet, but the Lumberjacks had their own personnel problems, with injuries as well as with the suspension of junior forward Nate Cary for disciplinary reasons. Coach Tom MacFarlane wouldn’t discuss particulars, but said team rules are stronger than the state guideline of two-weeks for such a suspension. He also shifted junior forward Alan Baltes back to defense and called up sophomore Travis Denzel and junior Ryan Lee, both forwards, from JV for the game.
“East played well, but maybe we let them play well,” said MacFarlane. “We were very tentative in the first period, when I thought our veteran players stood around and our younger players played well. We need to finish our checks against East because we can’t go 1-on-1 against them.”
The 6-1 game had an unusual start. Casey Gillman rushed in from the right corner at 5:16 of the first period and the left-handed shooter snapped a wide-angle shot from 15 feet away while skating near the goal-line. Cloquet goaltender Adam Laaksonen was in position, the puck hit high in the netting, causing the water bottle on top of the goal to move slightly, then rebounded straight back at Gillman.
The officials ruled it a goal, but there was no goal judge. It appeared from behind the net that the puck hit the outside of the net, just under the upper bar, which caused the net to tighten enough to wiggle the water bottle. Others said the shot hit the water bottle, but as deep as Gillman was when he shot, the puck would only have had the angle to fit into the far side, just inside the pipe, if Laaksonen had left an opening. The puck would have had to make a 90-degree turn to strike the water bottle, and if it had, it couldn’t possibly have ricocheted straight back at Gillman.
Regardless, it didn’t matter in the outcome. East jumped ahead 3-0 by outshooting the Lumberjacks 16-1 in the period, and wound up with a 41-16 edge in shots for the game. All five of the other East goals were hockey equivalents of basketball slam-dunks: Charlie Norris rapped in Gillman’s pass out from behind; freshman Nick Licari smacked in a Zach Burns pass; Licari scored again after Ross Carlson raced up the right boards and cut for the net before passing to the crease; Nick Serre banged in Chad Roberg’s pass from the left corner, Roberg’s third assist of the night; and Roberg scored after Serre’s power-play set-up at the left edge.
Licari, an impressive ninth-grader, brought the proper jersey to the game. When the ‘Hounds played at Grand Rapids last week, he forgot the black jersey, so, by team rules, he had to sit out one period. “We let him play one period of the JV game,” said Randolph. “He scored on the first shift, and got two goals in that period.”
Roberg, incidentally, learned a year ago that he’s cousins with brothers Johnny and Jim Rodberg of Denfeld, and wih Stu and Steve Rodberg of Proctor, as well. When Roberg’s ancestors first came to Minnesota from Sweden, “they left the ‘d’ off in spelling their name in English,” Roberg said. When other ancestors came to the area, the spelling remained with the “d.”
Speaking of brothers, Cloquet’s Miah Snesrud, whose brother Mat is a sophomore at Michigan Tech, got Cloquet’s goal from behind the goal when he banked a hard pass in off goalie Dan Hoehne’s skate.
Angie Francisco stars for Harvard
Angie Francisco took heart to Harvard
By John Gilbert
Up North Newspaper Network
Here’s a hockey quiz with a twist: Identify the hustling, tenacious player who figured in a key goal leading to a victory at Mariucci Arena last weekend. Hint: This player once skated on the Duluth Stewart’s A Peewee team that won the state A Peewee championship.
The obvious answer is Dave Spehar, but it could also be Dylan Mills, or Nick Angell, or even Chris Locker, all former Duluth East stars now on the University of Minnesota men’s roster. The twist to the question is that the Gopher men’s team didn’t get any victories last week, suffering 7-1 and 6-1 shellackings against Colorado College.
The surprise answer to the quiz is Angie Francisco, who assisted on the first goal when Harvard spanked Minnesota 3-1 in the All-American Women’s tournament at Mariucci Arena last week. Francisco doesn’t just play for Harvard. Last season, when she scored the first goal in Harvard’s 3-2 victory over the Gophers, Francisco went on to score 21 goals and 36 assists for 57 points. That not only made her Harvard’s leading scorer as a freshman, it set a Harvard single-season women’s scoring record, and it made it difficult to believe she hadn’t played hockey for the five previous years.
Eight years ago, she moved up from playing on boys youth teams at Lower Chester to make the A Peewee boys traveling team, which included current Gophers Spehar and Chris Locker (“I let them do the scoring,” Francisco said). Stewart’s beat a Bloomington Jefferson team which included Toby Petersen and Ben Clymer, en route to the state title, and the nucleus of that Stewart’s team was transformed into a state high school championship team at East four years later.
By then, Francisco had quit playing hockey. She is excited that Minnesota now has 98 girls high school varsity teams, even though there are only two in Duluth — one that draws from East, Central and Denfeld and another with players from Marshall, Proctor and Hermantown. The fact that the Dynamite (East-Central-Denfeld) team opened with a 22-0 victory at Eveleth might indicate it’s time to split into separate programs. But two teams in Duluth is far better than none, which is what Minnesota had for girls in Angie’s high school years.
The year after being a state boys Peewee champ, she stopped playing hockey in eighth grade. Not that she was inactive. She made the East softball varsity from eighth grade on — lettering five years in the sport — while adding basketball in ninth grade and volleyball in 10th. She was a forward-guard in basketball, outside hitter in volleyball, and prefers middle infield in softball.
Still, she loved hockey, and came about it naturally. Her dad is Pat Francisco, who was a star winger back in Huffer Christiansen’s era when UMD started playing as a Division I program and the “Duluth Arena” was brand new. It took the same kind of determination she shows in battling to the front of opposing goals to get herself lined up to play for coach Katey Stone, Harvard’s fifth-year coach.
“I probably didn’t skate more than once or twice a year from eighth grade on through high school,” Angie Francisco said. “I watched a women’s tournament in the Twin Cities, and I talked to coach Stone. I told her I’d really like to get back into the game, and she gave me a chance to apply to Harvard. But I didn’t get accepted. Coach Stone suggested that I should go to a year of post-graduate school, and I went to Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., for a year, even though it didn’t seem like a good idea to me at the time.”
Meanwhile, she contacted UMD assistant men’s coach Jim Knapp about off-season conditioning.
“Angie came to me and said she wanted to play college hockey, and wondered what she could do,” said Knapp. “She skated through our summer ‘Quick’ program for two years. It involves a lot of hard work and no games, and she really worked hard.”
At Andover, Francisco practiced with the boys hockey team. Then she and her dad learned that the University of Minnesota was starting a women’s hockey program, and got excited about the possibility that she could play in her home state.
“I talked to Laura when she got the Minnesota job,” said Angie. “But she didn’t really show any interest in me.”
Her dad was quietly steamed about Minnesota ignoring a homestate player while combing the continent to give scholarships for first-year players. Angie stresses that she always wanted to go to Harvard, and now knows that it was the best decision she ever made in her life. But when Harvard played Minnesotalast year, did she have a little extra incentive?
“Definitely,” Angie said, with a flash of competitive fire in her eyes.
Her dad hasn’t stopped smiling since a year ago, when Angie scored the first goal and led Harvard to a 3-2 victory over Minnesota. That smile was reinforced last week, when the Francisco family pretty well filled up a section at Mariucci for the rematch at the All-America Women’s tournament. Harvard won again, 3-1, and again Francisco figured in the first goal. “We were on the power play, and I took a swipe at the rebound before we scored, so I got an assist, I guess,” she said.
Try as she might, however, Francisco couldn’t downplay her role in the victory or on the Crimson team. She is a strong, aggressive skater, she positions herself and won’t be pushed away from the crease, and she always seems to be in the midst of the action. After assisting on Jennifer Botterill’s opening goal at Minnesota last week, she remained a key performer as Harvard outshot the Gophers 38-19. But it was 2-1 until 11 seconds remained, and Angela Ruggiero broke up the right side, heading toward the empty Minnesota net. Speedy freshman Laura Slominski was the only Gopher with a chance to cut off Ruggiero’s rush up the right side, but that chance evaporated when Francisco veered just slightly to get in Slominski’s path for a moment — just enough to give Ruggiero a clear shot at the open net for the clinching goal.
Harvard came into the tournament ranked No. 5 in the country and Minnesota was No. 4. After also whipping Minnesota State-Mankato, Harvard vaulted from No. 5 to No. 2 behind New Hampshire. “That’s a lot more important than individual statistics,” said Angie Francisco, who is in the process of rewriting Harvard’s record book on such statistics, and is certain she is in the right place at the right time.
Eveleth-Gilbert rise to top rank
Eveleth-Gilbert tops regional ranking
By John Gilbert
Up North Newspaper Network
When the preseason forecast suggested that the Up North boys high school hockey teams might be the most balanced competitively in memory, it was also suggested that it would be amazing if any team went undefeated because of that parity.
After three weeks of the season, Eveleth-Gilbert and Silver Bay are the only Up North boys teams still unbeaten.
Eveleth’s Golden Bears, who rose to 5-0 with an impressive 4-2 victory at Hermantown Saturday afternoon, show the merits of combining the best Class AA and A schools into one rating by claiming the No. 1 spot in the Up North Newspaper Network’s Regional top 10.
As a Class A school, Eveleth-Gilbert will be trying to repeat as state champs, and they rank at No. 3 statewide, behind only Elk River and Hill-Murray, a pair of unbeaten Twin Cities powers.
Duluth East, which lost to both Elk River and Hill-Murray, struggled before beating a much-improved Marshall team last week, then invaded Grand Rapids and had to play well to escape with a 2-1 victory. The Greyhounds slip to No. 3 in the Regional ratings, however, behind Eveleth-Gilbert and Greenway of Coleraine.
Silver Bay also is 5-0, after surviving its first major hurdle by beating Marshall last week, but finds the schedule stiffer this week, with games at Proctor (Tuesday) and Duluth East (Thursday).
Greenway and Hibbing also went into last weekend undefeated, and were hosts to Roseau and Warroad, two more unbeaten traditional powers. The concept of trading opponents made for a highly entertaining weekend, and nothing more dramatically underlines the state’s parity than those two nights’ outcomes.
Greenway shocked Roseau 6-3 on Friday after jumping to a 6-0 lead behind four goals from freshman Gino Guyer, while Hibbing was handing Warroad its first loss in a 5-3 game, as Mike Fatticci scored twice. Swap partners, and, Saturday night, Roseau beat Hibbing 4-3 on Josh Olson’s goal in overtime. O.J. Bottoms scored twice for Hibbing, with his second coming with 0:49 left in regulation to force overtime. Warroad beat Greenway 4-3 when Donnie DeMars completed a hat trick with his third goal coming in overtime. Josh Miskovich scored with 39 seconds left in the third period to tie Warroad.
So, in four games, four undefeated teams suffered their first losses. Further evidence of parity came when rapidly improving Duluth Denfeld and Marshall battled to a 6-6 tie last week.
Eveleth-Gilbert had an easier time in a tough setting at Hermantown, where an overflow crowd filled every standing-room spot for a Saturday matinee. The Golden Bears got two goals apiece from Andy Sacchetti and Steve Denny to take a 4-0 lead before the Hawks fought back for two power-play goals by Andy Corran in the third period. Corran’s second goal came with 25 seconds left on a 6-on-3 skater edge, as the Golden Bears had two men in the penalty box and Hermantown coach Bruce Plante pulled his goaltender for an extra skater.
Seniors Sacchetti and Denny and junior Tony Dolinsek all played on different lines last season for Eveleth-Gilbert, but coach Craig Homola pulled them together on a big first line this season. It paid off, with all four goals.
“Hermantown is definitely the toughest team we’ve seen so far,” said Homola. “Our first line came through. Sacchetti is explosive and all three of those guys have the rink-rat mentality.”
Hermantown coach Plante said: “Their speed shut us down, especially when it was their first line against ours. Then they collapsed on Jon Francisco. They were strong on defense, but that didn’t surprise me because they play with high energy. I thought we did all right, considering we only had four guys out there who played last year.”
In the girls ratings, Duluth was stunned 2-1 by Fergus Falls Saturday and slips to No. 7. The girls state picture is the opposite of the Up North Regional in boys. Instead of great parity, the girls have a large split between the powers and the also-rans. Roseville stays at the top, while Eagan is No. 2, although the Wildcats must survive with freshman Natalie Darwitz gone to play with the national team. Roseville, Park Center, Jefferson and South St. Paul are all undefeated, and Eagan’s only loss was to Roseville.
Up North Hockey Ratings
BOYS
State
1. Elk River, 5-0
2. Hill-Murray, 4-0
3. Eveleth-Gilbert, 5-0
4. Greenway of Coleraine, 3-1
5. Roseau, 3-1
6. Duluth East, 4-2
7. Eagan, 5-0
8. Hastings, 5-1
9. Hibbing, 4-1
10. Warroad, 4-1
Regional
1. Eveleth-Gilbert, 5-0
2. Greenway of Coleraine, 4-1
3. Duluth East, 4-2
4. Hibbing, 4-1
5. Cloquet, 3-1
6. Silver Bay, 5-0
7. Hermantown, 4-1
8. Proctor, 2-2
9. Grand Rapids, 1-3
10. Marshall, 3-2-1
GIRLS
State
1. Roseville, 7-0
2. Eagan, 7-1
3. Park Center, 9-0
4. Bloomington Jefferson, 6-0
5. South St. Paul, 9-0
6. Rosemount, 7-2
7. Duluth Dynamite, 5-3
8. Forest Lake, 5-2-1
9. Mounds View, 5-2
10. Anoka, 5-4
Silence eerie after Bulldogs fall short
Gasparini gets to share in UMD futility
By John Gilbert
Up North Newspaper Network
It should be getting familiar by now. The UMD Bulldogs haven’t won at home yet in this hockey season, and the scene inside the dressing room has always been subdued, with quiet, thoughtful comments from various players about how frustrating it’s getting.
But Saturday night was different. As accommodating as the Bulldogs players have been, after losing 2-1 to Colgate Saturday night, the dressing room was silent. Completely silent.
“It was almost eerie,” said coach Mike Sertich, who noticed it too. “Before the third period, I had said I thought we had been outworked through the first two, and I thought we worked a lot harder in the third period.
“But it’s tough. Everybody knows that everything that can be said has been said.”
Colgate is 9-3 with its best start in years, and has won eight of its last nine games. UMD (3-11-2 overall) established a home-ice record for futility by failing to win for the seventh straight start at the DECC.
This is getting pretty strange. Here were the Bulldogs, having shaken their WCHA winless start and their scoring slump with a 5-2, 6-2 sweep at Michigan Tech a week earlier, were returning home to face nonconference Colgate. Here was the chance to show their newly awakened offense to the home fans, and finally win a game at the DECC, before taking a holiday break from competition for two weeks.
So what happens? Brant Nicklin, the star junior goaltender of almost legendary proportions, who has held the Bulldogs in almost every game all season, was off his game a bit on Friday. The Bulldogs scored four goals — a team high on home ice — but they lost 5-4 in the first game, despite outshooting the Red Raiders 49-25.
“I got a piece of the first three goals,” said Nicklin, which is his way of saying he should have made saves on those three shots, and of demanding to take the blame.
In the second game, Tony Gasparini got to start in place of Nicklin. It wasn’t a punishment pull for Nicklin; he had been told before the series that Gasparini — a faithful senior whose only previous start in four years was last year in the WCHA Final Five when Nicklin was injured — would get a well-deserved second career start Saturday.
Zap! The Bulldogs lapsed back to their previous streak of scoring only one goal, as they had in their first five home losses, and fell 2-1.
Nicklin had sat out his first game as a freshman, then started 92 straight games, not counting that St. Cloud State overtime loss in the playoffs.
“I thought Tony Gasparini played very, very well,” said Sertich. “It certainly wasn’t his fault.”
Gasparini left the ice after the first period, slamming his big goal stick against the boards and bellowing his frustration as he hastened to the dressing room. UMD trailed 2-0 at the time, and a quick little junior centerman named Andy MacDonald had scored both goals. One was on a break-in, when he darted through the whole UMD team before beating Gasparini from the left circle with a shot low to the far side. Two minutes later, he put a backhander just inside the left pipe, again right on the ice.
Gasparini thought they were weak goals, but they were the kind of goals you might think were lucky until you watch MacDonald’s skill level. Then you must assume he put them precisely where he had to. Turns out, MacDonald’s nine-game point-scoring streak had been snapped Friday night, when he was content to harness UMD’s star center Jeff Scissons. He did it again Saturday, proving to be perhaps the only center who defused Scissons all season.
“I was trying to shake Scissons loose, because I realized he was having trouble against MacDonald,” said Sertich. “So I made a juggle, and it cost us. He and Jeff played against each other all weekend — except when he scored those goals.”
That’s the way things go when you’re struggling, and the Bulldogs proved that they got over their struggles at Tech, but they returned at the DECC. Even the lone UMD goal was a testimony to their frustration.
Jesse Fibiger, who is playing outstanding defense for UMD right now and was WCHA defensive player of the week after the Tech series, had scored the first UMD goal Friday, and was trying to kill a penalty in the second period Saturday. In desperation, he lifted a high, zone-clearing flip from his own end. Scissons, figuring a Colgate player might be behind him, lunged high to glove the puck, keeping it from getting out of the zone.
“I was mad,” said Fibiger. “I was working my butt off to get it out of the zone, and finally I got it high enough, and Scissons keeps it in. Luckily, it came right back to me.”
So Fibiger, supercharged with adrenaline, sped up the left side. With nowhere to go, he wound up and put everything into a slapshot from the left circle. It hit goalie Shep Harder, but slithered through his pads. Not that he felt like celebrating.
“We got outworked pretty bad in our own zone,” Fibiger said. “They did a good job, and they were quick, but we got outworked, and we have only ourselves to blame.”
The shorthanded goal cut the deficit to 2-1, gave the Bulldogs and their fans hope, but after they put increasing pressure on Colgate through the third period, it turned out only to be another exercise in futility.
And the dressing room’s eerie silence said it all.
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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