Usually, I am a bit of a smartass at the start of the column, but this week serious Chris takes over.
Last week I said that Bagley Activities Director Doreen Zierer was the person to contact for the regional districting so if the coaches wanted to play section opponents she was the person the COACHES should get a hold of.
2 things were extremely disappointing after last weeks column –
- Some parents/fans actually emailed Doreen complaining about the scheduling!!!! I was told by Doreen it was relentless. First of all, I never thought my Sports Feever readers would be that foolish to do something like that!!!! What in the heck???
It is up to the coaches and Activity Directors to contact the District representative, not some fans/parents who know nothing about how District Scheduling works. Come on guys/gals…..you are better than that. If you are from Crookston or wherever you are from and sent an email….Some chippers from Widman’s candy would be a good gift to give Doreen.
Doreen is one of the best A.D.’s in Northwest Minnesota and is just doing what the Minnesota State High School is asking her to do. She didn’t make up the district schedule, she is just working on the scheduling for our area and doing what the MSHSL is telling her to do. If you have a problem with District Scheduling, send an email to the MSHSL. - When I was talking to the Minnesota State High School League’s District Scheduler he said Doreen was the scheduler for Northwest Minnesota. She is the representative for the Northwest District. So if Crookston High School or other teams that the Pirates play have a problem with scheduling they have to contact somebody else. The area representatives that I talked to said they had not received any news that they can change the schedules to section schedules, but they had a meeting in Thief River Falls on Wednesday, so we will know more soon and it sounds like the MSHSL doesn’t really know what they are doing with the fiasco that is district scheduling.
The other problem that I came across – If Section 8AA coaches/A.D.’s want to play section schedules, it might be tougher than anticipated. Many of the teams are in different districts! So that causes another wrinkle and something the MSHSL probably doesn’t even realize!
All I know – The Minnesota State High School league screwed up on the District Scheduling and even the District Schedulers and committees have a difficult task of trying to figure it out. Most coaches in this neck of the woods can’t stand it, including people on the district committees up here.
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Now on to my campaign for being dad of the year!!
Sometimes a dad does something that he doesn’t necessarily want to do and probably shouldn’t do for his kids. But, you love your kids and will do anything for them. That is what I did this week for my daughter Macy this week.
Macy (a freshman at Crookston High School) celebrated a birthday in May and I was able to get pretty good seats for the Jonas Brothers concert in St. Paul at the Excel Energy Center. When we told her we got her tickets at her birthday, she started to cry. After a long wait, I picked up Macy, my niece Addie and my son Carter from school around 2:00 on Monday and we drove down to St. Paul to take in the concert. We got to the arena, met my oldest daughter Alyssa and one of her friends since they came down from school at Duluth. We ate some food and got in our seats before the concert started at 7:30. There were two opening acts (Jordan McGraw – Dr. Phil’s son, and Bebe Rehxa) before the Jonas Brothers and the concert finally wrapped up around 11:15 p.m. Yep, we still had a drive home and after waiting in the parking garage for about 25 minutes we finally hit the road and got home at 4:12 a.m.
I woke up at 9:00 a.m. and got to work by 10 and you know what? I would do it again in a heartbeat. To see the look on your kids faces….to see your senior in college cry because she is so excited….to see your freshman in high school daughter with a smile on her face from ear to ear and singing along to all the songs is priceless. Carter and I really enjoyed Bebe Rexha and to be honest the Jonas Brothers put on a solid show while singing some of their 230 songs!!!!
As I get older, I have started to realize that spending time with your kids is more important that anything else…..no matter how busy you are, try to spend time with your kids. You won’t regret it….I sure didn’t!
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Longtime Crookston teacher Bud (Leland) Ellingson‘s grandson Aaron Ellingson is the quarterback for the St. Louis Park High School football team and has had a great start to the season. Last week, Aaron was 20 of 32 passing for 199 yards and ran for 53 yards on 14 carries. On the defensive side, he is a safety and had 12 tackles in a win over Waconia. Aaron is the son of Dan Ellingson (Crookston High School grad).
It is always fun to see former Pirates and their kids doing well! If there are any former Pirates with kids doing well, or you know of anybody send me some info and we will pass it along to chrisjfee@yahoo.com.
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I found it a little interesting as somebody that doesn’t really follow the NCHA hockey conference that Western Michigan was picked to finish third place in the preseason poll, one spot ahead of UND.
It comes as no surprise that Duluth is the heavy favorite and Denver was picked second. Western Michigan, UND and St. Cloud State round out the top five. Colorado College, Omaha and Miami (Ohio) round out the preseason poll.
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We have had a few people ask how Abi McGlynn (Stephen-Argyle) is doing as a member of the UND Volleyball team. We checked it out and Abi has played in 15 sets so far and has recorded 15 kills, 2 service aces, and 16 digs. Not bad for a freshman!
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I get a kick out of Vikings fans that are disgruntled because Kirk Cousins is playing like…..well……Kirk Cousins! What did you expect when the Vikings signed him? That a quarterback that had never won a playoff game and was an average quarterback at best who turned the ball over too much was going to change his ways with the “offensive genius” Zimmer at the helm???? Silly Vikings fans. Don’t blame Kirk Cousins for getting 85 million dollars or whatever it was he is getting paid. Blame the fools that are paying him that much!!
To steal from the late Denny Green…..”He is who we thought he was.”
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We are three weeks into the high school football season and there has been some surprises and some non-surprises. We take a look at the area sections through three games –
SECTION 6 9-MAN –
The Blackduck Drakes and Fertile-Beltrami Falcons have made the drop from Class A to nine-man and haven’t been phased.
Fertile-Beltram has outscored their opponents in their first three games by an average of 33 to 3. Blackduck has outscored its opponents by an average of 31 to 5. Win-E-Mac is also 3-0 and has outscored their opponents by an average 35-9.
The next three weeks are big for the Fertile-Beltrami Falcons with games against Win-E-Mac, Blackduck, and Stephen-Argyle. What a stretch for the Falcons!
Big games coming up in the section –
September 20 – Fertile-Beltrami vs Win-E-Mac
September 27 – Fertile-Beltrami vs Blackduck
October 4 – Fertile-Beltrami vs Stephen-Argyle
October 16 – Blackduck vs Win-E-Mac
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SECTION 8 9-MAN
What a difference a year makes!! The Warren-Alvarado-Oslo Ponies only won one game last year and they have already won three games this year, including a rare win over the Stephen-Argyle Storm last week. Warren-Alvarado Oslo and North Star (Northome-Kelliher-Bigfork) are both 3-0. North Central plays teams in the northeast part of the state so it is tough to get a gauge how good they are. Last year they lost to Kittson County Central in the semi-finals.
The two teams that were in the section championship, Kittson County Central and Stephen-Argyle are both 2-1 on the year and we all know you don’t count either of the most dominant programs in the section for the past 20-plus years.
Big games coming up the rest of the season –
October 4 – Warren-A-O vs Win-E-Mac and Stephen-Argyle vs Fertile-Beltrami
October 10 – Kittson County Central vs Stephen-Argyle
October 15 – Warren-A-O vs Kittson Country Central
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SECTION 8A
Section 8A has a familiar team at the top with Mahnomen-Waubun the only team without a loss through three weeks. The one surprise is Ada-Borup/West getting moved into the section a day before the first game of the season. A lot of “experts” think this might be the year to knock off Mahnomen-Waubun, but it looks like they are going to be the team to beat again. They are averaging 40 points per game thus far and giving up only 11 points per game and they had a big win over Red Lake County last week.
Ada-Borup/West had a big win over Polk County West last week 29-16 and their only loss was to Barnesville, which is the toughest opponent of anybody in the 8A regular-season schedule.
Big games coming up –
September 27 – Ada-Borup/West vs Mahnomen/Waubun
October 4 – Polk County West vs Mahnomen/Waubun
October 11 – Red Lake County vs Ada-Borup/West
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SECTION 8AA
Section 8AA is going pretty much as expected this year. The Barnesville Trojans are at the top and everybody else is fighting for the second spot. It will be hard for anybody in the section to compete with Barnesville, let alone have a chance to beat them, but this is high school sports and you never know!
There have only been two section games played out of the 22!!! The district scheduling is a joke!!!
Anyway, who is going to be the second seed? Right now Pelican Rapids and Warroad are making a case for the spot, although Warroad’s win over Red Lake will actually make them lose points when the QRF comes out.
Crookston has the toughest schedule of all the Section 8AA teams with three defending section champs (Pillager, Barnesville, Ottertail Central) and they just lost to #9 ranked West Central Area. But after they are done with Barnesville on Friday, they will have a stretch of must-win games against Hawley and Roseau the next two weeks. The section second seed is up for grabs and will be interesting to see how the final five weeks go.
Big games coming up –
September 27 – Crookston vs Hawley
October 4 – Frazee vs Pelican Rapids
October 11 – Pelican Rapids vs Hawley
October 16 – Warroad vs Frazee
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Section 8AAA
Section 8AAA is going pretty much how the coaches expected it. Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton and Perham are 3-0 (2-0 in the section) and Pequot Lakes is 2-1.
DGF flexed their muscles last week when they beat Pequot Lakes 55-7. Who will be the fourth and fifth seed could be an interesting finish. Fergus Falls looks to have the inside track for the fourth spot with Park Rapids and East Grand Forks fighting for the fifth and sixth seed.
Big games coming up –
September 20 – Park Rapids vs East Grand Forks
September 27 – DGF vs Perham (likely for the top seed)
October 4 – Fergus Falls vs Park Rapids
October 11 – Perham vs Pequot Lakes
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Dave Peterson has compiled the Week 3 stats for two of the area district football groups and he was nice enough to provide us with the numbers. Click on the links below to view them.
CLICK HERE, FOR THE DISTRICT 9 FOOTBALL STATS
FOR THE NORTHWEST DISTRICT STATS, CLICK HERE CLICK HERE
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We try to keep up with area kids that are playing college sports and pass along when they do something pretty big.
This week, Roseau’s Victoria Johnson (now playing at Mayville State), was named the NSAA conference Attacker of the Week. Johnson recorded double-digit kills in all three matches as Mayville State (N.D.) went 3-0 record. She racked up a total of 36 kills (3.3 kills per set) and registered an impressive .423 hitting percentage. Johnson piled up 23 blocks (6 solo, 17 assist) for the week, including eight blocks at Briar Cliff (Iowa) and 15 total blocks in two matches combined versus Lakehead (Ontario).
Barnesville’s Elora Passa, a setter for Mayville State volleyball, was named the NSAA setter of the week. Passa accumulated 93 set assists and 25 digs as Mayville State went 3-0 record for the week, extending their winning streak to nine matches. She averaged 8.5 assists and 2.3 digs per set. Passa posted a double-double of 33 assists and 16 digs in 3-2 road victory at Briar Cliff (Iowa). She also had 12 kills and seven blocks (1 solo, 6 assist) for the week.
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JOKES
I dressed quietly, made my lunch, grabbed my clubs, slipped quietly into the garage and proceeded to back out into a torrential downpour. The wind was blowing 50 mph.
I pulled back into the garage, turned on the radio, and discovered that the weather would be bad throughout the day. I went back into the house, quietly undressed, and slipped back into bed. There I cuddled up to my wife’s back, now with a different anticipation, and whispered, ‘The weather out there is terrible.”
My loving wife of 20 years replied, ‘Can you believe my stupid husband is out golfing in that crap?
I still don’t know to this day if she was joking, but I have stopped golfing.
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How are former Crookston Pirates athletes doing in college or elsewhere?
****LET ME KNOW OF OTHERS TO ADD TO THE LIST email me at chrisjfee@yahoo.com
Cade Salentine, is a redshirt Freshman playing football at the University of North Dakota. Cade didn’t play in a 27-23 victory over Sam Houston State in the Potato Bowl on Saturday. UND has this week off and will travel to Eastern Washington on Saturday, September 28.
Ben Trostad, Ben finished in a tie for 44th place individually with a 159 (78-81) at the UMC Invitational at Kings Walk Golf Course in Grand Forks. UMC will travel to the Augustana Invite September 28 and 29 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Isaac Westlake, is a Senior playing golf for the Winona State Warriors. Winona State is off until September 29 when they travel to the Super Regional preview at Owensboro, Kentucky.
Elise Tangquist, is a Junior golfer for the University of Northwestern in St. Paul. Elise didn’t golf in the NCU Invite on September 17 in St. Paul. Northwestern will travel to the North Central Regional in South Bend Indiana on September 20 and 21.
Mason LaPlante, a freshman, is playing soccer at the University of Jamestown. Mason didn’t play in a 7-0 loss to #13 ranked Baker University on Saturday. Mason didn’t play in a game vs Presentation on Wednesday. The Jimmies will be off until September 28 when they host Morningside.
Rachel Hefta, a freshman, is playing volleyball at Hastings College in Nebraska. Rachel is playing on the J.V. team. The varsity team is 7-6 on the year.
Thea Oman, a freshman, is swimming at St. Ben’s. The first event of the year is at St. Kates Pentathlon October 11.
Kate MacGregor, a Sophomore, is swimming at Minnesota State Moorhead. The first meet of the year will be at the University of Mary on October 14.
Ally Tiedemann, a Sophomore, is playing tennis at the University of Minnesota Duluth. The season will start in February.
Paul Bittner, is playing for the Cleveland Monsters, the AHL affiliate of the Columbus Bluejacket.
Aleece Durbin, is a Sophomore on the University of North Dakota Women’s Track and Field team.
Brita Fagerlund, is a Junior on the University of Jamestown Jimmy Women’s Track team.
Brady Heppner, is a Senior, playing hockey at St. Johns University in Collegeville.
Bailey Folkers, is a Sophomore on the University of Wisconsin-Superior women’s basketball team.
Nick Garmen, is a freshman playing basketball and tennis at University of Minnesota Morris.
Crookston School District Coaches –
Brody Davidson is an Assistant Pirate Football coach.
Jeremy Lubinski is a Pirate 8th Grade Football coach.
Amy Boll is the head Pirate Girls Track head coach and assistant volleyball coach
Sarah Reese is the Pirate Head Girls Soccer coach
Cody Brekken is the Head Pirate Girls and Boys Tennis coach and Crookston Community Pool Supervisor
Marley Melbye is the Head Girls Swimming coach
Mitch Bakken is the head Pirate Baseball coach.
Brock Hanson is the Pirate Baseball volunteer assistant coach.
Jeff Perreault is the Pirate Girls Golf head coach
Wes Hanson is the Pirate Wrestling Head Coach and assistant boys golf coach
Wade Hanson is the 8th grade boys basketball coach
Travis Ross is the 7th grade boys basketball coach
Kevin Weber is a Pirate Boys Basketball volunteer assistant coach
Connor Morgan is the Pirate Boys Hockey assistant coach
Sam Melbye is the Pirate Boys J.V. Hockey coach
Chris Dufault is an Assistant Wrestling Coach
Nate Merten is an Assistant Wrestling Coach
Tori Demarais is the Pirate Girls Hockey assistant coach.
Non-Crookston High School coaching –
Kaylee Desrosier is a softball coach for Fargo Davies Middle School.
Justin Johnson is an assistant softball coach at the University of Minnesota Crookston.
Josh Edlund is an assistant football coach and phy ed teacher at Flandreau, South Dakota.
Allison Lindsey Axness is Assistant Varsity Volleyball Coach in Champlin Park
Jeff Olson is Head Wrestling coach and Head Baseball coach at Delano.
Jake Olson is an Assistant Football Coach and Head Boys Tennis coach at Delano.
Carmen (Kreibich) Johnson, is Head Volleyball coach at Little Falls High School.
Katy Westrom, is Head Girls Tennis Coach and Head Boys Tennis coach at Monticello High School.
Matt Harris, is a Director of Athletics at the British International School of Houston.
Marty Bratrud is the Superintendent and High School Principal at Westhope High School.
Gordie Haug is an assistant football coach at the University of Wyoming
Mike Hastings is the Minnesota State Mankato Men’s head Hockey coach
Mike Biermaier is the Athletic Director at Thief River Falls High School
Stephanie (Lindsay) Perreault works with the North Dakota State stats crew for Bison football and volleyball and basketball in the winter. Stephanie’s husband, Ryan, is the assistant director for the Bison media relations
Jason Bushie is the hockey athletic trainer at Colorado College
Chris Myrold is a Tennis Pro on Nevis Island in the West Indies
Kyle Buchmeier is a Tennis Pro at the Reed-Sweatt Family Tennis Center in Minneapolis
Jarrett Butenhoff is serving our country with the U.S. Navy
Joshua Butenhoff is serving our country on a Submarine with the Pacific Fleet with the US Navy.
Peter Cournia is a 2002 Crookston High School Graduate and also a grad of West Point and is currently is serving in the U.S. Army.
Erik Ellingson is serving our country with the U.S. Air Force at Minot.
Philip Kujawa class of 2004 from Crookston High School. He is an Army recruiter in Rochester.
Scott Riopelle is head of Crookston Parks and Recreation
Rob Sobolik is the General Manager of the Fargodome
That’s it for this week. Thanks for the comments and if you have anything to add or share, please e-mail chrisjfee@yahoo.com or call. Thanks for reading and listening to KROX RADIO and kroxam.com
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