| Summary: | SPORTS The Concordian November 17,1989 13 Pucksteh lose to former national champions by Derek Wolden sports reporter Shadows of inconsistency still loom over the heads of the Concordia hockey team. Last year's talented squad never swept an MIAC series and fin-ished seventh in the balanced conference, only four points away from the playoffs. This year's version of Cobber hockey has even a brighter out-look than last year's. The Cobbers have a strong nucleus returning led by honorable men-tion all-conference goalie John Gillie. Last year Gillie was third in the conference in both goals against average and save per-centage. The senior is again expected to be the stopper in the nets. Junior all-conference for-ward Mike Hassman returns as last year's leading scorer with 20 goals and 24 assists. John Town is another of the Cobber offen-sive threats. The Junior scored 8 goals and had 20 assists to also earn honorable mention all-con-ference honors. The Cobbers do have one key early-season injury to all-confer-ence performer S teve Thompson. The Junior is recov-ering from a knee injury and isn't expected back before Dec. 1st. Thompson is the key to the Cobber defense because he is a big and physical player. The Cobbers opened their season with two setbacks last weekend at a tournament at Stevens, Point, Wise. In their opening game they took on last year's NCAA Division III cham-pion, Stevens Point, The Cobbers took their opener on the chin by the score of 11-1. The Pointers scored five goals before the Cobbers knew what hit them. Concordia played extremely well during the mid-dle of the game, but Stevens Point came back to dominate the last seven minutes by scoring four goals. "We took a licking," said head coach Steve Baumgartner, "but I think this game will help us figure out what we have to work on. This game will defi-nitely help us in the long run." The second game of the tour-nament pitted the Cobbers against the defending MIAC champion, St. Thomas. The Cobbers lost a close 5-4 game. "It was encouraging. We played well both nights, the first loss was to the toughest team that we will play all year," Baumgartner said. Sophomore left winger Ted The hockey team prepares for season during practice. Photo by Brad Lemke Haase echoed his coach's com-ments. "We saw positives even though we didn't win," Haase said. "It was a good lest." The Cobbers do have a num-ber of new faces this year. Kent Cookmari, Troy Boschee, Thad Jensen, Jarko Toivanen, Derek Gullett are all freshman for-wards except for Gullet who is a Canadian jun ior transfer. Doug Prokop is the lone newcomer to the Cobber defense, joining his older brother Dave on the squad. Freshman Rob Fritz and Wade Hanson join Gillie and senior Alternate Captain Ron Fee to make up the net-minding corps. Baumgartner was very pleased with the early performances by all his newcomers especially Jensen, Prokop, and Hanson. The talent is clearly available for the Cobbers. The first goal for this year's team is to make it to the MIAC playoffs. "With the talent that we have, anything less than the MIAC title is an underachievement," said Haase. The Cobbers have a game with Cobber alumni tomorrow night starting at 7:30 at the Moorhead Sports Center. Cobbers blast Royals for final win by Jay Lemke sports editor After suffering two losses late in the season, the Cobbers rebounded in their final game as they soundly defeated the Bethel Royals 31-13. The victory how-ever was too little too late, for they finished second in the MIAC behind champion St. John's and also missed the NCAA playoffs. The Cobbers' two losses came late in the sea-son and ultimately knocked them out of both post season consideration and an opportunity to repeat as conference champs. Coach Jim Christopherson said he didn't expect the team to win the MIAC when they started the year, however, there was a chance because the league was quite even in talent. "We were sure going to take a shot at the championship, because that's always our goal," said Christopherson. "We felt the conference was quite bal-anced." "As it turned out, we tied the conference champion (St. Johns), and beat the NIC cham-pion [Moorhead State]," said Christopherson. "But I'd say injuries and a few things hit us at a time that was critical." Although chances for a play-off spot were bleak before the Bethel game, Concordia stepped onto their homefield and domi-nated. "Bethel gave everybody fits all year, and were operating at their peak offensively," said Christopherson. "But our defense rose to the challenge, and we didn't turn the ball over like the week before against Gustavus. It was a strong fin-ish." , With starting quarterback Chad Walthal on the sidelines because of a recurring back problem, the Cobbers turned to Junior Paul Schmidt. On their first possession the Cobbers drove downfield. The march was highlighted by a 22 yard jaunt by Schmidt, and the touchdown run by tailback Mike KlindL Following an interception and return by defensive back Jon Florence, Concordia looked in position to add seven. However, the offense stalled, and the Cobbers had the reliable foot of Chris Reimertz add three points to their total. The defense played well the whole first half against the high-ly touted Bethel offense. The Royals, who boast running back Mike Ackerman, could muster only two first downs the first thirty minutes. When the Cobbers regained the pigskin, Schmidt went immediately to work. At 2:15 of the first, Schmidt sent the ball deep over the middle to receiver Jamie Hagness. Hagness, who had outrun the defense, collected the ball at the goal-line and gave theCobsal7-0Iead. The Cobbers mounted a 67- yard touchdown drive as the sec-ond quarter wound down. With the combined rushing of full-back Dave Carlson and Klindt, the Cobbers marched downfield. Ultimately, Concordia found themselves at the Bethel two, where Carlson bulled in for the touchdown, raising the score to 24-0 at half. Junior transfer Jeff Benson started the second half at quar-terback, and immediately showed he could contribute. Benson proved his skill as a good running quarterback when, at 6:22 of the third, he took the snap and deked 34 yards in the endzone. This was Concordia's final score, and they led 31-0. Bethel attempted a meager comeback in the fourth, when Ackerman finally solved the lough Cobber defense. Ackerman, who rushed for 218 yards, broke touchdown gallops of 55 and 66 yards at 11:52 and 4:43 of the fourth quarter. While the Cobbers were dis-appointed with their late season collapse, they did not want to finish with a loss. "We were kind of down after losing to Hamline and Gustavus, but we looked forward to win-ning the final game," said cap-tain Jon Florence. "The coaches told us we were better than a 6- 2-1 team, and we didn't want to end by losing 3 in a row." With a young team this year, the Cobbers should contend again next year for the confer-ence crown. "We only lose eight seniors, and that's an all-time low in my tenure as head coach," said Christopherson. "WE'rc lost 15 and 20 in years past. He said although the team will be losing key players, win-ning next year will be dependent on the team's attitude and work through the off-season. "We have to make our prepa-ration over the winter months," said Christopherson. "We as coaches can motivate, encour-age, and set up weight programs, but it's up to the players to have a mental committment to the game of football. The 1990 sea-son has started right now, it's too late next AugusL." C&team returns from nationals by Kris Roepke staff writer The women's cross country team had to settle for a disap-pointing fifth place: at the NCAA Regional Meet in Waverly Iowa last Saturday. Despite being the nation's fifth-ranked team, the women faced stiff competition from four other nationally ranked teams (St. Thomas, Carleton, St. Olaf and Simpson) who went on to claim the top four positions in the final standings. Individually, Molly Weyrens led the team with a ninth place time of 18:57. She was closely followed by Kathy Keele (11th in 19:01) and Chris Fredrick (15th in 19:06). Beth Berg crossed the line in 19:42 (38th) and Peggy Savanick rounded out the scor-ing with a 41st place effort of 19:49. In addition, Sharon Espeland and Chris Godfrey finished in 20:24 (61st) and 20:50 (75th), respectively. There were 129 runners in the race. "Molly ran a tremendous race," said coach Marion Strand. "She missed qualifying for nationals as an individual by one position and a split sec-ond. Kathy Keele also ran a strong race." Although the lack of an indi-vidual qualifier was somewhat disappointing, the focus of the women was on qualifying as a team. Without Espeland in the top five, this was highly unlike-ly, her collapse with 200 yards to go is still a frustrating mys-tery to the team. : ~ "Sharon was in approxi-mately 20th place near the end of the race when she was over-come by dizziness and blanked out," said Strand. "We haven't been able to determine the cause of it" "Qualifying for nationals just wasn't meant to be," said Wcyrcns. "On any other day, I'm sure the final results would have been different, but that's the nature of the sport." Despite her obvious disap-pointment, Strand is very proud of her team. "This team has built a name for itself and brought respect to the women's cross country pro-gram," she said. "This race doesn't take anything away from what they've accom-plished this year. They are truly a team. After the race, they pulled themselves back together and showed more strength and character than they could have in any race." The men's cross country team closed out its season with a 16th place finish at the regional meet. St. Thomas won the team title while St. John's was second and Nebraska Wesleyan finished third. "St. Thomas and St John's ran the best they could have run," said coach Mike Paul. "They'll both be contenders for the national title." The highlight of the race for* Concordia was the performance of Bart Mueller, who claimed 34th place in 26:47. "Bart ran an outstanding race," said Paul. "He was just eight seconds behind the final individual qualifier and turned See Cross-Country page 15
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