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3/10/2003
The defending Big Ten regular season champions are looking to pick up where they left off with three star seniors returning. Luke Appert, a second baseman from Cottage Grove, Minnesota, was one of three 2002 Big Ten players of the year. Shortstop Scott Welch from Missoula, Montana, was the 2002 Big Ten batting champion (.435), and 2002 Big Ten Pitcher of the Year C. J. Woodrow from Maple Grove, Minnesota, anchors a solid rotation. Junior Sam Steidl, a 2001 Freshman All-American from Alexandria, Minnesota, returns in centerfield but will be teamed with a pair of new starting outfielders, the only significant defensive adjustment the Gophers need to make. The team has 20 games scheduled at Siebert Field this year, starting with a March 28 contest with Michigan State. If they can defend the regular season title, the Gophers will host the Big Ten tournament, as they did in 2002, May 22–25. Softball The Gophers lose only one significant starter from a team that ended the season 38–21, hosting an NCAA regional tournament. Senior infielder Jordanne Nygren of Farmington, New Mexico, returns with 36 career home runs,
"This is the toughest schedule we’ve ever played," says co–head coach Lisa Bernstein. "We play the defending national champion [California] twice and will have probably 10 games against top-10 teams. We wanted it that way because we think our seniors can handle it and be that much better down the stretch." The first home game in Jane Sage Cowles Stadium is April 8, and the team opens the Big Ten season there on April 11 against Michigan State. Stabilizing Sports When Gopher sports officials announced January 30 that they had met the $2.7 million fund-raising goal to "save" men’s and women’s golf and men’s gymnastics from elimination, they did so with a note of caution. Cuts in state funds to the University are already slicing into the
The solution: seek more endowed scholarships. "The future of Minnesota athletics, the stability of this place, is endowing scholarships," says Athletics Director Joel Maturi. "We need to do that. It’s the best way to save sports." About $250,000 is needed to fully endow a scholarship (only the interest is used for the actual scholarships). As of January, Minnesota had about $12 million in scholarship endowments, covering only 15 percent of the 300 full scholarships it awards. That percentage ranks last in the Big Ten and is only about half the conference average. Michigan leads the Big Ten with $40 million in endowed scholarships. Women’s Track Shani Marks, a senior from Apple Valley, Minnesota, added another jewel to her impressive all-around track career when she set a school record in the indoor triple jump in January. Marks has won Big Ten titles in the triple jump and indoor 600-meter run, finished second in the conference in the 400-meter hurdles, and holds school records in the 4-by-100 and 4-by-400 relays. She leads a Gopher squad that looks to finish
Men’s Track Five-time All-American Mitch Potter, a junior long sprinter from Isanti, Minnesota, leads a Gopher team looking to earn the Big Ten title it narrowly missed twice last year. This year the outdoor meet comes to Minnesota May 16–18. Other Gopher standouts include multiple All-Americans in junior Mikael Jakobsson, a sprinter and hurdler from Orebro, Sweden, and Toby Henkels, a senior middle distance runner from Worthington, Minnesota. Also returning are all four members of the NCAA fourth-place 4-by-400 meter relay team and three of the four members of the sixth-place distance medley team. Quotebook "This clearly turned into a tremendous positive for our [athletics] department, and it awakened the need for people to step forward and donate." —University President Bob Bruininks on the successful "Save Gopher Sports" drive that netted $2.8 million in pledges from more than 1,700 Minnesotans. The funds mean that men’s gymnastics and both golf teams will not be eliminated next year as had been proposed. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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