Trav Weighs In

Minnesota State ranked 4th in last year's Directors' Cup
standings.  The Mavericks expect similar results this year.

What a difference a year can make. It’s that time of year again, and there is a certain buzz around campus, especially in athletics. The 2012-13 academic year was nothing short of amazing and I was truly fortunate to be a part of such an exciting year.

As my last, first day of school has come and gone I sit here and reflect on my last seven years of schooling, more specifically the last five years that I have worked in college athletics. I received my undergraduate degree from Black Hills State University and worked in the athletic department during its transition from an NAIA school to an NCAA Division II institution prior to attending MSU to pursue master’s degree.

I have seen hundreds of college sporting events around the country and I can say that I’m truly proud to be a Maverick. The support system that MSU has in its athletic department from the top down is incomparable to most other Division II institutions, as is the support staff and athletes themselves. There is something behind the term “Maverick Pride."

It’s the pride in succeeding on and off of the field of competition. Not only did Minnesota State finish fourth in the directors cup standings last year (the award given to the most successful Division II school), but it also had 95 student-athletes honored with the fifth annual Division II Athletic Directors Association Academic Achievement Awards for the 2012-13 school year.

It is for these reasons that there is great anticipation within the greater Mankato area for the 2013-14 athletic seasons.

Here is a snippet of what is to come. The women’s soccer team comes off of a successful year with a deep run in the NCAA tournament and is under the direction of first-year head coach Brian Bahl. The volleyball team qualified for the 2012 conference tournament and returns a very strong defensive backcourt and is looking to improve on some of its highlights from a season ago, which includes defeating the six-time national champion Concordia-St. Paul. Who could forget about the football team, which was one game away from competing for a national title.

MSU hosted 10 home football games last year, there are many schools that don't host 10 home football games in a two year span and wide receiver Adam Thielen is currently battling for a roster spot with the Minnesota Vikings after coming off of a very successful Maverick playing career.

Being a South Dakota native, I have never been exposed to hockey, but that is another great example of Maverick Pride. It was a team that had a new coach, new ideas, new systems and ended up having one of its best years, qualifying for the national tournament where it fell to the fifth-rated team from Miami (Ohio) in a regional tournament game played in Toledo. The success they had on the ice also helped multiple student-athletes get that much closer to their dream of playing professional hockey - notably team captain Eriah Hayes signed with the San Jose Sharks.

So as you can see from the win column from all of the MSU athletic teams, it is great to be a Maverick, but being a Maverick goes far beyond the field of competition, it’s also about being great in the community and the classroom.

I encourage you to continue to support these amazing young adults in all three phases and recognize their achievements on and off of the field.

Travis Langer • Minnesota State Athletic Communications Graduate Assistant

SKOL! Training Camp • Training Camp • Training Camp

The Minnesota Vikings have been coming to Mankato for
summer training camp since 1966.

I'm assuming that for the most part this is the "quiet before the storm" time on most college campuses.

With the Minnesota Vikings arriving this week for the 47th consecutive summer, we really can't say that's the case here at Minnesota State.

Not only does the arrival of the Purple & Gold bring a litany of fans, but also a bevy of Twin Cities and national media.  Several thousand people per day visit Minnesota State and Mankato to attend the daily work outs, which this year are scheduled to run July 26 through August 15.

Some interesting developments regarding the Vikings and this year's camp include the inking of a new three-year deal keeping them coming down 169 the next three years. Given the fact that the Mankato CVB estimates that the annual economic impact of the annual camp runs about $5-million per, obviously, it's kind of a big deal. The last year of the new agreement in 2015 coincides with the 50th year of the relationship and some details about the new contract appear HERE.

Another story line to follow will be how former Minnesota State wide receivers LaMark Brown and Adam Thielen fare as camp attendees.

Brown, who spent one season with the Mavericks after transferring from Kansas State, signed as undrafted free agent with the Atlanta Falcons last year. After getting released on August 31, he was signed by the Buffalo Bills practice squad but was released shortly thereafter. On December 10, 2012, Brown was signed by the Vikings as a practice squad member. The Free Press interviewed Brown at the start of camp and that story is HERE.

Thielen enters his first NFL training camp after a solid college career that saw him finish near the top of several school career receiving categories including finishing second all-time at MSU in receiving yards (2,674), second in receptions (192) and third in touchdown catches (19). Thielen signed with the Vikings after posting a strong showing at the Vikings' Rookie Minicamp held in Eden Prairie, Minn., in May. He's been impressive in a short period of time and a lot has been written about him heading into camp including stories HERE, HERE and HERE.

In the event you do the twitter thing, Brown's twitter handle is @L_Brown87 and you can follow Thielen at @athielen19. Mankato Free Press correspondent Chad Courrier provides daily fodder at @chadcourrier and the Freep's daily blog is located at http://freepresstrainingcamp.blogspot.com/

And in the event you're interested in attending training camp in Mankato, you might want to have a look at the Vikings training camp page prior to coming down and that is located HERE.

Lastly, another former Maverick, lineman Junior Aumavae, is in camp with the New York Jets and he's on twitter at @aumavae_J.

It's always great to see our former players doing well and we wish LaMark, Adam and Junior well the next several weeks.

It's great to be a Maverick!

Watching the Dust Settle

This photo of MSU's Gage Towers is from the 1960s.

It was June 29th, 2013, just over two weeks ago, that Minnesota State's venerable Gage Towers came a tumbling down.

Gage, which served as the on-campus home for more than 50,000 students since opening for business in 1965, stood as one of the most recognizable landmarks in the greater Mankato and Southern Minnesota area.

For those of you who had made the southern trip down Hwy 169 at night, the lights atop Gage served notice that you were getting close to town.

It's likely that if you went to MSU you either lived there at some point or were best buddies with someone who did.  You might have met your wife or husband there.  Your kids might have lived here. You probably remember having pizza delivered there and getting letters from your mailbox there. Former students have mentioned water gun fights, elevator issues, the radio station in B tower, bunk beds, funny hall directors and tossing various items out of windows.

If you needed to give someone on-campus directions, Gage was often used as a reference point.

The implosion didn't take to long and there's plenty of video available online in the event you'd like to have a look including HERE, HERE and HERE.

The Minnesota Vikings, who report for their 2013 summer training camp July 25th, have also used Gage as their residence since selecting Mankato for their preseason workouts back in 1965. And not only will the Vikings' organization have to sleep and eat in unfamiliar digs beginning this summer, but the fans who attend training camp will undoubtedly notice something amiss.

They say it's going to take about 30 days to clean up the rubble, essentially erasing the remaining vestiges of the 135-foot towers that cost $2.57 million to build.

It's going to a lot longer than that to erase the memories.

 

Requiescat in pace Gage Towers

It's great to be a Maverick!

Still Competing, Still Pursuing

-->

Minnesota State junior Chris Reed capped off the 2012-13 year
with a 13th-place finish in the shot put at the USU Track & Field
Championships.

by Nick Burns, interim Asst. Director, Minnesota State Athletic Communications

 

The 2012-13 Minnesota State athletic season will go down as one of the most successful and memorable seasons in the history of MSU athletics. Several teams made trips to the NCAA Tournament, including several athletes made their mark in individual competition.

One such individual was junior Chris Reed (Omaha, Neb.) of the Minnesota State men’s track and field team. Reed would go on to claim four All-American awards this past season, en route to a national championship in the shot put event in the 2013 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Recently, Reed competed in the 2013 USA Track and Field Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, where he finished in 13th place in the shot put event with a heave of 62’ 0.25” against the best completion in the country.

“It was such a high level of competition,” Reed said. “All of the best throwers from the United States were there so it was a great feeling to compete against them.”

More than 800 athletes competed at the 2013 USA Track and Field Championships, with the hope of being selected to compete at the IAAF World Championships in Moscow, Russia.

“Right after I won the national championship I was selected to compete at the USA Track and Field Championships,” Reed said. “It was just a great feeling to compete against and talk with guys that I have only been able to watch on TV.

“Being able to shake Adam Nelson’s hand and talk with him after he received his Olympic gold medal was really cool,” Reed said. “Overall, it was a fun experience and it also showed me that I’ve got more in me and this competition brought it out of me.”

His performance at the USA Track and Field Championships is another feather in the cap of Reed, who has had one of the most successful seasons a Maverick has ever had.

Reed began his year with an All-American honor at the 2013 NCAA Indoor Championships, where he finished second in the shot put. Reed, who was named the NSIC Indoor Field Athlete of the Year, kept his momentum going into the outdoor schedule where he earned the USTFCCCA Central Region Field Athlete of the Year award.

During the 2013 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, Reed would find himself competing in three events including the hammer throw, the discus and the shot put.

Competing in the hammer throw event, Reed set an MSU record with a throw of 194’-8” for a seventh-place finish, en route to becoming the first Maverick to secure an All-American award in the event.

He earned his second All-American honor with a seventh-place finish in the discus with a toss of 175’-5” on the second day of competition, but Reed saved his best performance for last.

On the final day of the NCAA Outdoor Championships, Reed capped off his season with a national championship in the shot put event, shattering the MSU school record with a mark of 65’-7”. He became just the fifth Maverick to win a national championship and the first since Jim Dilling won the high jump event back in 2007. He is the only Maverick to win a national championship in the shot put.

Reed is the first Maverick to claim three All-American honors in the same championship since Moo Muhammad accomplished that feat back in 1989.

Definitely not a bad season, but rather, a season that will be remembered just like MSU’s whole 2012-13 season.

And That's a Wrap

Minnesota State claimed seven conference titles in 2012-13

Yowser!

The Boys of Summer officially concluded the 2012-13 school year of competition for Minnesota State Athletics last weekend with their second-place finish at the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship tournament.

What a run for head coach Matt Magers and the Mavericks as they rolled to a Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference tournament title and captured the NCAA DII Central Region tournament championship en route to a 42-9 record. Magers, who owns a 215-66 record in his five seasons at the helm for the Mavericks, was named National Coach of the Year by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.  Senior right-handed pitcher Harvey Martin was named National Pitcher of the Year by the NCBWA, Daktronics and the American Baseball Coaches Association. Like Martin, junior pitcher Jason Hoppe was named an All American (Hoppe by the NCBWA, Martin by the other three organizations already mentioned). Hoppe also established a NCAA record for consecutive scoreless innings pitched at an incredible 55.1. Senior catcher Ben Keller, an Academic All-American, earned his second career Elite 89 Award, which goes to the student-athlete with the highest grade point average at NCAA championship events for their sport.

Today we announced that senior tennis player Brandi Dohmen has been named an Academic All-American. In doing so she becomes the eighth Minnesota State student-athlete to accomplish the feat this year. Since we began keeping track of such things, the most Academic All-Americans we've ever had in a season was four in 2004-05.

Back in December I did a blog post relative to the start of the year because it was a great beginning for our teams with football finishing third in the country, women's soccer claiming a NCAA regional crown and men's cross country placing 20th.

The success achieved in the fall continued on into the winter with men's hockey making the national tourney for the first time in ten seasons, men's basketball won the NSIC regular-season and post-season titles and hosted the regional tournament, women's basketball advanced to the NCAA regional tournament for the second consecutive year, men's indoor track won the NSIC title and placed fifth at NCAAs and wrestling placed eighth at the NCAA tournament.

And then onto the spring where the softball team claimed the NSIC title and hosted the NCAA subregional and men's track and field won the NSIC title and finished 12th at the NCAA championship meet. Baseball finished things up by playing in the national championship game June 1.

We'll wait until NACDA's announcement comes out, but it's expected that we'll have a top-five finish in the Directors' Cup final standings.  Not bad considering that there are more than 300 schools at the DII level and a healthy improvement on last year's 21st-place finish.

It should also be pointed out that it was a banner year academically with the aforementioned eight Academic All-Americans, six Myles Brand Award recipients (NSIC Award for student-athletes with cumulative 3.75 or better GPA), nine WCHA Scholar-Athletes (SAs with at least 3.50 GPA), 195 student-athletes named academic all-conference and 57 Maverick Achievement Award recipients (senior scholar-athletes).

By any measure, a tremendous year for Minnesota State Athletics.

Only 61 days until the first day our football team can officially start practicing!

It's great to be a Maverick.

Tradition - We Wear Our Hats Backwards

The Mavericks celebrate their 2013 NCAA DII Baseball
Central Region Championshp

Many college sports teams have certain things that they do that are considered traditions to their programs.

Certainly many of the most famous ones come from large football programs such as Ohio State's Dotting the i. Texas A&M has Midnight Yell and its 12th Man. Auburn has War Eagle, Colorado runs out its buffalo mascot Ralphie and Clemson football players touch Howard's Rock before each game.

Big-time college basketball does it as well.  Fans sing Rocky Top at Tennessee and there's the Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk chant at Kansas.

Small schools do it, too. Taylor University does Silent Night, in which students remain silent until the men's basketball team scores its 10th point, at which point they go completely crazy. A youtube video from Taylor's game in 2012 has nearly 1.8 million views.

The traditions at Minnesota State aren't quite as famous, but the Mavericks do have a few of their own. Ours are a little more subtle.

A few years back a Victory Bell was installed in the northwest end of Blakeslee Stadium and following each home win the Mavericks all take a turn doing their Quasimodo impression. We sing "Ole" following our goals at Verizon Wireless Center and the team does a stick salute to fans following the conclusion of each home series.  And while I can't name them all, our softball team has its own list of songs and chants that have evolved over the years.

One of the things our baseball team has done over the years is only done following championships.  I don't think it's something the Mavericks talk about. Just something that has been organic in that it was silly and it happened once and they just started doing it again because it happened again the next year.  And the next.  And the next.  This would be the "we wear our hats backwards after winning another title" tradition.

Not cocky.  Just something our guys do. Alot. One of my favorite traditions.

It's great to be a Maverick.

Random Thoughts: Walking on Sunshine

Nope.  Not another thought or post regarding weather-related issues our spring sports have battled in 2012-13.

Instead, a bevy of items for your perusal.

Senior tennis stand-out Brandi Dohmen was presented with
this year's Georgene Brock Award as Minnesota State's top
senior female student-athlete. Pictured with Dohmen is Bob
Bresnahan of Federated Insurance (MAA corporate partner)
and Kevin Buisman, MSU's Director of Athletics.

The 27th annual Maverick Achievement Awards Dinner took place last Sunday in the CSU Ballroom.  In addition to recognizing this year's 58 Maverick Achievement Award recipients (senior student-athletes with cumulative GPAs of 3.0+), awards for the top senior athletes and top senior student-athletes were announced and presented. Over 900 student-athletes have been recognized as Maverick Achievement Award recipients since the program was inaugurated in 1987. Tennis stand-out Brandi Dohmen, who has a 3.98 GPA and is majoring in spanish took home the Georgene Brock Award as the top senior female student-athlete and baseball catcher Ben Keller (4.00 in mechanical engineering) won the Don Buchanan Award as the top senior male student-athlete.

We had a tremendous turn out for the annual spring football game held this past Saturday at historic Blakeslee Stadium. We've also announced the 2013 schedule, which by the way, is just 129 days away from starting.

Following the conclusion of the 2012-13 season, Minnesota State men's hockey Most Valuable Player Eriah Hayes signed a pro contract with the National Hockey League's San Jose Sharks.  The Sharks assigned Hayes to their American Hockey League affiliate in Worcester (Mass.), where he tallied three goals and had an assist in seven games.  With Worcester's season now done and following a short stopover in Mankato, Hayes headed to San Jose where, according to one of the Sharks' PR-dudes "Eriah is on his initial trip to San Jose. He isn't eligible to play, but he will able to get a feel for the organization and the area."

The 19th-rated MSU softball team, which earned a share of this year's Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference regular-season title, begins league postseason play Thursday in Rochester when it plays the winner of St. Cloud State and Mary at 1:30 p.m.  Editor's note - sorry, this is the one time we'll mention weather-related issues - (from the NSIC): "NSIC officials have decided to move the 2013 NSIC Softball Tournament indoors due to the poor weather forecasted in Rochester, Minn.  The games will be moved into the Rochester Community and Technical College Dome for all of Thursday and Friday’s games." 

Currently rated tenth, the Maverick Baseball team has concluded league regular-season action and will close out its regular-season schedule with a trio of nonconference games at Truman State in Kirksville, Mo., this weekend. The Mavericks are 31-8 overall and will finish second in NSIC regular-season standings with a 20-4 mark. The league postseason tournament is set for May 8-11 in St. Cloud.  Head coach Matt Magers reached the 200-win plateau April 27th when MSU claimed a 15-7 victory at Wayne State (Neb.). Magers, who is in his fifth season in charge of the Mavericks, started his career with a 38-win season in 2009. Then came 44 wins in 2010, 40 wins in 2011 and then 51 wins last year.

A short list of some of the great names of former MSU student-athletes.  Some of the favorites include:  Kevin Welp (baseball), Adrian Battles (football), Kreg Kapitan (football), Elisha McSweeney (basketball), Fritz Polka (baseball), Sarah Schneekloth (women's hockey), Heidi Schnagl (volleyball), Katija Opitz (women's soccer), Randi Warhol (women's soccer), Shelly LaFave (softball), Ronna Puck (softball), Brian Klinkhammer (men's hockey) and Baylor Dieter (men's hockey).

The Maverick men's golf team had a string of consecutive trips to the NCAA postseason come to an end at 11 when it failed to qualify for this year's go-round.  MSU, which finished second at this year's NSIC tournament, had qualified every year beginning in 2001-02 through 2011-12.  MSU senior Greg Werner was invited to this year's regional tournament which is scheduled for May 6-8 in Kenosha, Wis.

Lastly, the MSU Reporter ran a commemorative issue this past Tuesday with an eight-page insert highlighting the 35-year coaching career of Mark Schuck.  Schuck, who is retiring following the end of this year's track and field season, is a Nicollet, Minn., native who went to school here and basically never left.  A couple of the stories in the insert mentioned a few of Mark's trademark sayings including:

"Eighty percent of success in life is just showing up. Ten percent is staying awake and the last ten percent is putting forth at least a little bit of effort."

"Can we get a discount? We're from a poor Christian school in Minnesota." (to all the restaurant owners on road trips)

"Just do what you did to get to nationals and you'll be an All-American." (words of wisdom to athletes at national competitions)

"The hay is in the barn."

"You can't undo 18 years of bad parenting."

"You don't get anything for losing."

"You've got to be good, and a little bit lucky, but mostly, I don't know...it's magic, I guess." (on convincing outstanding student-athletes to come to MSU)

Quite the character that Coach Schuck.


It's great to be a Maverick!

Have Wheels, Will Travel (providing you have a playable field)

Minnesota State "hosted" MSU-Moorhead April 7th
at Gustavus. The Mavericks have yet to play a game in Mankato.

As the Minnesota State baseball and softball teams try to stay hot in conference play, they are also spending their whole season trying to stay warm in their dugouts.

Due to the “normal” spring weather that Minnesota has provided, both squads are scrambling just get as many games in as they can.

According to MSU baseball head coach Matt Magers the team doesn’t expect they will be playing where their schedule says anymore. After getting 14 games in the Metrodome and eight games down in Florida in March, the squad has only played on their own field for four games.

Back near the end of March, the Mavericks had a four-game conference series slated with Northern State, but both teams didn’t have a playable field. The Mavericks and the Wolves ended up driving to Rapid City, S. D., home of junior outfielder Parker Sullivan, to get those games in.

A week later the team found themselves in the same situation as the University of Mary didn’t have a playable field so they drove an hour and a half west of Bismark, N.D., to Dickinson, N.D., for the doubleheader.

Mapquest tells us that the Mavericks drove more than 2,100 miles to get those six games in.

On April 14-15, the Mavericks had to go south to Sioux City, Iowa for their four games against Southwest Minnesota State.

 “It can take a toll on the body, sitting there for so many hours, but we just want to get out and play. We will drive that distance just to get some games in,” said utility infielder Lucas Skjefte.

Senior catcher Ben Keller has accepted all the challenges they have faced this season with the traveling and they just have to roll with it.

“It’s nothing like playing at home, but we deal with it,” Keller said. “It’s baseball and we are young guys.”

The softball team has found themselves in a similar situation, but the team has been fortunate enough to use sports domes to get its games in. The Mavericks have played four games in Rochester, Minn., at the RCTC Dome, six games at the sports dome in Savage, Minn., and they traveled to Saint Peter, Minn., to use Gustavus’s turf football field for games vs. Northern State and MSU-Moorhead, respectively.

Softball head coach Lori Meyer has been through this before in her 28 seasons here and it’s just something the team needs to work through.

“We’ve had other difficult springs, but I think it’s much more glaring this year because the last couple of years we haven’t had that many (cancellations) and again with the expanded schedule and travel this one has been a challenge,” said Meyer.

The overall atmosphere going through the two squads is frustration, especially for the softball team as they haven’t even had a home game at MSU so far this season and we're nearing the end of April.

“We are just really frustrated at this point and we just want to be able to play outside. I couldn’t imagine being a senior and not being able to have a home game in your last season,” said junior infielder Lindsay Erickson.

To look at it in a positive way, both teams are having the most luck getting games in in the NSIC. The baseball team has put in 18 conference games in the books and that is the most in the conference, compared to teams like Minot State who has only played eight.

“We think it’s pretty bad here, but it’s worse somewhere else and that’s the case with some teams in our conference haven’t played a home game yet and they might not this year,” Magers said.

Even though this isn’t what the teams has signed up for, some of the players have embraced all of the driving and traveling as they enjoy the time they have with their teammates.

“Some of the best times we have are on the bus rides, 10 hours out to Bismark or out to Rapid City. We have a lot of fun on the bus and kind of enjoy that,” Skjefte said.

                                                                                      - Joey Denton, intern, Athletic Communications

 

 

Behind the Scenes: Dan Rickbeil



Dan Rickbeil is in his seventh year as Minnesota State equipment manager

For Minnesota State Athletics, game days start early and end late for Dan Rickbeil and his staff.

Making sure that everyone looks good and and everything's working properly is a full-time job for the Maverick equipment manager and and his army of student workers. Getting prepared for a home game takes a lot of time and effort from the equipment room and the Worthington, Minn., native does his job with equal parts elbow grease, comedic give-and-take and mechanical know how.

MavBlog took a few moments to do a Q & A with one of MSU's most integral pieces to the puzzle.

Please tell us a little about your background. Where did you grow up, where'd you go to school, what sports did you play, etc.
Rickbeil says: "I grew up and graduated high school in Worthington, Minn. I played hockey, football, golf, and also did a lot of waterskiing and downhill skiing. I went to college here at MSU."

Tell us about your family.
Rickbeil says: "I have been married to my beautiful wife Angie for almost eight years. We have three amazing children - Eliana is five and ready for kindergarten, Claira is three and loving preschool and Kian is 1½ and loves playing with and teasing his big sisters. I also have three brothers and three sisters. My younger sister, Anne, played hockey here at MSU.

What did you do prior to becoming the Head Equipment Manager at Minnesota State?
Rickbeil says: "I was a golf course superintendent at Red Lodge Mountain Resort in beautiful Red Lodge, Montana."

In general, what does your job entail?
Rickbeil says:  "Ordering, issuing, fitting, inventorying, repairing and laundering equipment and uniforms. Setting up fields, courts and locker rooms for game day.  It’s not equipment management, it’s preparing athletes to succeed."

What's the best part of your job?
Rickbeil says: "Working with great people and helping athletes succeed."

What's the worst part of your job?
Rickbeil says: "Poor communication and last minute “EMERGENCIES”.

Do you think there's any misconceptions about being an equipment manager?
Rickbeil says:  "Some think that all I do is laundry, they don’t see or appreciate the behind the scenes things or long hours. I have heard a coach in the past say that I work a “thankless job.” The only time it is thankless is when people don’t see or appreciate what we do. Slowly, I think that more and more actually understand what I do and they would have to do if we did not have an equipment manager. Though there are many that do understand and appreciate all that we do and the time that we put in."

Who's got the biggest feet in the athletic department?
Rickbeil says: "Staff: Chris Brunkhorst, Strength & Conditioning Size 15

Athlete: Michael Bernarde, Football size 17."

Any funny stories about requests from coaches or student athletes?
Rickbeil says: "Steve Robinson, one of our football players, tried to tell me on a Saturday morning in Duluth that someone got under the bus and stole his helmet. He had me going until he came back and said they took his pants too. Figured out pretty quick then that he had forgotten them in his locker back at home."

Any tips on getting a grass stain out of a pair of baseball pants?
Rickbeil says: "Right water temp and right chemicals. Don’t dry it until the stain is out."

If someone wanted to be an equipment manager, what advice would you give them?
Rickbeil says: "Get involved early and be ready to work extremely long and odd hours."

Thanks Dan!  It's great to be a Maverick!

Comparables

Minnesota State has had varsity men's hockey since the 1969-70 season and has had NCAA Division I hockey since 1996-97.

 

And during the course of its Division I-era, we can point to one MSU team that has made it to the NCAA postseason tournament.  This team, as we talk about quite often, was the team from 2002-03.  That year was memorable for many reasons. 

 

The Mavericks of a decade ago finished with a 20-11-10 mark and ranked second in the final Western Collegiate Hockey Association standings with a 15-6-7 record.  At one point MSU went unbeaten in a school-record 17 straight games. A pair of dynamic forwards from Alberta combined for 128 points and earned All-America honors in Shane Joseph (29 goals, 36 assists for 65 points) and Grant Stevenson (27 goals, 36 assists for 63 points). Captain B.J. Abel, who was named the team's Most Valuable Player at the end of the year, totalled 12-24--36 and four other forwards hit double digits for goals in Cole Bassett (14), Brock Becker (14), Adam Gerlach (13) and Dana Sorenson (12). The MSU blueline corps was solid with veterans Joe Bourne and Pete Runkle anchoring a heady and steady group. And early on the coaching staff, which consisted of head coach Troy Jutting along with assistants Darren Blue and Eric Means, found a goaltending formula that saw Jon Volp play one game one night and Jason Jensen the next. 

 

A nonconference home win and road tie with Nebraska Omaha set up a home WCHA first-round best-of-three play-off series in Mankato with the University of Wisconsin.  The Mavericks won the first game 2-1 before Stevenson's goal at 1:21 of the second overtime period sent the Badgers packing in game two.

.

MSU fell in overtime to the University of Minnesota in the first game of the WCHA Final Five, then dropped a 6-4 decision to Minnesota Duluth in the third-place game the following day.  The Mavericks made the 2002-03 tournament as the 16th seed and headed for the East regional in Providence, R.I., for a first-round game against top-seeded Cornell where, led by future National Hockey League stand-outs Matt Moulson and Doug Murray, the Big Red overcame the Mavericks 5-2.

 

A lot of this sounds familiar, in a Back to the Future-kind of way.

 

For example, the long unbeaten streak.  This year's squad, led by first-year head coach Mike Hastings, got off to a pedestrian 3-5-2 start before reeling off a seven-game winning streak. Skill? A trio of forwards in sophomores Matt Leitner (17-30--47) and Jean-Paul Lafontaine (9-26--35) and senior Eriah Hayes (20-16--35) stand atop a scoring chart that boasts an offense that includes a nation-leading 44 power play goals. Secondary scoring abounds with another 11 players in double-digit scoring after the top three. The defensive group has a pair of point producers in Zach Palmquist and Josh Nelson and rangy shut-down types such as Tyler Elbrecht and Brett Stern. And goaltending-wise, the parallel between this year and back then has been that freshman Stephon Williams, the 2012-13 WCHA Goaltending Champion and WCHA Rookie of the Year, has been, not unlike the Volp-Jensen combo of yesteryear, consistently good. All this has led to an unprecented season with a record 24 wins and new heights in the national rankings. 

 

It took three games for the Mavericks to dispatch Nebraska Omaha in a league play-off series played in Mankato in the middle of March. And not unlike 2002-03, the 2012-13 version bowed out in its first game of the WCHA tournament, this time with a loss to the University of Wisconsin. 

 

This weekend the Mavericks will find out where they go for NCAA Regional action. And while there's a sense that there are similarities between this year's team and the one which made the program's first appearance in the NCAA postseason party, this will also signify an opportunity for the guys from the school in southern Minnesota to create a new identity for their hockey program.

 

Can't wait to see how this turns out.

 

It's great to be a Maverick!