Twins Winter Caravan to visit New Ulm

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- The Minnesota Twins Winter Caravan will be in New Ulm Thursday, Jan. 30, at Minnesota Valley Lutheran High School.

The program begins at 6:30 p.m. and will feature Twins players Mathew LeCroy, Bobby Kielty, and Dustan Mohr, along with Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson, broadcaster Bert Blyleven and mascot TC Bear.

Tickets for the event are $5 and are available now at KNUJ Radio. The first 200 people who come to the event will receive a free ticket for the Aug. 24 Twins afternoon game against the Kansas City Royals courtesy of the New Ulm Baseball Association.

All proceeds from the event will go to New Ulm Junior Baseball.

KAISERHOFF IN NEW LEAGUE: The New Ulm Kaiserhoff, after one year in the Southern Minnesota League, will be joining a newly-revamped league for the upcoming season.

On Saturday in Marshall, the Kaiserhoff and Fairfax were accepted into what will now be called the Southwestern Minnesota League.

Both teams will join Marshall, Granite Falls and Milroy in the league.

Also, Winthrop, which had been a member of the Tomahawk East League, has joined the Carver Central League along with St. Peter and Brownton.

NEW ICE ARENA IS BEING BOOKED ALREADY: The new ice arena that is being built in New Ulm already has events planned for it, according to New Ulm High School hockey coach Tom Macho.

"In April -- and we are not sure of the dates yet but it will be a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, a team that has just started in the American West Junior League called the Texas Calvary will be here buying 30-40 hours of ice time here in New Ulm," said Macho. "They will have kids here from all over the country trying out for the team. Then, in the first week of July, the new arena will have the Rick Hinz Goalie School. They are a nationally known goalie school. And then in August we have booked the Sean Goldsworthy Skating School."

Macho said that also that the Minnesota State PeeWee Hockey Tournament "can be ours next year." Macho also said that a New Ulm High School Invitational Hockey Tournament "is very much a possibility."

He added that the Topeka Scarecrows of the United States Hockey League is also interested in coming to the new arena for a try-out camp in June.

EAGLE BOYS GET BIG WIN: The New Ulm Eagle boys' basketball team, quite honestly, could well have turned three of their six losses this year into wins.

New Ulm lost to Hutchinson and Marshall (ranked third in Class 3-A at the time) due to poor shooting, and fought a very good St. James team to the wire, holding a lead most of the game.

A made basket or defensive stop here or there would have produced a win.

But Thursday night the Eagles, who have come so close to a big win, got one at Blue Earth.

"It is nice to get the win," said boys' basketball coach Pat Burmeister. "The kids have played hard, and they have played well at times, but we have had some lapses that have cost us victories. But is is a big deal to get the win."

Burmeister said that the losses to Hutchinson, a game where they hit only 8 of 32 shots in the first half, Marshall, where they were outscored 21-7 late in the game, and to St. James, an eight point loss, was a case of "making some baskets at key points or being consistent as to not give other teams big runs," said Burmeister. "Against Blue Earth (Thursday) we still had some lapses -- in the second quarter we had a little trouble handling their press and we missed some shots in the third quarter. But the kids battled through them. Blue Earth came back and tied the game, but our kids battled back and got the win."

Andy Walden again led the Eagles with 27 points and Bob Wellmann continued to score, hitting for 24 points including hitting all seven of his attempts from beyond the arc.

"Andy has really been scoring for us all year, but it was nice to see Bob get his shot going," said Burmeister. "He had five three's in the second half. It was nice to see him hitting those shots, and he can carry that momentum going into next week."

The Eagles have their next four games away from their nest, playing at Holy Family Monday, Waseca next Friday and then at Mankato West and Fairmont before returning home to face JWP Jan. 28.

Also playing well was Jordan Budenski, who Burmeister has said is the hardest working player in practice. Budenski had 14 points and 11 rebounds.

"He is always hustling all over the floor, and he had an excellent game for us Thursday," said Burmeister. "On Tuesday night it was Caleb Leighty that got the points inside. Both Jordan and Caleb are an important part of our offense. As a team we have to try and get touches in the paint."

He said that Budenski also played an excellent game defensively going against one of the top players in the South Central Conference -- John Monson.

"I hope that we can build off of this win and stay consistent -- the attitudes have stayed good despite the close losses," said Burmeister. "It is just those little things that we needed to correct."

USHL SCOUTS IN NEW ULM: Scouts from the United States Hockey League were in New Ulm this week and came away impressed by two New Ulm High School players -- Adam Macho and Kyle Marti.

NOTES: Jace Marti, a freshman at UMD, is a redshirt member of the baseball team there ... The Nashville Predators of the National Hockey League have had several conversations with New Ulm's Jamie Hoffmann. The NHL draft comes up in June and Hoffmann has the possibility of being drafted in both hockey and baseball ... Kristin Beranek, who graduated from New Ulm Cathedral last year, is a member of the St. Ben's Women's Basketball team ... Jess Roiger of the New Ulm Baseball Association was awarded a plaque for his 25 years of continuous service.