American Legion tourney to be held in New Ulm

NEW ULM -- New Ulm's Johnson Park has been chosen as the site of the 2003 Central Plains Regional American Legion Baseball Tournament, which will be played from August 14-18.

Mueller Park in New Ulm will be the back-up site.

The five-day tournament will feature State Legion Champions from Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska along with host New Ulm who will automatically be seeded in the tournament.

American Legion National Chairman Joseph Caouette said that New Ulm " will be an excellent host for this tournament site based on its community support of baseball."

According to Caouette, the tournament will bring to New Ulm's economy "10,000 fans, 350 motel room nights and over $250,000 in retail sales" in the five-day tournament.

New Ulm baseball historian Carl Wyczawski said that this will be the fourth regional tournament hosted by New Ulm with the last two being in 1985 Great Lakes Regional and the 1988 Central Plains.

"We are delighted to have this," Wyczawski said. "We had some good competition for this tournament with Rochester and Duluth also bidding. We have worked hard on this for several years."

'The great news is that we as a host get a team automatically in the tournament. This is not only great for baseball fans but also for the people that it brings in. It means a lot of money for New Ulm from visitors. The hotels will be filled -- restaurants will be busy. It is also great for tourism here. It is now a round-robin tournament so each team will play three games so they will stay in New Ulm for five days along with their fans."

ANDERSON, SEIFERT WILL BE MISSED AT WINONA STATE: Winona State University softball coach Greg Jones said that graduating seniors Kristi Anderson and Rachel Seifert, two New Ulm High School graduates, "were, quite frankly, the heart and soul of our team."

The Warriors saw their season end Saturday in a 1-0 loss to the University of Minnesota-Duluth in the title game of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference tournament in Morris.

Winona State ended with a 43-16 record, which is a school record for wins.

"They both were very much our team leaders," said Jones who is in his second year at the Warriors' helm. "They were both our offensive and defensive leaders. Those two with pitcher Cindy Suhby kind of made up the heart of soul of this team."

"They both brought leadership to our team -- they brought a positive attitude," he said.

Seifert, the daughter of Ray and Janet Seifert, "carried the team offensively. She hit .419 for her four-year career. That is unheard of at the Division II level. She hit over .500 the last two years in the conference. She led the conference in almost every offensive category. She was the bat in the middle of our order. She personally accounted for over 100 of our runs this year through runs scored and runs driven in."

Jones said that Anderson, the daughter of Landis and Rhonda Froehling of Hanska, "was our table-setter. She was our lead-off hitter and our shortstop. She was the one on base that Rachel was driving in."

And when Anderson got on base, she found a way to score or get in scoring position for Seifert.

"She was 17-for-17 this year in stolen bases, " commented Jones.

Anderson also bolstered her defense. "She really improved defensively over the last two years."

Jones said that both Anderson and Seifert not only led by example on the field but also verbally.

"The both are hard workers -- they get people to do what we need to do on the field."

This weekend, both Anderson and Seifert played solid for the Warriors despite Anderson being weakened by a cold.

"Kristi actually had some flu symptoms and fought through those," Jones said. "I don't know what their numbers were but Kristi seemed to be on base a lot. And offensively, we seemed to be in high gear (this weekend) which was nice."

Jones added that Seifert " had a couple of extra base hits -- like she always has. And they both played very well defensively and they played like they have all year."

Jones said that the departure of Anderson and Seifert leaves two big holes to fill for next year.

"You just don't replace those type of kids," Jones said. "We will certainly reload and I think that our program now is better because both Kristi and Rachel were in it. Because of their talents, we were able to recruit some talent. But, again, you do not replace what Kristi and Rachel were."

"It will be a long time before players come along and do the things that both Kristi and Rachel did," commented Jones." You cannot replace a .500 hitter that Rachel was so what we will have to do is try to have three or four hitters in a row try to get the hits that she got."

"They are absolutely huge holes for us next year," Jones said.

And Anderson and Seifert left their marks at Winona State.

"Before they came here, Winona State was not a real good softball team,"Jones said. "Over the last two years, we won 75 games."

Jones said that after their season ended, he thanked both Anderson and Seifert for what they did in their careers at WSU. "For every win that we get in the future, it is because of the work-ethic set by both Kristi and Rachel. We did not get the championship this year, but when we do, we will hold that trophy high for Kristi and Rachel."

DARTMOUTH LIKES GANSKE: Dartmouth University coach Adam Hollis said that they are "extremely happy" to have Charles Ganske of New Ulm High School .

Hollis, who was prohibited by Ivy League rules from talking about the recruited Ganske until the first week in May, said that there were many things that impressed himself and the Dartmouth football coaching staff about Ganske.

"The first thing that was impressive on the football field to me was the way that he instinctively ran to the football from his linebacker spot," he said. "And when he got there, he seemed not to be in the best of moods. We liked not only how he runs to the football but also how hard he hits when he gets there. He did not have a great disposition when he made his tackles."

Hollis said that Ganske was equally impressive in the classroom.

"He had an outstanding academic record," said Hollis. "Charles' transcripts are just filled with "A's" - I don't believe that there are any "B's" on the transcript. It is just an outstanding transcript. Being a straight "A" student and having a high score on the ACT initiated the phone call along with his football skills.Soon after that, we got some film which just solidified how much we wanted him."

Hollis said that the Ivy League "does not red-shirt any freshmen so we will give Charles every opportunity to start at middle linebacker here as a freshman. We play a 4-4 defense and we recruited a very good incoming linebacking corp and he will be penciled in on the depth chart along with some special teams that we think that he can do athletically."

Hollis said that the 6-toot 2, 220 pound Ganske "will be given every opportunity to be on the field as a freshman. The biggest thing that he will need to work on is his ability to change direction. He needs to be not only a downhill run-stopper but be able to change direction and drop back into pass coverage. One of the things that we do like is that he did play some quarterback in high school so we know that he is a good athlete.

"We think that he has a lot of natural instinct to play linebacker. And we are a young team. Last year, we traveled 18 freshmen ( 1-7 season record), and we did change our defense to that 4-4. There are two inside linebackers and we feel that Charles will be one of them for the next four years. The two players who were at those linebacker spots last year have graduated. One of those players was a first-team All-Ivy League linebacker."

Hollis said that no football team has won more games in the history of the Ivy League as Dartmouth has "and we want to restore that success to our team."

MINNESOTA BASKETBALL NEWS STUFF: The Minnesota Basketball News has named their All-State teams. Area players named were Adam TeBrake of St. Peter as Honorable Mention in Class 2A along with Redwood Valley's Aaron Busack.Minnesota Valley Lutheran's Jessica Merseth was named to the Second Team In the Class 2A Girl's Team. Merseth, a junior, has totaled 1,232 points. St. Peter's Megan Vogel was also named a member of that team.

Sleepy Eye Public's Josh Hadley was named to the Honorable Mention team in Class 1A.

NEW ULM SUMMER BASKETBALL CAMPS: A summer basketball camp for boys and girls who will be in grades 3-12 in New Ulm next year will be held in June.

For more information on the boys camp, you can contact Pat Burmeister at 354-8955 and for the girls, you can contact Brad Metter at 359-9385.

O'BRIEN NAMED ATHLETIC DIRECTOR: Winthrop native Dan O'Brien has been named as the new Athletic Director at Hamline University. For the past four years,he has been the AD at Concordia University.