Welcome, First posting of the year
Welcome to the Thisweek Newspapers Sports Department blog, “A view from the Pressbox”. This is Jason Olson and I’ll be doing the majority of the upkeep on the blog with help from Andy Rogers on occasion. On this blog we’ll let you know what’s happening in the south metro sports scene from high school, club sports to individual organizations latest and greatest happenings. We will also use this medium to give a more opinionated and first-hand approach to stories and games we cover.
Just like the summer that hasn’t arrived yet (no 80 degree days by May 24), the start of “A View from the Pressbox” has been a bit behind the calender too. For the past month myself (Jason) and Andy have been trying to keep ahead of the always-busy south metro sports scene.
Take a look at any of our sports pages from this spring season. Each issue has been full of baseball, softball, golf, track, tennis even badminton, rugby and ultimate frisbee! With such a diverse scene as we enjoy around Dakota County, I’m looking forward to getting out and trying some of the non-mainstream activities like disc golf in Burnsville or Eagan once all of the high school sports season’s are completed. And by the looks of things that might be a while (which is a GREAT thing!!).
Last Wednesday I caught my first taste of state boys lacrosse as Eastview nearly came back against Eden Prairie in the semifinals at Hopkins High School. Once again I didn’t dress for the weather, anticipating a mid-May evening to be in the mid- 50s, instead it felt like the temperature barely made it out of the 40s by 9:30 p.m. Back to the game. Eden Prairie held a 6-2 lead at halftime only to have the Lightning outscore their Lake Conference rivals 4-1 in the third quarter which set up an interesting fourth quarter. The Eagles went on to win 9-7, but the way Eastview scored something like 26 seconds apart showed their offensive talent to score when they really needed to.
Section 3AAA softball continued Friday with the fifth round of the double-elimination tournament at Eagan’s Lexington-Difley Complex. I caught most of the Wildcats/Blaze match-up in the winners bracket. Eagan is the not only the top seed, but is the top ranked team in the state. So no pressure on No. 4 ranked Burnsville to avenge its regular season loss. Eagan’s sophomore pitching ace Sarah Moulton was lights-out under pressure against Burnsville’s lineup. Ally Koski ended Moulton’s perfrect game with a lead-off base-hit in the fourth inning, but was stranded as she was in the sixth inning on a two-out base hit. Jessica Wilson was the only other Burnsville player to record a hit. Moulton struckout 13 batters in the win. Eagan’s offense tested Burnsville often with runners threatening in a majority of the innings. They broke through for the game-winner in the fifth inning as Paige Ashton led things off with a base hit and moved to second base on a sac bunt to Blaze pitcher Kelsey Anderson. Ashton moved to third base on a rare-based ball that reached the backstop. She was driven in on senior Emily Bodeker’s base hit.
As the game began, Burnsvile’s bench defined the term coaches use all the time “
As a daily visitor, let me welcome you to these pages. I’ve already got a suggestion.
Burnsville High School has a new soccer coach and he seems to have hit the ground running. An interview with him would be interesting.
Thanks for the tip. Scott Garvis let me know about the change and I’ll be talking to the new head coach soon. It’s the time of the season for coaching shifts.