WJONAM

The Sauk Rapids-Rice Storm underachieved and battled key injuries in 2011 and finished with a 2-7 record including a 42-16 loss to Alexandria in the first round of the section playoffs. Storm are focused on improvement with head coach Bill Magnuson.

The Vikings host the San Diego Chargers in what's considered a dress rehearsal for the regular season. The starters are expected to play into the 3rd quarter including quarterback Christian Ponder. Head coach Leslie Frazier says he'll limit the touches for running back Toby Gerhart because he'll be needed when the regular season starts against Jacksonville.

The Class B and C State Amateur Baseball Tournaments continue in St. Cloud tonight. The Class B state tournament starts tonight at Dick Putz and Joe Faber Fields in St. Cloud. The Cold Spring Springers play their first game at 5pm tonight against the Austin Mounds at Putz Field. The Sauk Rapids Cyclones play against Chaska at 7:30 tonight at Putz Field.

The Twins optioned outfielder Matt Carson to triple-A Rochester after the game Thursday and called up righthanded relief pitcher Kyle Waldrop from triple-A Rochester. Waldrop has a 3.34 ERA in 24 games for Rochester this season. Carson was 8-21 batting .381 for the Twins with 1 RBI in 5 games this season.

The Twins lost 10-6 at Texas Thursday night to suffer their 3rd straight loss and 8th loss in their last 9 games. Texas scored 6 runs in the 8th inning to break a 4-all tie. Only 1 of the runs scored in the 8th inning was earned due to errors from Pedro Florimon and Trevor Plouffe. Jared Burton took the loss in relief and drops to 1-1.

Meet Sierra and Blaze at the Tri-County Humane Society.

The Vikings may have to play without nose tackle Letroy Guion Friday night in their 3rd and most important preseason game. Guion aggravated his right knee injury in practice on Tuesday and was seen with his knee wrapped in a while compression sleeve on Wednesday at practice. Guion was signed to a contract extension in the offseason and the team hoped he would demand a double team and allow for the Vikings to improve their defense against the run.

The Cathedral football team has improved each of the first 3 seasons under head coach Dean Taylor the bar is set even higher for this season. Cathedral won just 1 game in Taylor's first year there but 3 games the following year and 6 games in 2011. Cathedral lost some key players from last year's team but Taylor has high hopes for this year's team.

The Twins lost the rubber game of the 3-game series at Oakland against the Athletics Wednesday afternoon. CoCo Crisp went 3-3 with a homerun and 2 RBIs for the Athletics. Tommy Millone threw 8 innings with 2 hits and 1 earned run allowed to get the win. Liam Hendriks allowed 6 hits and 4 earned runs allowed in 5 innings to take the loss and drop to 0-6. Matt Carson had 2 of the 3 Twins hits.

The new Princess Kay of the Milky Way is from Stearns County. Christine Reitsma of Sauk Centre was crowned the 59th Princess Kay last (Wednesday) night at the state fairgrounds.