Norsemen Shut Out Springfield, Gophers Fall to Tar Heels

The St. Cloud Norsemen shut out Springfield on the road and the NDSU football team continued their undefeated streak with a take-down of Central Arkansas on Saturday. Meanwhile, the Gopher football team suffered their first loss of the season to the Tar Heels, the Minnesota Twins dropped their first game of the series to the White Sox, and the Granite City Lumberjacks had their home opener against Rochester suspended part way through. On Sunday, the Minnesota Lynx will face Connecticut in a first-round win or go home playoff game.

RECAPS:

- The Norsemen skated circles around the Jr. Blues with a 5-0 road win Saturday. Gavin Gunderson and Michael Coleman gave St. Cloud a 2-0 lead in the first period. Braden Panzer extended the lead to 3-0 in the second, and Niklas Miller and Sammy Crane sealed the deal in the third. St. Cloud outshot Springfield 50-16 in the win and goaltender Max Weilandt made a perfect 16 saves. The Norsemen improve to 2-2 and will face their first divisional opponent of the season when they travel to Austin on Friday. Puck-drop is set for 7:05 p.m.

- The Bison notched their third win of the season 49-31 in a competitive contest against Central Arkansas at home Saturday. NDSU struck first in the high-scoring affair, trading blows with the Bears and lead 35-17 at the half. Both teams scored two touchdowns in the final two quarters, but the early lead was enough to give North Dakota the edge. Cam Miller completed 18 of 19 for 200 yards and two touchdowns while also racking up six carries for seven yards and two rushing touchdowns. The Bison roll to 3-0 on the season and will be off next week. NDSU will return to action on Saturday, September 30th when they host the University of South Dakota (2-1) at 1:00 p.m.

- The Gophers came up short in their road opener and their first-ever contest against no. 20 North Carolina 31-13 on Saturday. The Tar Heels got on the board first with a touchdown in the first quarter to take the lead 7-0. They extended the lead to 14-0 in the second before Minnesota rallied to cut the deficit to 14-3. The teams traded scores through the remainder of the first half and the Gophers entered the break trailing 21-10. Minnesota's final points of the game came on a field goal make early in the third quarter to bring the score to 21-13. North Carolina put up another field goal and touchdown in the final two quarters to seal their win. Athan Kaliakmanis completed 11 of 29 passing attempts for 133 yards and one interception. Darius Taylor had 22 carries for 138 yards and one touchdown. Dragan Kesich was 2-for-2 on field goals and 1-for-1 on PATs. The Gophers fall to 2-1 and will continue their road trip when they take on 1-2 Northwestern on Saturday. Kick-off is set for 6:30 p.m. on AM 1240 and 95.3 FM WJON.

- The Twins could not quite dig themselves out of an early hole and fell to Chicago 7-6 on the road in game three on Saturday. Royce Lewis put Minnesota on the board with an RBI single in the top of the first, but the White Sox came roaring back in the bottom. Eloy Jiménez hit a two-run homer, and Gavin Sheets hit a three-run homer to put Chicago up 5-1. The Twins settled in and righted the ship in the second, and neither team scored until the seventh. The White Sox extended their lead to 7-1 with Tim Anderson hitting an RBI double and Andrew Benintendi adding an RBI single. It looked like it was over for Minnesota, but the Twins put together a rally in the final two innings. In the eighth, Jorge Polanco made it home on a wild pitch, Carlos Correa hit an RBI single, and then later scored on an error, and Kyle Farmer hit an RBI groundout to close the gap to 7-5. In the top of the ninth, the Twins tried to finish the rally. Farmer walked with the bases loaded to send Polanco in for the team's sixth run. Minnesota nearly came back, but in the next at-bat, Willi Castro got the final out of the game on a pop-fly with the bases loaded, leaving the tying and go-ahead runners stranded. Pablo Lopez struck out eight batters and allowed five runs on eight hits through the first five innings while Josh Winder and Jhoan Duran combined for three strikeouts and two runs on three hits. The Twins drop to 78-71 and will close out the series against the White Sox (57-92) with game four on Sunday. Pre-game coverage starts at noon on AM 1240 and 95.3 FM WJON.

- The Lumberjacks will have to finish their home opener at another time, after an unsafe ice issue suspended Saturday night's matchup against Rochester. The game was put on hold between the first and second periods. After one, neither team had scored a goal. The game will be rescheduled for a later date and resume with a score of 0-0 at the start of period two.

PREVIEWS:

- The no. 6 Lynx will take the court for what could be the final time this season when they face the no. 3 Sun in game two of the round one playoff series. Connecticut currently leads the best-of-three series 1-0 and blew out Minnesota 90-60 in game one. The Lynx went 1-3 against Connecticut in the regular season series. If the Sun win, they will advance to the semifinals. If Minnesota wins, it will tie the series and force game three which would be played at Target Center next week. Tip-off is set for noon.