Roseau has hit one home run in its first three baseball games, and that was a result of speed as well as power. Alex Ziegler hit an inside-the-park homer when the Rams played Deer River in the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
"Alex drove it over the centerfielder's head,'' Roseau coach Tracey Wensloff said. "Once you do that in the dome, it becomes a race between the baserunner and the outfielder chasing the ball. And Alex is pretty fast.''
The Rams have been potent with their balance. Roseau is 3-0, scoring nine runs in one game and 10 in its remaining two. It has double-figure hit totals in every game.
"Going into the season, I thought offense was our question mark,'' Wensloff said. "I looked for our pitching and defense to carry us. But, thus far, the offense has been pretty good. We've put the ball in play pretty well, and the top of the order has been pretty tough.
"I don't see us hitting a lot of home runs. But I can see us hitting a lot of line drives into the gaps for extra bases. The guys run pretty well.''
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Ziegler (4-for-6), Ben Vatnsdal (6-for-10), Justin Anderson (6-for-11) and Nick Anderson (5-for-8) lead the offense.
Logan Hulst is the ace of a pitching staff that, like the Rams' batting lineup, has good depth. Vatnsdal, Ziegler, Justin Anderson and Alex Strand also are effective pitchers.
Wensloff doesn't see the Rams continuing to score nine or more runs a game. But he sees Roseau as being capable of scoring around five runs a game. "And, with our pitching and defense, we can win a lot of games with that.''
The Rams play a doubleheader at East Grand Forks Senior High on Friday, then are at Warroad on Tuesday. "I think those teams will be towards the top half of our subsection,'' Wensloff said. "We'll get a little better feel of how we stack up after those games.''
Hillsboro-CV football
co-op put on hold
The planned football co-op between Hillsboro and Central Valley has been put on hold for a year.
The two schools recently agreed to co-op in all sports. But, with the North Dakota football classifications and regional alignments entering the second year of a two-year cycle, the North Dakota High School Activities Association's board of directors on Monday denied the schools' request to start the football co-op next season.
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Co-ops between the schools in all other sports were approved.
Hillsboro will have its own varsity football team next season. Central Valley will proceed with a junior-varsity schedule due to declining enrollment and low participation numbers in the upper grades. The schools will re-apply for a football co-op to begin in the 2013 season.
"We'd asked to allow the Central Valley seniors to play football with us so they would have the opportunity to play a varsity schedule,'' Hillsboro athletic director Terry Baesler said. "But that was denied. I felt (the NDHSAA board) didn't want to set a new precedent by doing something like this.''
Baesler said the recommendation from the NDHSAA's football coaches committee was to decline the request.
"I understand the decision,'' Central Valley athletic director Randy Vigen said. "The board has to draw lines somewhere. If they had approved this, our enrollments would have jumped us up to Class AA. That would have forced other schools to jump around, moving to different classifications and regions. I think the major issue was too much juggling around.''
The decision didn't come as a surprise, Baesler said. "We'd talked ahead of time to some of the board members. They told us the possibilities of it happening were slim to none.''
Central Valley and Hillsboro will have separate junior varsity football squads next fall, while they'll co-op in junior high. Vigen said he doesn't foresee any problems when the schools re-apply for the football co-op for the 2013 season.
Lefties lead Langdon-Munich
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A pair of left-handers has Langdon-Munich's baseball team off to a fast start.
Both Jace Roy and Kalton Agnes had impressive opening performances for the 2-0 Cardinals. Roy and Mitch Wirth combined for a no-hitter in a season-opening 5-2 win against state-ranked North Star. Roy threw the first six innings, striking out eight.
Agnes followed that by striking out 13 in a complete-game 4-1 win against North Border. He allowed only four hits.
"Agnes is probably our ace,'' first-year Langdon-Munich coach Josh Krivarchka said. "He throws pretty hard and he's got a good curve. Jace is always around the plate, hitting his spots and keeping batters off balance. Together, I think they'll be a pretty tough pitching combination.
"I didn't know what to expect when I came here. I've been happy with what I've seen from both of them so far.''
Briefly
Brandy George has been hired as boys basketball coach at Thompson. George previously had been head coach at Lakota/Adams-Edmore. . . . Randy Greendahl has resigned as North Border's girls basketball coach. . . . Joe Demers of Grafton and Nathan Linstad of Minto-Midway have been named to the ESPNHS preseason North Dakota all-state baseball team. . . . St. John senior Seth Anderson has signed a letter of intent to play football at North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton. . . . Wells County senior Cassidy Unterseher has signed a letter of intent to play volleyball at Jamestown College. . . . Thompson senior Jake Adam has signed a letter of intent to play football at Northern State in Aberdeen, S.D. . . . Roseau senior Jordan Radcliffe has signed a letter of intent to play golf at University of Minnesota-Crookston.
DeVillers reports on sports. Reach him at (701) 780-1128; (800) 477-6572, ext. 128; or send e-mail to gdevillers@gfherald.com .
