Sports

The Benson volleyball team opened up the 2014 season with a three-game sweep over Lac qui Parle, Monday night in Benson.  
The Braves, coached by Shannon Schmidt, Sarah Lundebrek, and Miranda Bonk, are coming off a 10-16 season from a year ago that included a 6-7 mark within the WCC South to give Benson a second-place finish in the conference behind BOLD, which finished 11-2 in league competition.
The Braves struggled early in the first game, falling behind 10-6 and 16-13, but Benson regrouped to take command of the match, winning in three games, 25-21, 25-18, 25-22.
This week, Benson is set to host BOLD, Thursday (tomorrow) before taking a week off to prepare for a home match with Atwater-CGC, Thursday, Sept. 4.  
A match with Montevideo, that was previously scheduled for the first day of school, Tuesday, Sept. 2, has been moved back to Tuesday, Oct. 7.

The Benson football team is ready to kick off the 2014 season with a game at Montevideo at 7 p.m., Friday, Aug. 29.  The Braves are coming off a 1-8 season from a year ago.  Benson lost 14 players from last season, including its top linemen, its punter and kicker, five of its top six receivers, and its top eight leading tacklers.
However Benson, coached by Scott Gonnerman, Roger Lindahl, Mark Grussing, Jonas Grossman, Dan Stiel, Chad Carroll, Matt Larson, Adam Foslien, and volunteer coaches, Tom Foley, Andrew Rustad, and Adam Nokleby, does have four returning starters on offense and only one on defense.
The Braves are playing in the 10-team WCC again this year for football.  Benson plays Montevideo, Sauk Centre, ACGC, BOLD, Morris Area, YME, Paynesville, and Melrose Area, but does not play Minnewaska Area.
The home opener for the Braves is set for 7 p.m., Friday, Sept. 5 against Sauk Centre, which is also Father-Son Night.

The Benson football team has been practicing for over a week and the team is set to take part in its annual “lock-in” Thursday (tomorrow).  The day starts with practice from 7-10 a.m., and the players will depart for the Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center (PWELC) at noon to participate in a team-building activity from 1-4 p.m.
The team will return to Benson after that to take part in team pictures (5:30-6:30 p.m.), a team meal (6:30-7:30 p.m.) and the annual football-volleyball food drive from 7:30-8:30 p.m. The football team’s day’s not over though, as the team has another activity from 8:30-9:30 p.m., a movie from 9:30-11:30 p.m. and then lights out at 11:30 p.m.

Minnesota State High School League schools should no longer have a reason to travel far out of state to find football opponents or play less than an eight-game regular season football schedule. The League Board of Directors unanimously adopted a plan that places all member schools with football programs into Districts.
The members of each district will divide the district into sub-districts, and then create a full schedule for each team. In nearly all cases the placement of schools will not negatively affect traditional rivalries or preferred opponents.
Benson and KMS have been placed in the Mid State district, one of 18 districts set up by the MSHSL, and two of 24 schools placed in the district.

The last event of the season was held on Camp Lake.  As teams were putting boats in the water, the weather didn’t look like it was going to let the event get underway.  The lightning and most of the rain missed the area, so fishing was able to stay on schedule.  There were only 9 walleyes and 1 northern brought to measure, so the race stayed very tight until the last fish was measured.  Only one team brought 2 fish to measure; the other teams had zero or one fish each.  The fish caught were large ones, however.  Six of the nine walleyes were over 20”.  All of those large walleyes were released back to the lake in good shape.  The largest walleye was a 28” beauty caught by Tom Hollingsworth.  Largest northern at 24.5” was brought in by Nathan Thompson.  For this event, Rod Busters took first place at 9 points with that big walleye.  Second place went to White Fins with two walleyes 16.75” and 18.25” earning 8 points.  Googan took third place for the evening at 7 points with a big 25”

The Norway Lake-Sunburg Lakers amateur baseball team improved to 5-2 overall with an 8-1 victory over Paynesville, Sunday night in Paynesville.
The Lakers had three homers as Aaron Zimmer and Jordan Johnson both had three-run shots, and Chad Searcy added a solo homer.
Norway Lake-Sunburg has now won four games in a row after starting out the season 1-2.  The Lakers are set to host Regal at 1:30 p.m., Sunday, at Norway Lake.

The Norway Lake-Sunburg Lakers improved to 4-1 overall with a 14-6 victory over New London-Spicer, Friday night in Spicer.
The Lakers scored early and often against the Twins, scoring single runs in the first through fourth innings to take a 4-3 lead and then adding six in the seventh, three in the eighth, and another run in the ninth.
Overall, the Lakers outhit the Twins, 15-6, with Chris Braaten going 3-for-6 with a double, two RBI, and two runs scored, and Kyle Baker going 3-for-5 with two RBI.
Braaten earned the win for Norway Lake-Sunburg, giving up just five hits and three runs over six innings and leaving with the score 10-3 in the Lakers’ favor.
Jonah Johnson came in for relief, and gave up three unearned runs in the seventh on one hit and one walk.

The Benson-KMS girls golf team finished fifth in this year’s WCC girls golf race.  Minnewaska Area claimed the overall title, winning all 10 conference meets, while BOLD finished second overall.
The Fighting Braves finished a team-best third at WCC meet at Morris, Sauk Centre, and Granite Falls, but also placed seventh three times.
Benson-KMS placed second at the four-team sub-section meet.  Benson-KMS had a 415 total to finish behind champion Morris Area-CA, which had a 400 total.
Minnewaska Area went on to claim the Section 3AA girls title by 10 strokes over Marshall (326-336) with Morris Area finish fourth.
The Benson-KMS girls golf team qualified three golfers to the Section 3AA Tourney -- Kellie Enderson, Shayla Burns, and Rachel Lee -- but none were able to get past the section tourney.  Enderson had the low score at sections with a 93, but finish 12 strokes from a state tournament berth.

The Benson baseball team finished the 2014 season with a 6-13 overall record and 4-10 mark within the WCC South.  The Braves finished fourth in the league standings as BOLD won the league title with a 12-1 record, Paynesville was second at 11-2, ACGC was third at 4-8, Benson was fourth, and YME was fifth at 1-11.
The Braves started the season off 2-3 after a 7-2 win over ACGC, but then lost eight of its next nine games to fall to 3-11 overall.  Benson swept a doubleheader from YME to end the regular season and then opened up the section tourney with a 2-0 upset of Montevideo before falling to Morris Area (8-4) and NLS (8-2) in the next two rounds to be eliminated.  Fairmont went on to beat Marshall, 3-0, for the Section 3AA title.
In the WCC North, Minnewaska and Sauk Centre tied for the league title with 9-4 records, and Montevideo was third with a 9-5 league mark.

Benson-Hancock pitcher Addie Forbord earned WCC “Performer of the Week” honors last week during a busy and successful week of softball
Forbord picked up four-straight wins last week over ACGC, YME twice and Montevideo, including a no-hitter during a 7-0 victory over YME in the second game of a doubleheader.  She was also 2-for-4 at the plate during the first game win over YME.
Other “Performers of the Week” were Noah Grove of Morris Area in WCC North baseball; Jacob Zosel of Morris Area in WCC boys golf; Erica Moritz of YME in WCC girls golf; Kayla Pring of Morris Area in WCC North softball; and Beth Holland of Morris Area, and Trent Ostby of Morris Area, in track and field.

Photo:  Addie Forbord - WCC "Performer of the Week."