Current: sports editor for the Winona Daily News Former: Lake Geneva Regional News. UW-Madison alum, Michigan born and raised. Writing aficionado, sports fiend.
Bryan Cassellius hits a 3 with 3.4 seconds left, and Austin misses a final second heave and Winona upsets the Packers 63-62 to snap a 26-game losing streak against Austin
Kaleb Skelly battles through double coverage to catch Winona State’s first offensive touchdown of the day. 20-0 lead over Concordia-St. Paul with 2:36 left in the first half
The Winona Daily News all-area football awards are official! Check right now for a trio of stories, and pick up a physical copy on newsstands or your mailbox tomorrow!
Winona State ties it up 21-21 with this 15-yard catch and run by Byron native James Durst with 5:48 left in the game
PAT was tipped but still had enough juice to get over the crossbar
Badger senior Jake Stritesky finished his wrestling career with a flourish, taking fourth place at the state meet in Madison today for the highest placement of his career.
For the second time this season, Winona beats Austin on a buzzer beater. This time, Charlie VandeBerg tosses up a deep 3 under heavy pressure to seal a 61-58 overtime victory and send Winona to the Section 1AAA finals in Rochester on Friday
The WDN's All-Area boys basketball team is out as G-E-T's
@CodySchmitz_
was named Player of the Year in a story online now and Jared McCutchen earned Coach of the Year in a story tomorrow morning. Our All-Area team story will be up in about a half hour all 3 will be in print Fri.
After softball late last week, tomorrow's print edition will feature the baseball All-Area team
Congrats to Winona's Carson Jones
@carson_jones10
as the POY, check newsstands and the Daily News website for stories on Jones and the rest of the all-area squad tomorrow
Congratulations to Luke Gardner, Brent Olson and all the honorees in this year's Winona Daily News All-Area team. Grab Thursday's paper or scroll down this thread to read all three stories.
Sources: Northwestern is expected to hire interim coach David Braun as the school’s permanent head coach. Braun has Northwestern at 5-5 after a 1-11 season last year.
A strong first half of the season by Big Foot/Bay, and the ChiefDogs lead Columbus 3-0. BFWB freshman Hudson Torrez with two goals and an assist already in a stellar varsity debut
Some professional news:
Starting in mid-September, I’ll be joining the Winona Daily News as their new sports reporter/editor! Very excited to join
@SommerfeldtLAX
and the crew over in the River Valley area.
Badger junior LB Cole Berghorn with an incredibly impressive showing, finishing in the Top 2 of three of the six workouts. Fellow Badgers Kegan Huber and JP Doyle also had standout performances
At 6:41 in the second half, Lewiston-Altura’s Thomas Menk hit a pair of free throws for his 999th and 1,000th career points, as well as a 58-45 L-A lead over Waseca
Sophomore Dane Guzzo scampers in on a two-yard rushing score to put Cotter ahead 22-14 at 10:35 in the fourth after senior Luke Gardner catches a two-point conversion
"I'm just trying to follow in her footsteps and do what she'd do."
If you need someone to root for this season, root for
#59
.
Sunday night Aaron Witt lost his mom. 5 days later his 4th down stop helped the
#Badgers
close out their win over Western Michigan.
The CBS TV crew entirely ignoring an active felony rape case is bad enough, conference officials making sure even people in the stands can’t bring it up is even worse
Wisconsin band members confirmed the "No means no" chant was shut down by the Big Ten.
I asked the Big Ten official who addressed the band for the reason why, and was told, "Are we seriously going to argue about this right now?"
G-E-T leads Sparta 50-23 at halftime. Cody Schmitz has passed the ball away quite a bit and still has 22 points, including this polished Eurostep-into-reverse-layup
The WDN's All-Area girls basketball team is officially official. A story about Player of the Year Kaylee Ruberg is online now, the All-Area squad will be up shortly and the story on Coach of the Year Pat Bowlin will be online Friday morning, with all three in Friday's print paper
Incredible. Jack Gillingham catches a touchdown and a two-point conversion with a club on his left hand. You don’t see that every day. BF up 21-7
#wisfb
Winona State football makes it into the Division II playoff bracket, seeded fifth and traveling to face four-seed Bemidji State on Saturday. Time is still TBD
Cotter’s Pat Bowlin picks up record-setting win 803 in dramatic fashion as Katelyn Ubl scores on a passed ball for a walk off 6-5 win over Caledonia in the season debut
Bowlin now holds the most wins in Minnesota state history
Winona State alum and former coach David Braun was tossed into the fire as the Wildcats’ interim coach and responded better than anyone could have expected.
I don’t have any insider information, but in my opinion, I would be shocked if he is not kept on as the head man
@CyrtHogg
@mkenewsguild
The pay/benefits stink, the hours are brutal, corporations exploit you. But hey, journalism has its upsides: 50% of the country hates you blindly due to political rhetoric!
I’m stoked to be able to finally share the news that I picked up an MNA award for this past year. Shout out to Cotter softball and Rushford-Peterson baseball, because without those two teams, I wouldn’t have had anything to write my winning story about
A pair of touchdowns by the Aquinas offense, and a pair of interceptions by Jackson Flottmeyer on defense in the fourth quarter sealed a 36-16 road win for 3-seed Aquinas over 2-seed Northwestern in the WIAA playoff second round
@SommerfeldtLAX
Just like Winona, an impressive turnout for the St. Charles band. Win or lose, these two communities are fired up for their first girls soccer trips to the Bank
Cotter standout WR and this season’s Daily News Player of the Year will be staying in the Coulee region, joining an Eagles squad that made a deep playoff run last fall
Winona State closes out a 24-10 victory over Minot State to kick off the 2022 season with a win and start the Brian Bergstrom era of Warriors football with a victory as well
A couple of the top teams in the state are at Saint Mary’s this afternoon, as Class AAA
#2
Winona takes on Class AA St. Charles in a nonconference softball clash
@JimPolzinWSJ
Even though Wisconsin played terribly for 37 minutes, watching Trice turn into a human cheat code in the final 3 made this one of the most fun Badger games to watch in a long time
A big semi-local commitment for the Warriors. I’ve seen him play in person and he’s the real deal. Big arm talent and coach heaps a lot of praise on his leadership/intangibles
Winona softball beats Kasson-Mantorville 4-1 in the Section 1AAA finals, heading to state next week to "finish what they started last year" after taking second at state in 2021, according to coach Mitch Grossell.
It’s not exactly nice out, but nice enough for some sports, and I’m out at La Crosse Logan as Winona is competing in a track meet at the Alma mater of coach
@tgleason2213
Quite a shocker in Lake Geneva as Elkhorn’s girls upset the Badgers in 54-40 fashion. Badger looked off all night and Elkhorn’s Ivey was able to control the post on both ends
Jace Ferguson buries his shootout to advance SCLA with a 4-3 win by a 6-5 shootout over Lourdes. What a game. Saints will join the girls team and play for a section 1A title on Tuesday.
While the Chiefs lost the game, it’s not all doom and gloom for the fans in Walworth: with her 16-point performance Reagan Courier has become the all-time leading scorer in Big Foot history
It’s Official, Olivia Poulin has committed to continue her academic & Softball career at St Mary’s University!!! Extremely Hard work paying off!!! “passion & pride”
Winona State running back Cair'ron Hendred takes another sweep untouched 75-plus yards, this time a 77-yard run to cut it to a 20-14 Sioux Falls lead at 4:59 in the second quarter
Cotter recovers a fumble after a strip sack by Jayden Konter with 38 seconds left and the offense kneels the clock out for a 6-0 win over Kenyon-Wanamingo
First back-to-back home wins for Cotter since 2021
Football season is officially upon us, as games begin in Wisconsin and practices begin in Minnesota next week.
Check out a list of 11 players to keep an eye on this fall!
Junior Adriana Brenengen shows her state track speed, breaking away and juking the goalie for Winona’s first goal of the game for a 2-1 Eastview lead with a little under four minutes until halftime
Grant DuMez is putting on a clinic tonight. The Badgers trail Wilmot 33-29 at halftime and DuMez has 25 points. He can’t miss so far, no matter how many defenders the Panthers put on him
Jonah Bunke with his second touchdown of the day, this time a 19 yard receiving score from senior Caden Johnson on 4th and long. 2-pt run is no good, but R-P leads 12-7 with 2:08 left in the first half
Winona closes the season with a 4-1 win over Becker, claiming the fifth-place consolation bracket trophy and sending out an accolade-laden senior class with a victory
Winona State answers right back as Noah Carlson, a Rushford-Peterson alum, springs a kickoff return for a touchdown and a 14-3 lead at 7:53 in the first
A stout defensive stand by WSU on three-straight plays near the goalline, forcing a field goal try, but Minot State's kicking unit has some sort of miscommunication and do not get the kick off before WSU swarms the ball to take over at the 12 yard line
As an admitted Minnesota newcomer, I had to carve out some extra time during my trip to the Twin Cities for state soccer to stop at the famous Matt’s Bar. The Jucy Lucy was as good as the hype! Now onto US Bank!
St. Charles/Lewiston-Altura is headed to its first state title game, defeating two-seed Southwest Christian 2-1 in a defensive battle.
The third-seeded Saints will be back at the Bank for a 7:15 kickoff Friday night against fourth-seeded St. Paul Academy.
A 9-yard pass from Mason Langowski to Bryan Cassellius on the first play of the second quarter puts Winona ahead 15-0. PAT is missed after a false start penalty puts the Winhawks back
As I was researching for this week’s football games, I realized all the matchups felt familiar; they were the games from my first nights on the job at the WDN last year. It’s been a great first 365 days and I am excited to see what stories I can tell in the next 365!
Rushford-Peterson closes out a 19-6 win in a rainy, defensive battle against Bethlehem Academy for the Trojans’ first undefeated regular season since 2002