Sports

Area sports teams earn awards aplenty in 2014

By Matthew Semisch

12/30/2014

Editor’s Note: Between this week’s edition and next, the Bottineau Courant is publishing a year-in-review feature series on what happened with Bottineau County’s sports teams in 2014. This first part of the series focuses on January through June of this year.

The Courant owes much of its sports coverage from early 2014 to Tyler Ohmann, the newspaper’s former sports editor. He departed in March to join a newspaper in Minnesota.

Bottineau County’s high school and college sports teams have been very busy in 2014, and the teams’ supporters haven’t been short on things to cheer about over the past 12 months.

Many individual and team awards were handed out to area student-athletes in 2014. Many victories were earned and from January through to this week, plenty of local teams’ talent and coaches made headlines.

What follows are samples of Bottineau County’s teams’ successes and newsworthy moments in the first half of 2014.

JANUARY

Well before graduating from Bottineau High School this spring, Andrew Hill announced his intention to play collegiate baseball.

The former baseball, football and hockey standout for the Braves signed a national letter of intent to play baseball for Minnesota State-Fergus Falls. When the Spartans’ 2015 season opens, Hill plans to play both outfield and middle infield for the Minnesota community college.

Hill was a jack of most trades on the Braves’ varsity baseball team and for Bottineau Post 42’s American Legion team, having played outfield, middle infield and catcher.

Hill was a four-year starter for the Braves.

FEBRUARY

Harrison Aide, a senior on the Bottineau-Rugby boys’ hockey team, was named in February as North Dakota’s “Mr. Hockey.” The title is given annually to the top high school boys’ hockey player in the state.

The honor was bestowed upon Aide at the state boys’ hockey tournament in Grand Forks. The Braves didn’t qualify for the tournament, but B-R did receive recognition at Ralph Engelstad Arena when the “Mr. Hockey” title was handed out.

Aide was also named as the West Region’s Senior Athlete of the Year for the 2013-14 season.

It was a fiitting conclusion to a varsity high school career that started when Aide posted 30 points as an eighth-grader in 2009-10. 

In his fifth and final season with the Braves, he broke two school scoring records with his 52 goals and 92 points.

MARCH

The Dakota College at Bottineau women’s basketball team clinched its first-ever berth for the NJCAA national tournament. An 83-65 victory over North Platte Community College (Neb.) on March 9 at the Woodshed kept the Ladyjacks’ season going.

After clinching their second consecutive NJCAA Region XIII title, DCB downed North Platte in the District F title game to move on to the national tournament in Overland Park, Kan.

The triumph in the District F final was the Ladyjacks’ first in four attempts. DCB had also gotten that far in three of the past four years, but only this March did the Ladyjacks finally get over the hump.

DCB went 0-2 at the national tournament and finished the 2013-14 season with a 15-19 record.

APRIL

The good times kept rolling for DCB’s women’s hoops team in April when freshman guard Imani Scott was named as a NJCAA Division II All-American.

The Ladyjacks’ newcomer from Akron, Ohio was among 30 Division II junior college players named to the list. The group was split into three subgroups of 10, and Scott was listed as a third-team selection.

Scott became one of only three women’s basketball players in DCB history to be named to the All-America team. She joined McKenzie Nohr (2007) and Shannon Smith (2011) on that exclusive list.

Over 34 games played in the 2013-14 season, Scott led the Ladyjacks in points per game (16.0), minutes per game (28.1) and free-throw shooting percentage (78.6).

MAY

The month of May is normally highlighted on the high school sports calendar each year for the  state finals in spring sports. This time around, plenty of student-athletes from around Bottineau County made their mark.

At the state track meet in Bismarck, Aide locked up his fourth consecutive Class B boys’ pole vault title. He was one of 10 Bottineau High student-athletes to qualify for the meet.

In Minot, the Westhope-Newburg-Bottineau softball team made its first-ever trip to the Class B state softball tournament. A 1-0 victory over Enderlin-Maple Valley on May 31 clinched a third-place finish for the Sioux.

JUNE

Allison Scherr, a former two-sport athlete at DCB, was named in June as the Ladyjacks’ new volleyball and softball head coach.
Scherr, a native of Mohall, inherited a softball team that finished 23-9 in its 2014 season and a volleyball team that finished 2014 with a 4-21 record.