The Year of the Junior

5-8-90

Perspective:

by Jerry Pyle

It was a pretty good week for Cobber sports. The softball team ended up with a winning record. The baseball team is heading for another strong finish. The trackers tuned up for the MIAC championships. And, with classes over and graduation ceremonies completed, the long-awaited renovation of the Cobber field house got underway in earnest.

On our now-nearly-deserted campus those few of us who remain are torn between thoughts of the year that just was and the new school year that is waiting for us this fall.

Looking back, it's been a pretty good year for Cobber sports. The Lady Cobber basketball team won the only Cobber MIAC title this year. But the football team came within about a minute (at Hamline) of doing nearly the same.

The women's cross country team was second in the MIAC. An explosive Cobber hockey team got itself back in the playoffs by finishing third. And women's golf won an unofficial MIAC title. Around here that's not a bad year.

As we begin to wonder about what successes might be in reach next year, it is fascinating to think of the class of juniors we had this past year and the promise their performances have shown. With all due respect to the seniors who have just graduated, there is a lot of reason for optimism here. Next year could be special.

Of the five Cobbers who earned all-American recognition this past year, four were juniors and the other, shot putter Mark Olson, was a sophomore.

Junior Michelle Thykeson, along with two other junior posts, Rhonda Schneekloth and Kim Fierke, led the Lady Cobber basketball team.

Junior Chris Fredrick led the women's track and cross country teams. And she got a lot of help from two other all-MIAC junior distance runners, Sharon Espeland and Molly Weyrens.

Junior Mike Hassman, along with his junior line mates, John Town and Shawn McGurran, broke all the Cobber hockey scoring records.

And junior Chip Halverson came back from a mid-season injury to earn all-American honors in wrestling. Fellow junior wrestler Kirk Leinwand also made it to wrestling nationals.

The 1990 Cobber football team will be loaded with this year's juniors who will want to make it three straight over Moorhead State and get back the title they let slip away this year. There will be so many quality seniors on this team that it is dangerous to mention just a few.

But quarterback Chad Walthall, fullback Dave Carlson, linebacker Thad Tudor, and defensive lineman Mike Gindorff are pretty safe bets to turn in special senior years.

And the parade of outstanding juniors who will be back for one more shot next year doesn't end there.

The volleyball team, which is 19-3 over the last two years in MIAC regular-season play, is going to be led by two-time all-MIAC hitter Amy Walstad and Mari Stewart, one of the league's best setters. Both were juniors this past year.

The leading scorer on the women's soccer team was junior all-MIAC player Sarah Pittorf.

The men's basketball team will have two all-MIAC players back for their senior year. This season's leading scorer and rebounder, center Eric Gardner, will be back, along with shooter Bryan Flam, who led the team is scoring as a sophomore but sat out last year due to an injury.

And the Cobber softball team, which just completed their first-ever winning season, had a pretty good all-junior pitching staff in Laurie Heeler, Sue Kalpin and Christy Slinkard.

There are others I probably have overlooked. But you get the idea.

Having a wealth of junior talent returning is, of course, no guarantee of success. Such stars become marked players and the focus of opponent strategies. If they snuck up on people this year they won't get away with it next year.

And it's sometimes tough for seniors to repeat the feats of their junior years, simply because seniors are beginning to focus on other things. It's easy to tell them that they should make the most of this final shot.

Their experience and maturity will be needed in the clutch and all that. But that speech doesn't always register.

With the end of their playing careers in sight, it's pretty tempting for them to start thinking about other things, like getting a job and starting a family. You know, the kinds of trivial things us coaches call "distractions."

The odds are that those types of "distractions" and, perhaps, a few cases of "burn-out" will cause a few of our highly-touted juniors to have less-than-wonderful senior years.

But, for most of these returning stars, the coming year will be filled with wonderful moments of success, which they will cherish and embellish for the rest of their lives.

We look forward to watching them and being part of their lives for one more year. It should be fun.

These pages are maintained by Jerry Pyle pyle@cord.edu . These articles are copyrighted © and may not be published or reproduced without the express permission of Jerry Pyle.

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