Four Area Athletes Selected To Legion All-Star Game

The 2023 Legion Baseball All-Star Game Rosters were announced this week. 2B Noah Rieber and P Sean Felker will represent Detroit Lakes and P Ashton Detloff and C Blaiz Schmidt will represent Perham.

66 incoming high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors from across the state to be selected for the games. The players will be divided into four teams and play games at Reynolds Field at the University of Northwestern-St. Paul August 4-6.

The Legion Prospect Series was created as an All-Star event to showcase next-level talent from all across the state. Players are nominated by their coaches.

The weekend will begin at Target Field with a dedicated section for American Legion All-Star players and their families at the Twins game on Friday, August 4th. On Saturday morning, players will attend the annual College Coaches Breakfast Panel, where players will have an opportunity to network with college coaches across all four levels of collegiate play (community college, DI, DII, DIII) to discuss recruitment and college selection.

Games will be played Saturday and Sunday. 

Twins offense stay cold as Atlanta completes sweep

Atlanta starter Kolby Allard struck out the first three Twins batters of the game, setting the tone for a Minnesota offense that, once again, failed to show up in a 3-0 loss.

The Twins remain on pace to set a new Major League record for most strikeouts in a season, adding 14 more to their league-high 838 strikeouts.

Kenta Maeda went five innings, giving up two earned runs and registering four strikeouts.

The shutout loss was the 39th time this season the Twins have been held to three or fewer runs. After the game, players held a closed-door meeting. Minnesota will head up to Baltimore to start their three-game weekend series with the Orioles tomorrow.

Wild Draft Stramel With 21st overall pick; Bedard and Moore to Chicago

The Minnesota Wild addressed their center concerns with their first pick in last night’s NHL Draft, selecting Rosemount native Charlie Stramel with the 21st overall pick.

The 6’3, 225-pound Stramel was among The Athletic draft analyst Corey Pronman’s favorite prospects in this year’s draft class, but saw his draft stock fall due to poor freshman numbers at the University of Wisconsin, where he scored five goals in 33 games. Stramel’s struggles as a true freshman at the University of Wisconsin were in large part due to the Badger’s just being a bad team last season. However, he did help lead Team USA to a World Junior Championship bronze medal, recording three assists in the tournament. 

In other Draft news, incoming Gopher freshman Oliver Moore was drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks with the 19th overall pick. Moore appeared in 23 games with the USHL’s US National Development Team last season, with eight goals and 17 assists, and is considered the best skater in this year’s draft class.

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, future superstar Connor Bedard went No. 1 overall to the Chicago Blackhawks. The first surprise of the draft came shortly after the selection of Bedard as Swedish center Leo Carlsson went No. 2 overall to the Anaheim Ducks. Most mock drafts had University of Michigan star and reigning Hobey Baker Award winner Adam Fantilli as a lock to go in that spot. Instead, he fell into the laps of the Columbus Blue Jackets with the third overall pick. 

Wolves waive Taurean Prince

Taurean Prince is set to leave the Timberwolves after two years in Minnesota.

The Timberwolves have declined to guarantee Prince’s $7.4 million contract for 2023-24, meaning he’ll enter the free agent pool ahead of the new season.

Prince arrived in Minnesota as part of the Ricky Rubio trade in August 2021, with the Wolves sending Rubio to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for Prince and a 2022 second-round pick.