North Dakota
N.D. Babe Ruth Baseball defends forcing Park River to forfeit mid-game at state tournament
PARK RIVER — North Dakota Babe Ruth baseball is defending it’s decision to force a team from the northeast part of the state to forfeit a game midway through its second game of the tournament.
Some called it cheating, but the Park River baseball team says teams have been doing it for years without controversy.
The Park River Gold Babe Ruth baseball team cruised to victory in its first game of the tournament by winning 20-4. They were up 2-1 in a pitcher’s duel in the second game when it was brought to an abrupt halt.
“We were told we are cheating,” said assistant coach Brett Omdahl.
The Park River Gold team was told they would have to forfeit the game.
“I feel like it was a poor time to make an example out of a program,” Omdahl said.
“It’s a tough situation, it’s heartbreaking, but at the same time you have to do what is right,” said Larry Grondahl who is an assistant commissioner for North Dakota Babe Ruth Baseball.
For the state tournament, teams can have 15 players on their roster.
The Park River Gold team qualified with 12 players. So they added three players from the Park River Black team whose season was over. Tournament officials approved the roster prior to the start of it.
“It’s not like anybody was trying to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes, we thought what was being done was OK and was acceptable,” explained Jesse Irvine, president of North Valley Baseball.
He approved the roster additions for Park River, who hosted the state tournament last year.
Despite the roster rule being in place for decades, Irvine called it “common practice” and in the best interest of the kids and development of their respective programs.
“I know three teams supplemented their roster with kids from other teams within their own programs,” he said of last year’s tournament.
“That rule has been in effect in Class B for 25 years minimum. We haven’t allowed that for a long time. If it was allowed in Park River last year, someone missed the boat on it. It was never brought to our attention,” Grondahl said.
Park River was forced to forfeit the game and was placed into the elimination bracket where they won one game and lost another.
“By the rule, they should have been done totally, but we didn’t want to penalize the kids with no involvement in it,” Grondahl said.
This topic is expected to come up at the fall meeting.
“We really got to tune in a little bit with some of the stuff and make sure, especially teams who have two teams in a district tournament,” said Grondahl.
“If I was to go back two weeks, I’d do the same exact thing, I thought the idea is once you get to the state tournament you want the best players that have qualified in the state of North Dakota to be playing,” said Irvine.
The commissioners don’t want this controversy to overshadow the fact Kindred won the North Dakota Babe Ruth championship 12-6 over LaMoure. The Vikings finished the season 28-1.
Matt Henson is an Emmy award-winning reporter/photographer/editor for WDAY. Prior to joining WDAY in 2019, Matt was the main anchor at WDAZ in Grand Forks for four years.
Today in History revisits the Tuesday, December 29. 1959 edition of the Grand Forks Herald and highlights a story on the UND Hockey team being names North Dakota team of the year.
The University of North Dakota hockey team was named “Team of the Year” after winning the NCAA Championship in a 4-3 overtime victory over Michigan State. Forward Reg Morelli was voted the tournament’s Most Valuable Player. Runner-up honors went to the Bismarck High basketball team for winning its third straight Class A title.
Sioux Ice Champs N. D. Team Of Year
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (as published by the Grand Forks Herald on Dec. 29, 1959)
North Dakota hockey stock reached a peak early in 1959 when the University sextet captured the NCAA championship with a 4-3 overtime victory over Michigan State.
The feat earned the Sioux icemen the accolade of “team of the year” in the annual Associated Press poll of sports editors and sports directors.
Runner-up honors in the balloting went to the Bismarck high school basketball team, which won its third straight Class A high school title.
The St. Mary’s high school football team, which came from no- where to win the Class A grid crown, won third place.
The University hockey team had taken western championship for the first time the year before, and finished second to Denver in the 1957-58 NCAA tournament.
As the 1958-59 campaign rolled around there were many problems to be solved if the Sioux were to maintain their position atop the college hockey world.
One by one the questions were resolved, and on March 14, at Troy, N. Y., North Dakota went into overtime to cop the coveted NCAA title.
Tremendous spirit marked the Sioux climb to the top. The North Dakota team won four games during the season in overtime, including two in the NCAA meet.
Members of the championship team included George Gratton and Bob Peabody, goalies; Ralph Lyndon, Julian Butherta, Pete Gaze- ly and Bob Began on defense; and Jerry Walford, Stan Paschke, Guy LaFrance, Art Miller, Ed Thomlinson, Joe Poole, Les Merrifield, Ron King, Bart Larson, Bernie Haley, Garth Perry and Reg Morelli, forwards.
Morelli Voted Most Valuable
Morelli was voted most valuable player in the NCAA tourney. Morelli and Thomlinson were on the first team and Lyndon and Poole on the tournament’s second team.
The Bismarck basketball feat of three straight state championships tied a record set by Fargo in 1922- 23-24. The Demons had an overall 21-3 record, averaged 61.6 points per game and held opponents to 49.3 per tilt on the season.
Starters were Ron Carlson and Bob Smith at forward, Rod Tjaden at center and Art Winter and Rich Olthoff at guards.
Carlson and Winter were all-west choices.
Here are “team of the year” choices, points in parenthesis:
- UND hockey (37)
- Bismarck high basketball (24)
- St. Mary’s high football (16)
- Bottineau high basketball (11)
- Valley City Teachers basket- ball (10)
- Williston high wrestling (5)
- Grand Forks Legion baseball (2)
- Shanley high football (1)
- NDAC football (1).
Our newsroom occasionally reports stories under a byline of “staff.” Often, the “staff” byline is used when rewriting basic news briefs that originate from official sources, such as a city press release about a road closure, and which require little or no reporting. At times, this byline is used when a news story includes numerous authors or when the story is formed by aggregating previously reported news from various sources. If outside sources are used, it is noted within the story.
A storm bearing down on the Great Lakes and New England is expected to bring rain, snow, and high winds over the next few days.
A narrow band from Fargo, North Dakota south to approximately Mason City, Iowa is under a blizzard warning ahead of the storm. That includes parts of of both states as well as parts of Minnesota. Winds in the affected areas are forecast to reach 45 miles per hour and, paired with an expected 3 to 8 inches of snow, are expected to create whiteout conditions through the start of the week.
Michigan’s upper peninsula is under a blizzard warning as well. There, snowfall is expected to be between 9 inches and 2 feet, and winds are expected to reach as high as 60 miles per hour, ABC News reports.
The National Weather Service has issued winter weather advisories for parts of the northeast, from the Scranton, Pennsylvania up through Burlington, Vermont and Portland, Maine. Freezing rain is expected in that area on Sunday and Monday.
Buffalo and Jamestown, New York, are also both under flood watches from Sunday afternoon until Monday afternoon.
Back in the Great Lakes region, both Cleveland and Detroit are bracing for high winds. Forecasters expect the cities will see gusts of up to 60 miles per hour on Sunday night through early Tuesday morning.
In the upper midwest, both Minneapolis and Green Bay are forecast to see between 5 to 9 inches of snow. A level 1 of 5 severe storm threat exists in a stretch from northern Indiana south into Missouri. That band includes Indianapolis, St Louis, Louisville, and Nashville. The affected region will be subject to high speed, damaging wind gusts, according to Fox Weather.
The storm began dropping snow on Sioux Falls and Fargo early on Sunday morning, and will continue to sweep east across the northern sections of the U.S. The midwest will begin to see storm conditions on Sunday afternoon, and the northeast will be affected shortly thereafter.
Road travelers in the affected regions should be wary. Parts of the I-95 corridor between Philadelphia and Boston may be made treacherous by freezing rain around 5 pm on Sunday night.
Forecasters believe that the storm system will clear by Monday night, though lake-effect snow is likely to follow in its wake for Great Lakes communities. That snow will likely continue into Tuesday and potentially Wednesday.
In northern New England, wintry precipitation may produce up to a quarter of an inch of ice in the area. While the interior northeast is expected to receive some lake-effect snow as well, forecasters believe snowfall in the region will be lighter.
The storm comes on the heels of another winter weather system that swept across the northeast earlier this week, dropping snow on New York and New Jersey and forcing thousands of flights to be either cancelled or delayed.
LINCOLN, N.D. (KFYR) – Lincoln got its very own cat cafe last week.
Ashley Kneavel learned about cat cafes while visiting another state.
“I fell in love with the concept and wanted to bring something like that to North Dakota,” said Kneavel.
And so with the help of Furry Friends Rockin’ Rescue director Julie Schirado, she got to work.
“About a year ago, I think it was, we started building this together,” said Kneavel.
Furry Friends’ role in the operation? Providing the cats. All of them are pre-vetted, meaning they are spayed and neutered and fully vaccinated.
Meaning they’re also ready for adoption.
“Instead of them sitting at a shop, they get to sit in an atmosphere that’s closely resembled to a home,” said Kneavel.
The cafe has already had three of its four-legged residents adopted.
“It’s a great thing to see when somebody comes in and connects with them on a deep level and takes them home,” said Kneavel. “It’s just… I don’t even know how to describe it, it’s just very rewarding.”
One of her goals in the future is to install a drive-thru window.
To learn how to adopt a furry pal from the cafe, or how to book a visit, click here.
Copyright 2025 KFYR. All rights reserved.
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