North Dakota
Sheyenne Mustangs fall short against Dickinson in ND Class A softball quarterfinals
FARGO — After a lengthy weather delay, the third quarterfinal of the North Dakota Class A state softball tournament between West Fargo Sheyenne and Dickinson finally got underway three hours after its originally scheduled time.
Consistent scoring by Dickinson — with one run scored in each of the first three innings — put the Midgets in control early. However, it was a strong finish in the seventh inning that sealed the 8-6 win as Dickinson retired Mustang batters Quinn Thompson, Briley Thompson and Kyra Narum in order.
“We’re moving on to the semis and it feels good to move on to day two,” said Dickinson coach Amanda Mickey. “It was a perfect time to get 1-2-3 out in that last inning. That’s exactly what we wanted.”
Ava Jahner earned the win for Dickinson, going the distance and allowing six runs on six hits. She walked six and struck out seven strikeouts. Mickey pitched the last inning, which served to get Jahner tuned up for Friday’s semifinal.
“It gives Ava some confidence going into tomorrow’s game,” she said. “It was one of her biggest struggles and she pulled through. Her defense had her back and we put up runs on the board.”
While Sheyenne took momentary leads in the third and fourth innings, three Dickinson runs in the fourth put the Midgets back in control.
Two more Dickinson runs in the fifth — with Gabriella Sobolik and Myah Merry scoring on a double by Jenna Decker — helped maintain the Midgets buffer over the Mustangs.
Sheyenne’s Kyra Narum and Autumn McGough each toed the rubber for three innings. Narum started the game and McGough finished things up. The pair combined to give up seven earned runs on 10 hits. They walked five and struck out five.
The Mustangs’ Kate Geiszler was 2 for 2 with three RBIs.
Despite sticking with Dickinson for most of the game, Sheyenne coach Mark Woodbury said the Mustangs just weren’t able to respond when they needed to.
“We had momentum and scored three runs and took the lead but Dickinson is a good team and they came back and hit the ball well,” said Woodbury “We need to answer when teams do that. When they hit the ball and score a couple runs, we need to answer and we just weren’t able to do that today.”
As for who the teams will play in their respective games Friday, it’s still unknown.
The final quarterfinal game of the day, between the East No. 1 West Fargo and West No. 4 Bismarck Century was postponed until Friday morning at 10 a.m. due to the weather delay and lack of lighting at Tharaldson Park.
The winner of that game will play the West No. 2 Dickinson Midgets while the loser will face the No. 3 East Sheyenne Mustangs.
All games following the 10 a.m. quarterfinal will be played on a rolling schedule with 35 minutes between games.
North Dakota
State officials monitoring oil-production spills in northwest North Dakota
(Bismarck, ND) — State regulators continue to monitor a pair of oil spills reported last week in northwest North Dakota.
Sources with the North Dakota Oil and Gas Division say little under 1,250 barrels of oil were released due to overflow near Johnson’s Corner in McKenzie County on Tuesday.
Contents of the spill reportedly were recovered.
Sometime later, 300 barrels of water tainted during oil and gas-extraction efforts also were released.
Authorities say that spill was cleaned up sometime later.
State inspectors continue to monitor both sites.
North Dakota
New interstate would cut through North Dakota
(Bismarck, ND) — Plans for a new interstate will bring the highway through the middle of North Dakota.
There’s no timetable for the construction of the proposed I-27 which would run from Texas to Canada.
Funds were allotted for the project by Congress in 2022.
Congressman Kelly Armstrong says giving farmers and energy producers more options to get their products to market will save on transportation costs.
North Dakota
The story of North Dakota's youngest 'vagrants' in 1923
Stutsman County officials faced an unusual challenge with some young vagrants wandering the area in 1923.
The problem started on a Sunday when residents of the Windsor area brought two boys to Jamestown. The boys, ages 11 and 8, were found in the area and claimed they had been traveling alone for a “fortnight,” according to newspaper reports.
A fortnight is two weeks, in case you are not familiar with the time reference.
The children said they had been sleeping in hay and straw stacks in the fields and eating food begged at farmhouses along their route or snitched from vegetable garden plots.
Officials brought them to juvenile court, where Judge Coffey asked them how they had come to be traveling on their own.
According to the boys, they were traveling with their parents and five siblings by wagon across North Dakota headed toward Dickinson. Somewhere along the way, they had grown tired and stopped for a little nap. When they awoke, the wagon and their family were nowhere to be seen.
I suppose a family of seven children is difficult to keep track of, but it is no excuse to lose two of them along the way.
The children claimed they had tried to track the wagon but were never able to gain sight of their family.
According to newspaper articles, the children were placed under the Stutsman County sheriff’s authority while officials made attempts to locate their parents.
The newspaper coverage referred to the children as “North Dakota’s youngest vagrants” but also included some skepticism about their story. The article used the term “they said” often and presented no other information about the story.
It appears there were no follow-up articles about the children in any of the regional newspapers.
They may have been runaways, or they might have gotten lost by inattentive parents on a wagon trip across North Dakota
No matter how they came to be traveling along across North Dakota, they managed to spend a fortnight living off the land and surviving.
Author Keith Norman can be reached at
www.KeithNormanBooks.com
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