Six Gophers were seeded for the two-day Big Ten wrestling championships starting Friday in Iowa City. The two highest seeds, at No. 2, are Tommy Thorn at 141 pounds and Brett Pfarr at 197.
Michael Kroells is seeded fifth at heavyweight, Nick Wanzek is seventh at 174 and Jake Short eight at 149.
Two weights were seeded to No. 14 because the conference earned more than eight qualifiers for the NCAA tournament at those weights. So the Gophers' Sam Brancale was seeded No. 14 at 133.
United off to Mexico
Minnesota United FC will continue its preseason with a trip to Mexico from March 7-17. The Loons will play two Liga MX teams, Pachuca Reserves and Cruz Azul, and the Mexico U20 national team. The team will be train at Pachuca's facilities the first six days of its trip.
Etc.
• The Gophers women's golf team is tied for 11th place with Purdue after the second of three rounds of the Hurricane Invitational in Miami with a score of 587. The top Gophers is sophomore Heather Ciskowski, tied for 27th with a 4-over 146.
• Gophers junior pitcher Sara Groenewegen was named the Big Ten pitcher of the week in softball and first baseman Maddie Houlihan the freshman of the week after their team went 5-0 last weekend at the Diamond Devil tournament in Tempe, Ariz. Groenewegen was 3-0 and struck out 33 in 22 innings. Houlihan hit three homers, including a grand slam, and had eight RBI and scored six runs. … The Gophers (10-4) are No. 20 in this week's USA Today/NFCA national rankings this week.
• For the second consecutive week, sophomore Yaroslav Pochinka was ranked No. 1 nationally in the vault. His average score this season is 15.383.
• Gophers sophomore Caroline Ryba was named the Big Ten women's tennis player of the week. She won twice at No. 1 singles and twice at No. 2 doubles.
• Concordia (Moorhead) senior forward Jordan Bolger was named the MIAC Player of the Year in men's basketball. St. Thomas' John Tauer was named Coach of the Year in the conference for the second season in a row.
• Gophers senior gymnast Lindsay Mable was named the female winner of the 2016 Wayne Duke postgraduate award. It's a $10,000 scholarship given by the Indianapolis Big Ten Community Partnership for achievements in academics, athletics, extracurricular activities and leadership. She has a 3.84 grade-point average in elementary education. A day earlier, Mable was picked the conference's co-gymnast of the week after winning the all-around title and three events at the four-team Best of Minnesota meet.
• Don Mulhern of Wisconsin-Superior was named the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in women's basketball, and Yellowjackets sophomore Hailey Kontny was named Player of the Year. Wisconsin-Superior went 16-0 in conference play during its first season in the league.
