Reusse: Defying status as a financial underdog, Augsburg aims for two national championships

Augsburg University was the host for the Region 7 meet for Division III men’s wrestling and had finished a close second to Wisconsin-La Crosse. This was the first time since regional competition started in 2003 that the Auggies had not won their region.

Yet, on this first Saturday night of March, Augsburg had qualified eight of its 10 wrestlers for the national meet to stay alive for a third consecutive Division III title and a 16th overall. That meet takes place starting Friday in Providence, R.I., with Johnson & Wales University as the host.

“We were cleaned up and getting ready to leave for the night,” said Parker Venz, Augsburg’s senior 197-pounder. “And then we heard the women’s hockey game still was going on. So we walked over there, started cheering, and got to the see the winning goal.”

This was an MIAC playoff semifinal between the Auggies, surprise winners of the regular-season title, and St. Mary’s. The game went on at Ed Saugestad Arena to a fourth overtime before the wrestlers were able to join the celebratory roar for Augsburg’s 3-2 victory.

The winning goal came at 8:06 of the night’s seventh period when freshman Aunna Schulte scored unassisted to conclude what is being claimed to be the longest Division III women’s game in history.

What happened … finally, on that long night?

“I wound up with a loose puck off a faceoff and came around behind the net,” Schulte said. “I got to the side, took a whack, missed, the puck was still there. And then I roofed it.”

Schulte said there was a moment of disbelief before the Auggies went into a mad dash of celebration, followed by the predictable pile of players near mid-ice.

Schulte was reliving these four-plus hours of hockey and the moment of madness this week in a coach’s office at Augsburg. Venz also was there, as representatives of two collections of Augsburg athletes with a chance to pull off an astounding parlay for a school that in several ways is an underdog among its peers:

To win a pair of national team championships in the same winter sports season.

The wrestlers enter as No. 3 in the DIII rankings, behind Wisconsin-LaCrosse and Johnson & Wales. The women’s hockey team was assigned the No. 1 seed for the 12-team national tournament, but the narrow margin at the top of that competition was exemplified in the MIAC playoffs.

The Auggies’ four-OT win over St. Mary’s was followed by a 3-2, first-OT win last Saturday vs. perennial power Gustavus, also on a Schulte goal.

Augsburg is the truly urban private college, jammed between Riverside Ave. and a perpetually crowded entry ramp to Interstate 94.

The endowment for Augsburg is reported at roughly $70 million — or $600 million less than St. Olaf, another Lutheran-affiliated college in the MIAC, or 10% of what former conference rival St. Thomas holds a few miles away in a leafy area of St. Paul.

When Augsburg wins, the Real City and the ‘Burbs have joined forces, and Americana has won. That’s my theory, anyway.

Venz comes from Farmington. He listened to Schulte’s enthused retelling of the winning goal and said: “Hockey was the first sport I wanted to play as a 5-year-old. My mom said it was too expensive. Basketball and baseball didn’t cost as much. And wrestling … just show up."

Coach Tony Valek and his assistants rave about the determination that fuels Venz. At the nationals, he will be in a gruesome weight class: LaCrosse’s Ben Kawczynski has been a fierce rival, and Wartburg’s Massoma Endene is a legend.

“We’ve won a lot, we’ve won titles, but honestly, I don’t feel that much pressure,” Venz said. “We know we’re good enough, and we have to wrestle our best.”

The wrestling lineup includes veterans of, in NCAA championships, the “Battle of the Burgs” with Wartburg. Between them, the Burgs have won every national title dating to 1995.

The women’s hockey situation is 180 degrees from that. Coach Elizabeth Bauer is 26. She is “Coach Biz” to everyone. She arrived as an assistant to Michelle McAteer last season, then took over when McAteer quit to become the commissioner of the WCHA, the D-I conference.

Bauer comes from Wausau, Wis., and played college hockey at UW-Eau Claire. The recruiting from last season brought in 11 first-year players for 2024-25, including Schulte.

The veterans haven’t been moved aside: Nora Stepan, a junior from Eastview, leads D-III defenders with 16 goals.

Schulte comes from Bolingbrook, Ill., southwest of Chicago. She moved to Pittsburgh for a season with her mother to play for the Penguins Elite Team. Her friend Mei Diesing did the same, and now they are Auggies.

How did a Chicago suburbanite wind up at Augsburg?

“Came up here in ‘23, liked the program, liked the school, like being in the city,” Schulte said. “Coach Biz was here when I was recruited, and it was great to find out she was being promoted. She’s young, but she’s good.”

As are the Auggies.

“When I came here in the fall of 2021, the wrestling team seemed separate from the other athletes,” Venz said. “It wasn’t the coaches. Just maybe the attitude we had — ‘We do our thing, we win.’

“I feel like we’ve changed that. In my four years, we’ve tried to get to know the other athletes, ask about their teams, support them. Being there for Aunna’s winning goal late at night … that was tremendous.

“See a battle like that. Made you proud to be an Auggie.”