Seth Gross, a former Apple Valley High School star, won a wrestling title Saturday in the NCAA Championships in Cleveland, and another Eagles great, Mark Hall, the defending 174-pound champion, lost in the finals.
Gross, a junior at South Dakota State, defeated Stefan Micic of Michigan 13-8 at 133 pounds after taking an early 6-0 lead. He is the Jackrabbits' first Division I national champion.
"I'm not done yet," Gross said. "I've got one more year left. So gotta keep living it up and hopefully go for that Hodge Trophy [given to the nation's best wrestler] next year and just build off this. There's no slowing down. I want to be an Olympic champ one day, so just a stepping stone and I'll keep getting better."
Hall, a sophomore at Penn State, lost 7-2 to Zahid Valencia of Arizona State.
The Gophers did not get any wrestler to the finals, but junior wrestler Ethan Lizak finished fourth at 125.
Lizak defeated Lehigh's Darian Cruz, the 2017 national champion and top seed, 5-2 in his first match. Then, in the third-place match, he lost 8-6 to second-seeded Nathan Tomasello of Ohio State 8-6 in overtime.
Lizak was the runner-up a year ago, when he lost to Cruz in the final.
The Gophers finished with 27.5 points.
Pipers finish third
The Hamline women's hockey defeated Plattsburgh State 5-4 in overtime in the third-place game of the NCAA Division III tournament in Northfield, Vt. Darcy Dodds, a freshman from Byron, Minn., scored with seven seconds left in the extra period to avert a shootout.
Becca Zarembinski's second goal of the game for Hamline (22-5-3) tied the score at 4-all with 4:44 left in the third period.
Hamline led 3-1 after the opening period on goals by Sadie Baker, Zarembinski and Bre Simon. But Plattsburgh State (24-4-2) scored two goals in the second and one in the third to take a 4-3 lead.
• The Augsburg men's hockey team lost 5-2 to host St. Norbert in the NCAA Division III quarterfinals. Chandler Madry and Luke Dietsch scored goals for the Auggies in the second period after they fell behind 3-0.
NSIC makes splash
St. Cloud State's Britin Thomsen, MSU Moorhead's Erin Sullivan and Sioux Falls' Cassie Wright — a diver and two swimmers from the NSIC — finished in the top five Friday night in the NCAA Division II Championships in Greensboro, N.C.
Thomsen was third in 1-meter diving (446.35), Wright third in the 100 backstroke (53.44) and Sullivan fifth in the 100 backstroke (54.38).
Etc.
• Gophers swimmer Lindsey Kozelsky, a sophomore from Albert Lea, Minn., placed seventh in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:07.69) in the NCAA swimming and diving championships in Columbus, Ohio.
• The Gophers softball team defeated New Mexico State 7-0 in the first game of a doubleheader on Amber Fiser's five-hitter. Catcher Kendyl Lindaman hit a two-run homer, her eighth of the season, for Minnesota.
• The Gophers men's golf team was in 12th place after Day 2 of the Schenkel Invitational in Statesboro, Ga.