Hello  and  welcome  back  to the  weekly  rundown  presented  by  the  Minnesota  Daily. I'm  your  host,  Paul  Hodowonic. And  this  week  we're  going  to  cover  a  pair  of  sports. First,  we're  going  to  look at  the  Gophers  wrestling  season  with beat  reporter  Nolan  O'hara  as  they  approach  one  of their  biggest  duels  of  the  season  against Penn  State  this  weekend.  Then  no. Nolan  and  I  will  preview the  upcoming  softball  season  which  gets  underway  on Friday  as  the  team  hopes  to  build  off a  truly  historic  2019  season. And  as  always,  make  sure  to  check  out Nolan's  work  both  on  the  wrestling  and  softball  beats at  Mendaly.com  or  pick  up a  paper  at  pretty  much  any  building  on  campus. Let's  jump  right  in,  starting  with  wrestling, an  overview  of  their  season. So  far  they're  954.2  in  the  big  ten. They've  been  up  and  down  in  stretches, win  a  couple,  lose  a  couple. And  I  think  maybe  we  can  attribute  that  to maybe  the  amount  of  young  guys  that  they  have, we'll  get  into  that  a  little  bit  later. But  kind  of  anchoring  the  team, it's  always  going  to  be, the  talk  is  going  to  be  about  Gable. Gable  Stevenson,  Heavyweight.  Gable  Stevenson. He's  nine  and  hasn't  lost  yet. 141  Mitch  Mckee,  he's  22.3  174  pound  Demon  Skatzka, he's  24  and  6.149  Brayton  Lee,  he's  23. Those  are  kind  of  the  anchors, the  go  to  guys  that the  Goers  have  been  able  to  rely  on  all  season. But  I  guess  my  question  would  be at  9.5  and  4.2  and  the  big  ten, is  this  where  we  expected  them  to  be, both  as  a  team  and  then  as  some  of  the  individuals who  have  been  asked  to  compete  most  of  the  season. I  think  this  is  probably about  where  you  could  expect  them. Especially  missing  Gable  for the  first  half  of  the  season. That  definitely  didn't  help matters  as  far  as  the  team  is  concerned. And  like  you  said, a  lot  of  young  guys  on  this  team, a  lot  of  Redshirt  Freshman competing  every  night  in  the  duels. And  really,  they've  been  doing  a  nice  job. And  one  of  the  things  Egham  has been  talking  about  a  lot  is  winning. Like  the  close  match  ups, They'll  win  and  get  bonus  points, but  there  are  some  that  are  going  to  be  really  tight. And  the  duels  that  they've  lost  closely, they've  lost  those  close  match  ups. And  then  they've  been  able  to  win  a  lot  of  those  too. So  it's  been  a  good  balance. They're  competing  in  the  Big  Ten, which  best  conference  for  wrestling  in  college. And  you  win. They  did  have  a  good  shot  moving  forward,  I  think. Yeah,  they  were  without  Gable  until the  December  20  meet  against  South  Dakota  State, and  they'd  lost  twice  in  there  before  he  came  back. One  of  them  pretty clearly  they  would  have  won  had  he  been  in  there. Their  opening  loss  to  Ryder  second  duel, the  season  third  meet. And  they  lost  by  four  points and  they  would  have  won  if  he  would  have  wrestled. I  think  there's  no  question  he  would  have  won. He's  the  number  one  heavyweight  in  the  country. I  think  it's  safe  to  assume  he's  going  to  win  any  match. He's  out  there  until  we're  proven  wrong. So  I  guess,  yeah,  there's one  spot  in  the  standings  where  you're  seeing  that, but  they  have  a  couple  losses  still  with  him  there. And  it  obviously  hasn't  been  his  fault. But  I  think  everyone  has a  little  bit  more  confidence  when  he's  in  that  spot. They  know  they're  pretty  much  got  to  win  there. I  think  especially  for  the  young  guys, there  are  a  lot  of  them  on  this  season. I  think  you  can  detail  that  for us  a  little  bit  in  more  depth. But  as  opposed  to  previous  seasons, they  are  really  relying  on  some  freshman  and  sophomores. How  has  that  gone  for  the  Gophers? It's  Panda  really  well. And  you  have  to  like  the trajectory  they  have  moving  forward, especially  with  Red  Shed  Freshman, Brayton  Lee,  Pat  Mckee,  and  Ryan  Thomas. Ryan  Thomas  is  a  guy  who's  kind  of  come  on  recently. He  made  his  dual  debut a  few  weeks  ago  and  got  a  ranked  win  In  that  debut, he  picked  up  a  ranked  win  earlier  in  the  year  two. And  he's  really  been  stepping  up  nicely  for  him. And  then  Pat  Mckee  has  been  starting  at  01:25 all  year  long  two  and  he's  been  floating  around  12, 13,  14  in  the  country. And  then  Brayton  Lee,  top five  in  his  weight  class  as  well. All  three  of  those  guys  redsed  freshman, stepping  in  right  away  have made  a  big  impact  on  this  team. And  then  you  have  Richard  Sophomore  Bailey  O'reilly, who  he's  not  been  ranked  really, but  he's  been  another  guy  who's  been  able to  win  a  lot  of  matches  for  the  golfers. And  obviously  gables  only  a  sophomore  as  well. So  building  this  team  this  year, having  all  those  guys  out  there, you  can  only  imagine  moving  forward, how  good  this  team  could  be  in  a  few  years  down  the  road. Sure,  I  remember  talking  to Egham  probably  a  month  ago and  he  was  saying  the  young  guys  are  still, they're  starting  to  really  round  into  form. They're  kind  of  getting  what it  means  to  be  a  college  wrestler, a  D  one  wrestler  in  the  big  ten. And  they're  not  used  to  that  level  of  physicality, that  level  of  just  competition. And  that's  going  to  take  some  time, and  I  think  you  said  before, five  of  the  ten. Wrestlers  or  freshmen  or  sophomores. So  they're  really  relying  on  those  guys. And  I  think  we  have  seen  those  ups  and  downs. Two  weeks  ago  they  had  lost  to  Michigan, they  lost  to  Ohio  State. Not  great  matches  for  them, and  then  this  last  weekend they  really  put  the  hurt  to  Purdue  in  Indiana. They  were  probably  better  than  both those  teams  coming  in  regardless, But  they  still  went  out  and  beat  them. And  beat  them  pretty  handedly, I  think  like  we  saw  in  football, like  we've  seen  in  hockey  this  year, when  you  have  those  young  guys, it's  just  you're  going  to  have  a  lot  of  ups  and  downs. And  I  think  the  wrestling  team  is  just going  through  that  themselves. And  I  think  one  other  thing  that  I  don't  know I'll  ask  you  that  might  be  causing  them  some  pressure  is, you  know,  the  their  end  goal. Those  NCA  championships  always  provide  some  pressure. But  it  is  really  going  to  provide  pressure when  it's  at  US  Bank  Stadium. This  year  it's  the  wrestling  community is  going  to  descend  upon  Minneapolis, and  the  Gophers  are  going  to  be  Center  stage. They  figure  to  have  a  couple  people  there  individually. I  think  they'd  love  to  be  there  as  a  team. Where  are  the  teams  expectations  so  far  for  that? Are  they  talking  a  lot  about  it? Can  we  tell  there's  pressure  to  get  there? Is  it  just  like  really  on  their  mind  at  this  point? It  definitely  has  been  everyone  I've  talked  to  on the  team  has  said  one  way  or  another, like  these  national  championships in  Minneapolis  this  year. And  you  have  a  lot  of  native  Minnesotans on  the  team  as  well  and  that's  bigger. So  like  the  Mckee  Brothers, Gable  all  from  Minnesota. And  that  is  something  they  definitely  have their  eyes  on  moving  forward. And  especially  when  it's  in  your  city, you  know,  you  kind  of  do  have  that  pressure  of  it. And  we've  seen  it  a  few  times with  volleyball  a  couple  of  years  ago  too. Maybe  you  want  it  so  bad  and  it kind  of  can  hurt  in  other  areas. Yeah,  volleyball's  the  best, best  example  considering  last  year, their  number  two  seed  and  then  they  got  knocked out  just  a  week  or  two  beforehand. So  it'll  be  interesting  to  see  if  they  can kind  stay  within  themselves, especially  some  of  those  high  rank guys  who  we  should  expect  to see  there  not  getting  tripped  up  along  the  way, who  individually  has  a  good  chance  of  being  there. We  can  pretty  much  pencil  in  already. We're  going  to  be  able  to  watch  them in  our  backyard  competing  for  national  championships. Yeah.  Well,  obviously  we'll  see  Gable, Stephenson,  number  one  in  the  country. Right  now,  Penn  State had  the  previous  top  rank  Heavyweight, and  he's  down  now. He  has  a  pretty  clear  shot and  people  are  going  to  have  to  take  a  shot  at  him. But  then  the  Mckee  Brothers, they  could  make  some  noise  in  the  NCA  championships  here, and  really  the  team  as  well,  Stevenson, after  the  dual  loss  against  Ohio  State,  he  was  saying, you  know,  our  goal  is  not  to  win  this  Sunday  night  dual, our  goal  is  to  win  the  national  championships  in  March. And  as  a  team,  they  have  their  minds  focused  on that  and  they  definitely  have some  tests  coming  up  as  they, you  know,  take  on  Iowa  and  Penn  State, probably  the  top  two  teams  in  the  country. And  we'll  really  get  a  good  idea  of  where they're  at  in  those  two  upcoming  match  ups. Yeah,  I'm  looking  at  the  rankings  on Internet  Wrestle.com  right  now. Iowa's  the  top  team,  Penn  State. They  have  his  third  Nebraska  six,  Ohio  State,  seventh, The  Wisconsin  eight,  Illinois  15th, Michigan  17th,  Minnesota  18th. Perdue.  19th,  Northwestern  22nd. They've  got  roadblocks  ahead  of  them. If  they  want  to  make  it  as  a  full  team, they're  going  to  have  to  survive  that  big  ten  conference. And  obviously  they'll  come  out  better  for  it  at  the  end. But  it's  whether  they  can  make  it out  and  actually  can  get  there. As  we  approach  that,  that's  coming  up  in  March. What  story  lines  should  we  be  paying  attention  to? People  we  need  to  make  sure  we're  looking  at  like,  oh, if  the  gophers  can  make  it, these  people  are  going  to  have  to  step  up. These  are  the  story  lines  we  should  at  moving  forward. Well,  first  things  first,  Penn  State  duel  on  Sunday. That'll  be  a  really  good  test to  see  where  this  team's  at, but  it'll  be  interesting  to  see  what happens  with  Patrick  Mckee. It  looked  like  he  got  his  knee  twisted. They  taped  his  legs  in the  dual  against  Purdue  where  he  was up  52  on  the  number  six  ranked  guy in  the  125  pound  weight  class. And  as  soon  as  he  got  his  leg  twisted, he  ended  up  taking  a  technical  fall, which  was  unfortunate,  and  Egham  was  pretty  disappointed. He  hated  to  see  that  for  him, but  on  Sunday  when  they  took  on  Indiana, they  just  forfeited  the  weight  class. And  it  didn't  matter  because  they  destroyed Indiana  four  pins  in  the  first  six  matches. But  coming  at  Penn  State, you're  probably  not  going  to  do  that. So  that'll  be  an  interesting  test  to  see how  they  fare  against  Penn  State.  And  if  he  comes  back. And  then  you  have  Iowa  the  following  Saturday  as  well. You  know,  really  tough  competition  coming  up. And  I  think  those  will  be the  biggest  things  to  keep  your  eyes  out  for. And  in  those  matches  you're  you're  going  to need  guys  other  than  Stevenson  and the  Mckees  and  Scatska. You're  going  to  need  some  guys  to  win  close  matches, and  not  just  your  top  guys  to  win, win  the  matches  they're  supposed  to  win. You're  going  to  need  to  flip  a  couple  as  well. Yeah.  So  more  than  the  end  result, whether  it's  a  winner  or  loss, considering  Penn  State  and  Iowa, top  two  of  the  top  three  teams, maybe  the  top  two  teams. I  don't  think  people  should  get discouraged  if  they're  losing  those. They're  looking  at  those  individual  battles. Seeing  how  close  guys  that  aren't  ranked. We're  taking  guys  on  those  teams  that  were  ranked, seeing  if  we're  able  to  flip  any  of  those. Because  that's  what's  going  to  matter  later. And  it  probably  won't  go their  way  in  either  match  just  in  terms  of  the  full  body. But  if  they're  keeping  close,  that's  a  good  sign. It  sounds  like  moving  forward, if  they're  getting  blown  out,  it's  not  great. I  mean,  it  might  be  slightly  expected, but  if  they're  really  able  to go  toe  to  toe  with  Iowa  and  Penn  State, and  even  if  they  fall,  that's  an  encouraging  sign. Absolutely.  Especially  if  they  have  to  forfeit 12052  in  those  two. Now  I  want  to  shift  to  softball. Softball  team  is  getting  ready  to  start  their  season. They  start  on  Friday,  February  7, with  a  43  day  series  down  in  Clearwater,  Florida. They  finished  last  season, 46.14  hosted  a  regional  and  super regional  and  made  it  all  the  way  to the  Women's  College  World  Series. First  time  in  program  history. Quite  the  year  for  the  team  and  it  was full  of  a  lot  of  firsts  in  history. They  were  the  talk  of the  entire  university  there  late  spring. And  they're  just  getting  going and  it'll  be  interesting  they're  going  to  be  the, the  team  that  everyone's  looking  at  all  spring. Once  basketball's  done,  once  hockey's  done, it's  going  to  transition  into  softball. Baseball  slightly  but  mostly  softball. So  we  wanted  to  give  everyone a  preview  of  what the  team  looks  like  if  they're  returning. A  lot  of  people,  if  they're  not,  what  should  we  expect? The  good  news  for  Gopher  fans  is there's  a  lot  returning  that  they  had  last  year. I  believe  seven  of  the  nine defensive  starters  are  returning. If  you're  counting  yeah, seven  of  the  nine  defensive  starters are  returning,  not  if  you're  counting  the  pitcher. The  pitcher  is  obviously  one  of  them. But  biggest  losses  would  be  Matty  Hulahan. She  was  a  starting  right  fielder, hit  29077  home  runs,  37  RBIs. And  really  the  leader  of  the  team, she  galvanized  the  troops  in  all  areas. That's  going  to  be  their  biggest  loss. Their  next  one  was  all  Arneson, who  defensively  was  a  really  good  shortstop  but didn't  have  a  ton  going  for  her  at  the  plate. She  had  moments  of  nice  pop, maybe  double  doubles,  power  gap  power,  but  nothing  crazy. And  the  biggest  one  out  of  all  of  them,  that, that  isn't  really  a  loss, but  we  don't  really  know  going  forward  is  Hope  Brandner. Hope  Brander  played  first  base for  the  Gophers  all  of  last  season. She  transferred  in  from  Morgan  State. She  led  the  team  with  19  home  runs, second  on  the  team,  and  RBI's  with  59,  he  had  354. It  was  the  third  most  home  runs  in  a  season for  Gophers  softball  player. We  expected  her  to  be  back  and  we  go for  the  first  day  of  media  availability and  they  say  she's  not  medically cleared  to  play  and they  don't  really  know  when  her  return  is. That  was  two  weeks  ago. You  were  there  just  the  other  day. Did  they  have  any  sort  of  update  on  brand  status? No  update.  The  message  was  just, we  want  all  our  players  healthy and  that  doesn't  go  just  for  hope. So  there  was  nothing  specific  regarding her  situation  and  we're kind  of  left  wondering  what's  going  to  happen to  and  what's  going  to  happen  at  first  base  as  well. Yes.  She  didn't  really have  any  injury  concerns  last  year. We  don't  want  to  speculate  what  it  is. It  might  be  an  injury,  they  couldn't  give  us a  specific  part  of  the  body  that's  injured. Hopefully  it's  a  quick  recovery. It's  not  something  more  that's  not an  injury  like  a  chronic  illness  or  anything  like  that. We  hope  that  she'll  be  able  to  get  back, but  it's  interesting  that  they don't  really  have  a  timetable  for  her  yet. I  think  if  it  had  been  an  Achilles  tear, it  had  been  something  they  would  have just  announced  she's  out. So  it's  definitely  something  that  needs  to be  monitored  and  has  to  be  monitored  because  again, she  is  that  big  bat  in  the  middle and  we're  going  to  talk  about  ambrofizer, but  she  was  brander  was  one  of  the  biggest  areas, they  were  able  to  get  production  in  that  line  up. But  taking  away  or  not  looking  at  some  of  that, looking  at  what  they  are  returning,  they're  returning. Amberfizer  expected  to  be the  workhorse  again  for  the  Gophers. She  was  31.9  last  season, pitched  in  almost  every  game, even  back  to  that  game, same  days  she  was  pitching. If  not  all  the  innings  only  getting  taken  out  for a  couple  innings  was  really  relied  upon. She  had  a  1.27  RA. So  she  was  worth  it. What  was  head  coach  Jamie  Amberfizer talking  about  in  terms  of what  she  hopes  to  get  out  of  this  season? You  know,  she's  just  always  hoping  to  be  better. And  that's  one  of  the  things  that  probably makes  her  as  great  as  she  is  is  like  you  said, 1.27  ERA  last  year  and  it's  never  enough. So  I  think  that's  her  goal  as  well  for  the  team. They're  hoping  to  meet  all  the  expectations  now that  they  made  the  Women's  College World  Series  this  last  year. Everybody's  expecting a  repeat  performance  again  this  year. And  there's  been  lots  of,  a  lot  of  that. Just  attention  as  well. And  their  goal  is  to  meet  those  expectations, so  the  expectations  are  high, and  then  they  have  the  same  expectation for  themselves  to  meet  that. So  yeah,  Pfizer  made  the  softball  America top  100  list  and  she  wasn't  the  only  one. Brander  made  it  as  well  as  Sophomore  Natalie N.  Hartag  and  Infielder  Mckenna  Partain. So  they've  got  a  lot  of  people  coming  back. Pfizer  is  also  USA  Softball  top  50, so  a  lot  of  talent  coming  back. They're  ranked  anywhere  between  like 6.8  in  terms  of  all  the  polls  that  have  come  out. So  even  though  branders status  is  kind  of  hanging  over  them  like  a  little  bit  of a  dark  cloud  in  terms  of  we  just  don't  know. There's  a  lot  of  reasons  to  be  excited, regardless  of  that  they're  getting  back. Ellie  Jensen,  who  only  played  13  games last  season  was  got injured  and  was  out  for  the  rest  of  the  season. But  prior  to  that,  and  a  lot  of  her  freshman  year, she  was  like  the  leadoff  batter. I  expect  her  to  take  up  most  of the  Matty  Houlihan  spot in  terms  of  batting  and  in  the  field.  She  can  do  that. They've  got  a  lot  of  reason  to  be  optimistic. I  want  to  go  through  some  of  the  biggest  story  lines. We  kind  of  talked  a  lot  about  the  brand  new  situation. One  thing  that  just  is  interesting  to  note  is there  isn't  really  anyone  on  the  roster  that  has  base. There  is  no  one  on  the  roster  that  has first  base  experience  more  than  just  a  game  or  two. Car  Brandt,  who's  kind  of  their  super  utility  player, has  played  in  seven  of  the  nine  defensive  spots. I  believe  she  only  hasn't  done  catcher in  like  third  base  or  something  like  that. So  she's  been  all  over  the  field,  she  would  make  sense. But  she's  more  of a  quick  tools  outfielder  than  she  is  a  first  baseman. So  it'll  be  interesting  to  see  where  there  with  that. And  the  big  one  that  everyone  wants  to  know  is  just Ken  the  Gophers  get  back  to the  Women's  College  World  Series. Have  they  talked  much  about how  their  anticipation  for  trying  to  get  back  there, for  trying  to  repeat  the  success  that  they've  had considering  how  amazing  that  run  was  for  them  last  year. Yeah,  it's  definitely  a  goal  of  the  team, they're  talking  about  that  getting  back  there. And  it's  not  going  to  be  an  easy  journey, especially  with  the  really difficult  schedule  they're  going  to  have. I  think  their  first  30  games  are  away. And  there's  a  lot  of  big  ten  series  too, where  instead  of  going  home  away, home  away,  they're  just  away. So  I  think  that'll  be  some  of  the  challenges. But  they  are  ready  to  embrace  those  challenges and  getting  through  that  tough  schedule, especially  when  so  much  of  it  is  away  from  home. That  they  kind  of  look at  that  as  something  that  will  prepare them  as  they  try  to  get  back  to the  Women's  College  World  Series  this  year. It'll  be  interesting  to  see  what  they  do  in  the  first, in  their  first  couple  series. Both  the  first  two  can  be  streamed  on  line, so  fans  can  get  a  look  at  that. The  second  series  is  like  an  ESPN  series, so  those  are  all  on  ESPN  three. And  those  are  all  against  other  top  25  teams or  teams  that  received  votes. Oklahoma  State,  Florida  State, Virginia  Tech  in  Missouri. So  for  fans  that  are  kind  of  wondering  if  they are  reminiscent  of  the  team  we  saw  last  year, that's  really  when  you  want  to tune  in  and  pay  attention  because that'll  be  a  really  good  barometer for  where  they  are  currently. And  I  think  the  one  other  thing  that  will  be interesting  is  last  year Amberfizer  didn't  really  have  help. They  had  Senior  Sydney  Smith. She  pitched  every  once  in a  while,  just  kind  of  in  relief. But  Pfizer  is  a  senior  now. They're  going  to  need  to  at  least  try  some  people  out, even  if  it  doesn't  help  benefit  their  immediate  future. If  they  need  to  have  a  game  plan  for  when  she  leaves, it'll  be  interesting  to  see how  much  other  pitchers  are  involved, considering  Pfizer  was  dominant  last  year  and she  didn't  seem  to  really have  a  problem  with  the  workload. She  would  always  just  say, I'm  here  to  do  whatever  I  need  to  do  for  the  team's  MO. That's  the  whole  team's  MO, is  just  team  first.  Team  first.  Team  first. Even  if  brand  brand  Pfizer's  arm  was  falling  off, I'm  not  sure  she'd  say  much. But  they  definitely  find another  secondary  source  of  pitching. So  that's  really  going  to  be  interesting. Talking  to  Pfizer,  did  she  keen  on  anything specific  about  how  she  wants  to  get  better  or  is  it  just, you  know,  we  just  all  want  to  continue  to  get  better. And  nothing  super  specific. It  was  more  of  the  ladder,  nothing  super  specific. She  was  just  talking  about  always  room  for improvement  in  myself  and  as  well  as  the  team. That's  the  message  as  it's  been  all  the  way  along  here. But  yeah,  just  previewing  their  schedule. They're  in  Clearwater  this  week,  they  come. The  interesting  thing  about  the  sample  team  is they're  away  every  weekend  for  the  first  couple  series. Traxwell  said  she's  never  had  it  any  other  way, she's  only  ever  coach  in  the  Midwest. So  this  is  just  kind  of  what  she's  familiar  with. But  they're  in  Clearwater,  then  they  come  home, then  they  go  back  for  classes. I  mean,  then  they  go  to  Clearwater, then  they  go  to  Texas,  then  they  go  to  Alabama, then  they  go  to  California, then  to  Hawaii,  and  then  they  go  to  Ohio  State. So  their  first  series  is  until  March  27. So  fans  got  a  little  bit  to wait  before  they  can  come  out  and  support, but  then  a  lot  of  their  games  are  at  home  from  then, and  I  would  expect  that  they  are  back  in  it. They  are  hosting  series  and  I'm  sure  they  will have  many  opportunities  to potentially  get  back  to  the  women's  college  world  series. So  that  will  be  the  end  of  today's  podcast. Nolan,  thank  you  for  coming  in  and  talking  wrestling and  softball  with  us.  We  appreciate  your  time. Oh,  thank  you.  Always  good  to  be  here. In  other  news,  the  men's  basketball  team  snapped a  two  game  losing  streak  with  a  home  win  against the  Wisconsin  Badgers  on  Wednesday,  70  to  52. It's  the  first  time  Minnesota  has  beaten Wisconsin  at  home  since  2014. They  are  back  to  500  and  Big  Ten  play at  6.6  and  remain  in  the  thick  of  it for  a  NCAA  tournament  bid their  back  in  action  on  Saturday  at  Penn  State. The  women's  basketball  team has  appeared  to  right  the  ship. After  a  little  bit  of a  dreadful  start  to  their  Big  Ten  slate, beating  Nebraska  and  Rutgers  last  week, they  go  for  their  back  in  action  Monday night  at  home  against  Michigan. The  women's  hockey  team  has  fallen  into a  mini  slump  in  the  past  two  weeks, dropping  three  of  their  four  last  games against  Wisconsin  and  Minnesota  Luke. This  week  though,  they  head  to Midge  hoping  to  get  back  on  track. The  men's  hockey  team  is  riding  high  after their  second  consecutive  sweep  last  weekend when  they  took  down  the  Wisconsin  Badgers at  one  point  they  were  last  in  the  Big  Ten  sandings. Heading  into  this  weekend,  though, their  point  out  of  first  place, they  welcome  Michigan  State  for a  pivotal  home  series  this  weekend. The  men's  gymnastics  team  hosts  Washington  this  Friday, after  coming  in  second  in  a  try  meet  last  week. They  topped  UIC  but  could  not  beat  Iowa. The  women's  gymnastics  team  hosts  Iowa  this  Saturday, following  one  of  the  best  performances in  program  history,  a  week  ago, when  they  scored  197.4 points  against  Ohio  State  in  a  win, they  rank  as  one  of  the  top  teams in  the  nation  in  several  categories. And  look  to  keep  that  going this  weekend.  That's  all  for  this  week. We  will  be  back  again  next  week  to give  you  the  weekly  rundown  on  all  things, Gopher  Sports,  don't  forget to  share,  subscribe  and  review. We'll  be  back  again  next  week.