MSU baseball succumbs

There were a number of reasons the Minnesota State baseball team dropped its NCAA Division II College World Series opener 8-6 to Southern Indiana last night. Among them were an inability to get its offense going until the ninth inning and a defense that did not defend the bunt very well.

The biggest reason, however, was starter Bret Mitchell's inability to control his curve ball. The right-hander, who has a sharp breaker that starts high and drops down dramatically, was bouncing balls on or in front of the plate all game.

He ended up with five walks and had to leave in the sixth when USI staged its second three-run rally of the game. Had his control been on, it might have been a completely different game. Mitchell, by the way, finished with eight strikeouts to set an MSU single-season record with 108.

Mankato native Steve Helget had a great game for the Mavericks. Not only was he 4 for 4 with a double, but he snared or knocked down just about every errant pitch thrown by Mitchell.

The Mavericks play an elimination game at 2 p.m. (CST) Tuesday against Franklin Pierce in Cary, N.C.

On the local docket today, Chad Courrier is at the Big Nine Conference girls golf tournament at North Links. Rumor has it Mankato East's Sarah Brozik will be making her first appearance of the season after suffering a torn ACL in January during a basketball game.

I will be at a first-round Section 2A boys tennis tournament match in St. Peter. The 4:30 p.m. dual pits the Saints against Minneapolis Washburn. Looking forward to seeing Mitch Elofson and the Huber boys play for the first time this year.

Perkins, Watkins keep their sense of humor

After nearly 30 hours on the tennis court, KARE 11 TV sportscaster David Watkins and Eric Perkins looked, well, like a couple of guys who just got done playing 30 hours of tennis. The thing is, they weren't done.

The duo continued playing at Gustavus Adolphus College's Swanson Tennis Center Tuesday in their attempt to set the world record for the longest tennis match. The event served two purposes -- to serve as the inaugural segment of Watkins' new series The Record Wreckers, and to kick start Gustavus Adolphus College's Relay for Life fundraiser for cancer research.

With nearly seven hours still left to play, Perkins led 52 sets to 2. He had won 326 games to Watkins' 95. The lopsided match not withstanding, Watkins refused to give an inch.

"I'm just playing possum," he said, still managing a smile. "I'm going to stage the greatest comeback in sports history."

Despite their exhaustion, neither Watkins not Perkins had lost his sense of humor. When asked what part of his body hurt the most during his hourly five-minute break, Perkins had a two-word answer.

"My feet. My plan was to wear the most comfortable pair of tennis shoes I own, unfortunately, my most comfortable shoes turned out to be a little too small."

By the 30th hour Perkins had cut the tops of his shoes off, exposing his blistered, bandaged feet. "Other than my feet, I can't tell you for print what other parts of my body hurt the most," he said.

About six hours into the match, Perkins said he asked himself why he was doing this? After that he just stopped counting games or hours and just steeled himself to move forward.

Watkins said there were at least four different points during the first 30 hours that he came close to hanging it up. But he too persevered and kept the goal of a 37-hour match in sight.

Tim Kennedy, the Gustavus Adolphus Sports Information Director, was serving as the official scorer for the match as well as the representative from The Guinness Book of World Records. It was his job to make sure there was no more than a five-minute break every hour and no more than a 90-second break on change-overs.

"They're holding up remarkably well," Kennedy said at about 3 p.m. Tuesday. "I think it was tough on them about 4:30 this morning when there was nobody here and they were really tired, but they kept going. I think they're going to make it."