Folk rock duo the Lumineers opened their Friday night concert at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center with “Same Old Song” an aptly titled number if there ever was one.

Five albums and 20 years into their career, the Lumineers have long since settled into a groove of writing, and rewriting, the same two old songs. There’s the one that’s an anthem from the top that gets faster and shouty-er by the end. And then there are the ones that start quiet, with just vocalist Wesley Schultz and his multi-instrumentalist bandmate Jeremiah Fraites, and slowly build up to arena-sized stompers.

While they introduced themselves to the public with the irritating novelty single “Ho Hey,” the Lumineers have managed to outlive their Stomp Clap Hey peers Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Of Monsters and Men in large part because enough folks really enjoy those same two old songs — enough to fill the local hockey rink to capacity.

Thankfully, Schultz has dialed back some of his more obvious Dylan-isms and found his own voice. And it’s a loud one! While he’s never been a shy guy at the microphone, Schultz has developed an exceptionally strong voice. His belting perfectly matches his band’s melodramatic musings, even if he trades subtlety for bombast.

Backed by a quartet of crackerjack touring members, the duo opened the show on a high-tech stage filled with flashing, oversize television sets and the glitz kind of felt off brand for the guys. From there, though, the musicians hopped between that stage and the stripped-down catwalk that extended into the crowd. Schultz even spent “Brightside” walking through the crowd on the arena floor and up into the 100 level.

The gleeful, attentive crowd — heavy on young women in cowgirl drag — cheered on the new songs and cheered even harder for the old ones. As has become custom for the Lumineers, they dropped “Ho Hey” in the first hour and let the audience shout out a large portion of the lyrics.

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The Lumineers are still able to headline arenas, I suppose, because there’s a sense of comfort to what they do. They write plain spoken, lyrically direct and easily digestible anthems full of big, blowsy emotions that are even easier to stomp, clap and hey along with on a balmy summer evening.

St. Paul indie rockers Hippo Campus opened with a lively set of the sleek modern rock they’ve perfected over the past dozen years. All that time the band has spent playing festivals has paid off in their ability to win over crowds unfamiliar with their work. The Lumineers fans who spent their time spilling beer on each other in front of the merch tables missed out on a terrific performance.

Zebby Matthews’ stuff is so good, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said, that his biggest challenge in the majors will be figuring out how to use it.

In the minors, his manager said before Matthews’ start Friday against the Washington Nationals, the right-hander could just throw his stuff in the zone and get hitters out. Not so in the majors.

That was apparent in his last start, his sixth this season, when he was tagged for five earned runs on eight hits in four innings of a 10-6 loss at Colorado on July 19.

“He has exceptional stuff,” Baldelli said, “and I think the ability to pitch and the ability to use it is probably the biggest challenge for him at the big league level.”

CORRECTS TO SECOND INNING NOT FIRST INNING – Washington Nationals second baseman Luis García Jr., top, throws to first base for a double play after getting an out against Minnesota Twins’ Ty France (13) during the second inning of a baseball game Friday, July 25, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Matthews took a nice step forward Friday, rebounding to handcuff the skidding Washington Nationals in the Twins’ 1-0 victory in front of 27,736 at Target Field. Byron Buxton drove in the game’s only run with a sacrifice fly in the fifth inning, and Jhoan Duran pitched a 1-2-3 the ninth inning for his 16th save.

Under .500 and behind five teams for the last American League wild card spot, the Twins are trying to build some late momentum so they don’t become sellers before Thursday’s 5 p.m. trade deadline. The win staves that off for at least another day.

The Nationals, last in the NL East, have are 5-12 in their past 17 games and fell 21 games under .500

Matthews (2-2) left after six scoreless innings and allowed only two hits while striking out seven. The Twins, meanwhile, used walks to Matt Wallner and Brooks Lee and a pair of wild pitches from starter MacKenzie Gore to push a run across in the fifth.

Wallner came home on Byron Buxton’s line-drive sacrifice fly to left field.

Gore (4-10) allowed only one hit — Ryan Jeffers’ soft single to left in the first — but walked six batters. He fanned four.

The Twins had a golden opportunity to add to their lead in the sixth off a pair of Nationals relievers. After Willi Castro flied out of center against right-hander Cole Henry, Carlos Correa singled to left and Royce Lewis doubled to put runners at second and third with one out.

But Henry struck out Harrison Bader swinging, and was pulled after hitting Ty France to load the bases with two outs. Left-hander Konnor Pilkington relieved and got Wallner to fly out softly to left to end the inning.

Danny Coulombe pitched a 1-2-3 seventh, but Griffin Jax had to pitch out of a jam in the eighth after allowing a double to Daylen Lile and issuing a two-out walk to No. 9 hitter Jacob Young. Lile stole third unchallenged to put runners at first and third, but Jax got leadoff hitter CJ Abrams to fly out to shallow right to end the inning.

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Lynx forward Napheesa Collier must be considered the favorite for this season’s WNBA MVP award.

On Friday, she again got plenty of help.

Collier finished with 25 points and nine rebounds, Courtney Williams added 23 points and five assists, and the Lynx set a season high for points in dominating Las Vegas 109-78.

Winners of four in a row overall, the Lynx (22-4) improved to 14-0 at Target Center.

Bridget Carleton tied season highs with 14 points and six rebounds. Kayla McBride added 13 points. Carleton, McBride and Williams each made three 3-pointers. Jessica Shepard had 10 points and a season-best 13 rebounds off the bench.

Minnesota shot 54.4% from the field and grabbed a season-high 48 rebounds.

A’ja Wilson, the league’s reigning MVP, led the Aces (12-13) with 15 points — her season average is 22.3 — and Jackie Young contributed 14, but the swarming Lynx defense held Las Vegas to 38% from the field.

Before the game, coach Cheryl Reeve said Minnesota would be OK if Wilson scored 20 points, provided the Lynx did a good defensively elsewhere. The Lynx’s 94.5 defensive rating is best in the league.

Doing the dirty work and getting hit on drives, Collier was 10 of 13 from the free-throw line. As a team, Minnesota set highs in free throws made (25) and attempted (38). Minnesota was 16 for 23 in the third quarter alone.

Collier had six points, including a 3-pointer, and Williams hit a triple in a 12-1 run late in the second quarter for a 51-35 halftime lead. Entering the game with a league-high 233 treys, the Lynx made seven in the opening 20 minutes.

A Williams jumper and three Collier free throws — one a technical against Aces coach Becky Hammon — pushed the Lynx lead to 62-41. Four Shepard free throws and a pair from McBride and Natisha Hiedeman made it 83-61 late in the third quarter.

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The 3M Open is the land of golfers looking for something.

Its place on the PGA Tour schedule heightens the urgency of the search process. Form, points, success, it’s all a near requirement in the second-to-last event of the regular season.

With a few notable exceptions — Tony Finau, Sam Burns, Chris Gotterup, to name a few — most golfers come to Blaine this week because it’s where they desperately hope to find whatever it is they’re in search of.

And some do.

Alex Noren was an example on Friday. The Swede battled injuries early in the year before returning to competition in May. The early results were positive, but he came to TPC Twin Cities having missed three of his last four cuts. He shot a 1-under round of 70 in the first round on Thursday that left him lapped by the field.

But something clicked in round 2. Noren captured a feeling of hitting in front of the ball, which created the sense of a lower ball flight he’d craved. The result was total control and a 9-under round of 63 that leaves him 10-under for the tournament, good for a tie for eighth.

“Today, I understand why I love golf so much,” Noren said. “It’s a fantastic sport, because it is tough. And then when you get it right, it’s lovely.”

Noren is four shots back of the current leader, Thorbjørn Olesen. He fired a 5-under round of 66 on Friday, not bad for a guy who hadn’t logged a top-30 finish since the second weekend in May. With a win, Olesen would be projected to move from No. 129 in the FedEx Cup standings all the way to No. 56, punching his ticket to the playoffs.

That’s the dream — find your game, get hot and save your season. It’s a formula that’s worked in Blaine in recent years for the likes of Cam Champ (2021 3M Open champ) and defending champion Jhonnatan Vegas.

Points matter, particularly at the moment. Jake Knapp is currently in second place, a stroke behind Olesen. If he stayed there, Knapp would move from No. 55 to No. 37 in the season-long standings. The top 50 at the end of the playoffs are locked into next year’s elevated events that come with guaranteed prize money and points.

Chris Kirk (who’s currently tied for fifth) and Emiliano Grillo (who’s tied for eighth) and both projected to move into the top 70 — the cutoff mark for who makes the playoffs — with their current positions on the leaderboard.

“You know, yeah, I definitely would like to make the playoffs, that’s kind of one of many goals at the start of the year,” Kirk said. “Hasn’t been my best year, for sure, but I feel like I’ve been playing some decent golf lately, so excited to have a chance this weekend.”

Not everyone does. Frankie Capan III is in that unfortunate collection of golfers who didn’t find what they were looking for this week in Minnesota. It would’ve been a tremendous story had the North Oaks’ product — who’s struggled on the course for months now — found some magic in his home state and turned the tide of his season.

Instead, Capan shot a 77 on Thursday, the worst score on the course, and withdrew later that evening due to a wrist injury.

He’s hovering around 150th in the standings with a driver that won’t cooperate off the tee and irons that are also doing him little favor. Capan was working on alignment this week ahead of the tournament — anything to get the game back on track. He was hopeful pre-tournament that he’d started to play better and results would soon follow.

The wait continues.

It’s a tough place to be as a pro golfer when you’re traveling across the country week after week, hoping your game will eventually join you at one of the destinations. It’s a position Max Homa knows all too well. Homa lost his PGA Tour card not once, but twice in his first two seasons on the top tour in men’s pro golf. In his second go around on the PGA Tour, he made the cut just twice in 17 starts.

Finally, Homa found his footing and eventually became one of the game’s stars, who won events and played for the U.S. in international events. But the last two seasons have served as another downturn on the rollercoaster. Homa currently sits outside the top 100 in points.

He has two top-20 finishes on the season. After missing the cut at The Players in March — the fourth of five straight missed cuts in that time, to go along with a handful of bottom-barrel finishes in no-cut events — Homa told PGATour.Com “The way I work, I feel like I deserve to be the best player in the world at some point.”

He nearly broke into tears in the conversation.

“I know that sounds crazy, but that’s how I approach each day, is to be the best at it,” Homa said, “and I’m going the complete opposite direction.”

Perhaps the worm is starting to turn for Homa, who logged a top-five finish at the John Deere Classic earlier this month and made another cut here in Blaine, where he enters the weekend in a tie for 24th, six shots off the lead.

Homa is armed with the security of being exempt on the PGA Tour through 2028 thanks to his past successes. Others aren’t so lucky.

If Capan’s fortunes don’t change either next week at the Wyndham Champion — which he’s currently a question mark to compete in depending on the status of his wrist, though he’s currently committed to play — or in the Tour’s fall events, he could very well be back on the Korn Ferry Tour next season, which he graduated from in 2024 after a third-place finish for the season.

That’s not a death sentence. After a rookie year that didn’t go as planned last summer, Pierceson Coody returned to the Korn Ferry Tour this year. He’s currently in sixth place on the feeder tour and in excellent shape to again be promoted to the PGA Tour next year.

With that promotion essentially secured, Coody feels freed up to play PGA Tour events when the opportunities arise, as one did this week.

He’s currently sitting in a tie for third place, and two good rounds away from his career changing for the better in an entirely unexpected way.

“I feel like I’m still early in my tour career and just trying to get the most out of my rounds, become the best player I can and kind of just see where that takes me over the next 10 to 20 years,” Coody said. “I feel like I have a lot to prove out here and I think that I have the game to do it, so excited for the weekend.”

That’s the funny thing about golf, a sport where everything can change at the drop of the hat, for better or worse. And you’re seemingly never too far from what you’re searching for — you just have to keep looking.

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