For the fourth straight season, Mahtomedi and Grand Rapids met in the state baseball tournament. Mahtomedi has enjoyed the matchup, winning three times.

The latest was a 5-3 heart-racing triumph in a Class 3A semifinal on Friday at Chaska Athletic Park.

“It’s still spiking,” Andrew Sokoll said of his heart rate a few minutes after the win. The junior pitched 3 2/3 innings in relief of Max Strecker, including a nerve-wracking seventh inning.

Grand Rapids loaded the bases with one out and got within two on a sacrifice fly, but Sokoll struck out a Thunderhawk looking with a nasty slider containing plenty of movement.

Sokoll, who missed the first half of the season with an elbow injury, spiked his glove down in joy.

“Everything was just lifted off my shoulders, all the pressure was off.”

And it means the second-seeded Zephyrs will face No. 4 Totino-Grace or No. 1 Benilde-St. Margaret’s at 4:30 p.m. Monday at Target Field for the title. Mahtomedi lost 5-3 to New Prague in last year’s championship game at CHS Field.

In the tournament for the ninth time since 2014, the Zephyrs (22-4) seek the school’s second title in four years and third since 2018. The 2021 title came via a 20-3 win over Grand Rapids.

Mahtomedi also beat Grand Rapids 3-2 in a semifinal last year; a year after Grand Rapids won a quarterfinal matchup. Like this year, both those games were also played on June 14.

“(Mahtomedi coach) Rob (Garry) said yesterday when we were flipping a coin, we should just schedule a semifinal date every year because that’s how it ends up,” Grand Rapids coach Bill Kinnunen said.

From the third-base coaching box, he and Mahtomedi third baseman Tommy Becker were also noting the familiarity. That was before a fielding gem by the senior was the play of the game.

Down 4-2 with one out in the fourth, Grand Rapids had the bases loaded. Becker gloved a high hopper, took a couple steps to get his foot on the bag and threw across the diamond to first base where Jack Erickson made the clutch scoop.

“I skipped it over, but he got the job done,” Becker said with a smile as Erickson stood a couple feet away. “It was game-changing, it moved the momentum back to our side.”

Like last year’s contest, Mahtomedi jumped out to a 3-0 lead. This year, it all came in the first inning.

On a sun-drenched afternoon, Strecker walked, advanced on a wild pitch, and scored two batters later on a groundout. A sharp single by Erickson plated Austin Felling, who singled. Erickson later reached third on a throwing error and scored on a passed ball.

Strecker added an RBI single in the second. Erickson scored on a squeeze play in the sixth.

Grand Rapids (17-9) left two men on in the first and the bases loaded in the second. A Dominc Broberg double scored one for the Thunderhawks in the third, but Strecker got a fly out and then struck out two batters to strand Broberg.

“We couldn’t get the big hit. In these big games, that’s what’ll cost you,” Kinnunen said. “And we made some key errors and mistakes. That comes back to haunt you when you’re playing outstanding programs like you get when you get to this level.”

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The University of Minnesota is increasing tuition at its five campuses as part of a $5.1 billion annual budget approved by the Board of Regents this week.

University leadership said it needed to raise rates due to growing costs tied to inflation and “flat state investment.” The U got less than the $45 million it requested from the Legislature this year, and an expected decline in enrollment could also present future budget challenges.

Next year, students at UMN’s Twin Cities and Rochester campuses will pay 4.5% more in tuition. At the Twin Cities campus, an undergraduate student will now pay $15,148 — $652 more than last year.

“No one likes to see tuition increases, and that conversation to me goes hand in hand with maintaining quality, and we are a high-quality system,” said Regent Mary Davenport ahead of the board’s Thursday vote to adopt the new rates. She said she views the tuition increase as a reasonable share for students.

Crookston, Duluth and Morris students will pay 1.5% more tuition, and non-resident students from states without reciprocity with Minnesota will see an increase of 5.5%. In-state students at the Duluth campus will pay $12,958 each year. Crookston’s annual tuition will be $11,648 and Morris’ will grow to $13,130.

Tuition changes will bring in an additional $42.2 million, according to U budget officials.

The increases for Twin Cities students are the highest in more than a decade, and come after a 3.5% undergraduate student tuition hike for Twin Cities and Rochester and 1% for the three other campuses in 2023.

The year before saw hikes of 3.5% for the Twin Cities and Rochester and 1.75% for the three other campuses. Increases for Twin Cities students in 2022 were the highest in a decade.

Regent Bo Thao-Urabe said she worried the new budget places the burden on students to cover growing costs as the U expects enrollment to decline in coming years.

“I’m very concerned about that projection and that we’ll continue to go to students for this increase,” she said. “That is probably what gives me the greatest pause.”

The board approved the tuition increases 9-3 Thursday in its finance and operations committee, with Thao-Urabe among the members who voted no.

The U’s new budget makes a total of $13.7 million in cuts, with most of that tied to reducing overall compensation. Those reductions will mean eliminating faculty and staff positions through natural attrition, hiring replacement employees at a lesser salary than previous employees, and reducing appointments.

A remaining $2.1 million in cuts will come from cutting operating expenses like supplies, professional development and travel.

Other system employees will see raises. Most employee groups are receiving merit-based increases averaging 3%. Union employees are getting pay increases averaging 4%. Student minimum wage is rising to $15.25 an hour, and civil service, professional and administrative employees are getting a new salary floor of $20 an hour.

There are also $1.4 million in funds to cover half of the reduction in state grant aid for undergraduate students whose families make between $80,000 and $120,000 a year.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A Boeing 737 Max suffered damage to parts of the plane’s structure after it went into a “Dutch roll” during a Southwest Airlines flight last month, U.S. investigators said Friday.

The flight took place May 25, but Southwest did not notify the National Transportation Safety Board about the roll or damage to the jetliner until June 7, the NTSB said.

The NTSB comment suggests the incident was more serious than previously known.

“Following the event, SWA performed maintenance on the airplane and discovered damage to structural components,” the safety board said.

A Dutch roll is an unstable and potentially dangerous combination of yaw, or the tail sliding sideways, and the plane rocking from side to side. The motion repeats, usually several times.

Pilots train to recover from a Dutch roll, and most modern planes include a device called a yaw damper that can correct the situation by adjusting the plane’s rudder. A preliminary report by the Federal Aviation Administration said that after the Southwest plane landed, damage was discovered to a unit that controls backup power to the rudder.

The NTSB said it downloaded data from the plane, a Boeing 737 Max 8, which will help investigators determine the length and severity of the incident.

Investigators won’t know precisely what the pilots were saying, however: The cockpit voice recorder was overwritten after two hours.

The plane was heading from Phoenix to Oakland, California. Pilots regained control and landed at Oakland. There were no reported injuries on the flight, which carried 175 passengers and a crew of six.

After three years of visibly sluggish sales, At Home — which bills itself as the “Home and Holiday Décor Superstore” — will no longer make its home along the Green Line in St. Paul’s Midway, departing its perch in the Midway Marketplace by Sept. 12.

“Store Closing” and “Nothing Held Back” signs were posted throughout the store Friday, with paid sign holders on University Avenue advertising a closing sale.

Another At Home store will close in Syracuse, N.Y., by Aug. 1.

The At Home store in St. Paul’s Midway seen on Friday, June 14, 2024. (Frederick Melo / Pioneer Press)

The big box home furnishings store was installed along St. Paul’s light rail corridor in 2021 following a $2 million remodel of a former Walmart. St. Paul’s only Walmart closed in September 2019, not long after Kraus-Anderson Realty purchased the Midway Marketplace strip mall that is also home to Cub Foods and a freestanding L.A. Fitness.

Despite easy access to the Green Line light rail, which opened exactly a decade ago on June 14, 2014, the St. Paul Midway business corridor has had a touch-and-go experience with retail tenants for years, in part due to changing shopping habits in the online era.

T.J. Maxx left the Midway Marketplace last October, after 10 years at the location. The Herberger’s department store in the marketplace closed in 2018 when parent company Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. was bought out of bankruptcy by liquidators, who shuttered all 250 of its Herberger’s locations nationally.

A spokesperson for Kraus-Anderson could not be immediately reached for comment on Friday. A representative from At Home store’s media office was not immediately available.

On Monday, July 8, the St. Paul Board of Zoning Appeals will hear a request from At Home stores to install a giant “CLOSING” banner measuring 160 square feet on the store’s facade for up to 45 days. Zoning rules would otherwise limit the banner to 32 square feet.

The neighboring Midway Shopping Center lost its grocery and strip mall retailers to construction of Allianz Field, the professional soccer stadium that hosts the Minnesota United, and later to the 2020 riots that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, as well as to the team owner’s efforts to clear out the “Snelling-Midway super block.”

Within the “super block,” plans call for a long-awaited new hotel, office building and restaurants along University Avenue, leading westward toward a giant loon sculpture to be installed at the corner of Snelling and University avenues. The ribbon-cutting for P.K.’s Place, a new all-abilities outdoor playground along the stadium’s east wall, is scheduled from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Thursday.

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