29 Oct 2023

Chicago Bears QB Tyson Bagent is confident executing the game plan in his 2nd start: ‘I don’t want to put any limits’

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The nerves are still there for Tyson Bagent this week.

But that’s a normal part of the process for the Chicago Bears undrafted rookie, not an exception as he prepares to make his second NFL start Sunday against the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium.

Bagent always has what he calls “nerved-up” energy flowing through him during game weeks when he’s off the field, a product of homing in on the details of what he needs to learn ahead of a practice or a game. When he gets on the field, that melts away into the confidence that has impressed teammates.

“On my way home from the facility, I’m just kind of thinking about what I need to study tonight,” Bagent said. “And I just am kind of eager to get it done and learned and my mind wrapped around it, so I’m able to go the next day.”

It’s understandable if Bagent is charged up this week as he transitions from earning a win in his first NFL start against the Las Vegas Raiders to preparing to play on national television Sunday night against the Chargers.

Bagent garnered a lot of attention with his story of playing at Division II Shepherd in West Virginia to starting in place of injured quarterback Justin Fields on Sunday. He completed 21 of 29 passes for 162 yards, one touchdown, no turnovers and one sack to help the Bears earn just their fifth victory in the last two seasons.

He was on the phone with someone from Huntington, W.Va., on Tuesday, who informed him that according to research, Bagent is the first born-and-bred West Virginia quarterback to start in the NFL. Bagent called it “amazing.”

“You just think about how long they’ve been playing in the NFL, how many people have gone through the NFL,” Bagent said. “So when you can still be the first to do something in this league that’s been around so long and had so many people come through it, it’s definitely an honor and something that’s really crazy and wild to think about.”

The attention is about to get bigger this week.

Fields is expected to be sidelined again as he recovers from his right thumb injury. That leaves the Bears to try to build on what Bagent did against the Raiders facing a Chargers defense that boasts what Bagent called “generational players” in outside linebacker Khalil Mack and safety Derwin James.

The Bears asked Bagent to execute a conservative game plan against the Raiders, relying on the running game and short passes. But Bagent doesn’t feel like he is boxed into such a plan, saying he’d be confident in whatever the Bears called, including more vertical passes.

“Whatever I’m asked to do from the coaches is what we’ll get done and what will happen,” he said. “So I don’t want to put any limits anywhere.”

His Bears teammates expect to see that confidence again from him this week.

“He’s just got this cool kind of swagger about him,” wide receiver DJ Moore said. “When he comes in the huddle, he’s confident, loud and makes everybody feel like, ‘OK, we’ve got a chance to go execute on this play.’ And he does that every time he steps in the huddle. Every play was pretty good last week with him, and I’m looking forward to seeing him do it again this week.”

D’Onta Foreman wins awards

Running back D’Onta Foreman carried a scepter into the Bears locker room Wednesday afternoon after winning the NFL Network’s “Good Morning Football” award for “Angry Runs” for his performance against the Raiders.

Foreman was also voted by fans as the FedEx Ground NFL player of the week for his performance, which included 16 carries for 89 yards and two touchdowns and three catches for 31 yards and a touchdown.

“I definitely do think my physicality brings energy to the team,” he said. “They kind of feed off my energy when I’m going out there and doing what I do. I just want to focus on getting better each week.”

The awards came after Foreman was inactive for four weeks earlier this season because Khalil Herbert and Roschon Johnson pushed him out of the game-day roster mix. Johnson returned to practice in full Wednesday after he was out for two weeks with a concussion. But Herbert is still out with an ankle injury.

“There are a lot of other great running backs and a lot of good competition,” Foreman said. “I take nothing away from those guys. They push me each and every day to continue to excel and get better and better. It’s part of how it goes. I’ve been on three different teams, so I’ve had to prove myself to three different organizations. When I get my opportunity to do so, I feel like I handle myself and carry myself in a way that they believe and trust in me. I just want to continue to grow and build on that.”

Injury report

The Bears designated left tackle Braxton Jones to return from injured reserve after he missed five games with a neck injury. Jones was limited in practice and has 21 days to return to the active roster.

Coach Matt Eberflus said the Bears are looking at Jones’ functionality and conditioning as they determine whether he can return this week.

The Bears also designated defensive lineman Khalid Kareem (hip) to return.

Fields, right tackle Darnell Wright (shoulder/toe), safety Jaquan Brisker (illness), cornerback Terell Smith (mononucleosis) and guard Nate Davis (ankle) didn’t practice Wednesday.

Safety Eddie Jackson (foot) and offensive lineman Dan Feeney (knee) were limited.

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29 Oct 2023

Ohio State stops Gophers women’s hockey 6-5

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The Ohio State women’s hockey team completed a two-game sweep of the Gophers on Saturday afternoon in Columbus, Ohio, winning 6-5 in a matchup featuring two of the top teams in the country.

Minnesota lost Friday’s series opener at Ohio State 4-3 in overtime.

Ohio State improved to 7-1 overall and 6-0 in the WCHA. Minnesota fell to 5-2 and 3-2.

Minnesota got two goals from Nelli Laitinen, and one each from Ella Huber, Josefin Bouveng and Peyton Hemp.

Gophers goaltender Skylar Vetter, a junior, stopped 46 Buckeyes shots on Saturday, her second straight games with 45 or more saves.

“Certainly frustrated with the result here tonight, but at the same time very encouraged here early in the year,” Gophers coach Brad Frost said. “We were down late, but generated some grade-A chances in the last 30 seconds to tie it up. We certainly have some things we can learn from and get better at, and we will do that. But again, I love the fight of this team.”

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28 Oct 2023

It ended in Sin City. But Mike Pence’s campaign was DOA for months.

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Sin City may have seemed like an unusual place for Mike Pence to concede. The 64-year-old, Reagan- and Scripture-quoting, teetotaling evangelical Christian never gambled — except on Donald Trump, and then on his own presidential campaign.

But Pence has found himself on uncomfortable ground for weeks now.

With donations sagging, the former vice president, who often made self-deprecating remarks about his middle-class finances, had recently ponied up $150,000 of his own relatively small, newly-acquired fortune, amassed from a two-book deal and speaking fees, to prop up his campaign.

It wasn’t anywhere close to enough. For months, virtually no pollster or political prognosticator saw his campaign gaining traction in a GOP that prized id over ideology, presentation over pedigree. Pence had been a member of the conservative movement for nearly two generations, serving in Congress for six terms and one term as the governor of Indiana, until Trump plucked him from a difficult re-election bid to be his running mate.

But Trump — and Trumpism — would ultimately be Pence’s undoing, a Shakespearan turn for a politician who embraced the former president in April of 2016 despite endorsing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in his Hoosier state’s primary that year. Trump, Pence said at the time, had “given voice to the frustration of millions of working Americans with the lack of progress in Washington, D.C.” His endorsement would help legitimize and uncork a populism that Pence eventually resisted – including with his refusal to overturn the 2020 election – but couldn’t re-bottle despite his best efforts in recent months.

On Saturday, the gasps in the crowd inside the Venetian resort on the Las Vegas strip belied the reality that all but he and his closest advisers could see coming for weeks, if not months.

Pence’s presidential campaign wasn’t working. In fact, it was over.

Facing a steep climb to qualify for the third GOP primary debate, the former vice president told a crowd at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Summit in Las Vegas on Saturday that he had realized “it’s not my time” before suspending his campaign.

“The Bible tells us that there’s a time for every purpose under heaven,” Pence told the gathered audience of activists and donors. “Traveling across the country over the past six months, I came here to say it’s become clear to me that it’s not my time.”

In the post-Trump GOP, Pence, who had focused on evangelical-rich Iowa as his path to the nomination, could never seem to draw a crowd even there. Earlier this week, a POLITICO photo from what would prove to be one of his last campaign stops in Iowa, at a pharmacy in Sidney, went viral, reducing him to a punchline on late-night TV. Jimmy Kimmel called it the “saddest photo in presidential campaign history.”

At times, Pence seemed to be running more for his place in the history books than the Iowa caucuses, defending his resistance to Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election and criticizing Trump and other GOP candidates polling above him on everything from their positions on Social Security reform to the war in Ukraine. The Wi-Fi passcode at his June 7 launch event in Ankeny, Iowa, earlier this year was: “KeptHisOath!”

Pence framed the GOP primary as a battle between populism and conservatism, frequently decrying what he called “the siren song” of the former. He did manage to shape the debate in limited ways, pressing candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to embrace a 15-week ban on abortion and assailing biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy over his lack of experience. But his calls on the GOP to rekindle their support for international engagement amid the wars in Ukraine and Israel fell flat. His own brother, Rep. Greg Pence, would not support a recent fundraising package for the European nation.

Pence may never have had much of a chance. Despite his long-held presidential ambitions — he weighed runs in 2012 and 2016 — he faced a GOP electorate that had soured on his Reagan-era brand of politics. He received only two endorsements from his barn-red home state’s Republican congressional delegation, from Rep. Larry Bucshon and his own brother.

In some ways, it was surprising that Pence lasted as long as he did, given the hostility he endured from Trump’s most ardent supporters. The audience booed him in 20201 at a Faith and Freedom Coalition event — Pence’s own people, his own base, the evangelicals he had helped Trump co-opt as his vice presidential pick in 2016.

They booed him at the evangelical Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines earlier this summer.

And they booed him at the National Rifle Association summit in Indianapolis in April — in his own backyard.

For any other politician, this might have been enough to keep them from going through with a bid. But Pence continued, always as a happy warrior, with his beloved wife, Karen, ever at his side. Voters, both Democrats and Republicans, frequently approached him on the campaign trail to thank him for certifying the 2020 election results on Jan. 6, 2021, despite him being the target of withering pressure from Trump and his acolytes to do otherwise.

Suspending his presidential campaign is not likely the last time Pence will make news in the coming months. He withheld a potential endorsement in his remarks Saturday, but others could court it. DeSantis, a frequent target of Pence’s criticism, spoke after Pence and said nothing of him.

But his fellow former Trump administration official, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, whose South Carolina governorship overlapped with Pence’s tenure in Indiana, said Saturday that Pence was “a good man of faith. He’s been a good man of service. He has fought for America, and he has fought for Israel, and we all owe him a debt of gratitude.” And Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, a fellow Reagan and evangelical conservative, said that the “Republican Party is stronger today because of Mike’s leadership.”

But Pence’s presence may be felt in ways more profound than an endorsement. He will likely be a prominent figure in Trump’s Jan. 6 trial, set to begin March 4, 2024, the day before Super Tuesday. He also is slated to release a second book with his daughter Charlotte Pence Bond on Nov. 14, called “Go Home for Dinner.”

In recent days on the campaign trail, Pence seemed to be grappling with the end, talking about his campaign in the past tense and telling a voter in Greenfield, Iowa, earlier this month that while he felt called to run for the presidency, he did not feel certain of the final result.

“We didn’t run because we felt like we saw some clear eight-lane superhighway straight to the Oval Office,” Pence said that day. “It has been an unbroken blessing to be traveling among the people of this state.”

It would be his last trip to the caucus state.

Myah Ward contributed to this report.

28 Oct 2023

High school football: St. Thomas Academy’s offensive balance shines in section semifinal win over Two Rivers

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St. Thomas Academy’s running game will always be centered on Savion Hart — rightfully so. The senior back is perhaps the best ball carrier in the state.

He was again Saturday, running 23 times for 202 yards and a pair of scores — while having another 100-plus yards called back by holding penalties.

But what’s different about this year’s Cadets offense is the numerous other ways in which it can beat you. Those were on full display in St. Thomas Academy’s 47-14 home victory over Two Rivers in the Class 5A, Section 3 semifinals.

Maximus Sims completed 12 of his 17 pass attempts for 165 yards and a touchdown pass to Luke Dobbs. Senior running back Niko Vargas ran for four touchdowns of his own. Tight end Chase Young was found over the middle for multiple strikes.

Hart said this is the most versatile offense he’s been a part of at St. Thomas Academy.

“We can have me do what I do with the blocks, and that’s great,” Hart said. “But then we have other players who do what they do, and it opens up. Maybe I’ll run this play, and it’ll open up the next play for another person.”

The Cadets (7-2) will host Bloomington Jefferson next Friday in the section title game. Their next two potential contests will be outdoors. As the weather worsens, Cadets coach Travis Walch noted St. Thomas Academy may have to lean heavily into that rushing attack.

But if the Cadets reach indoor football — which starts with the state semifinals at U.S. Bank Stadium — that passing option could be a legitimate weapon not previously available in their arsenal.

“You need to be able to do it all,” Walch said, “and I’m really happy with where we’re at and that we can disperse the ball all over the field.”

Frankly, the offense looks like St. Thomas Academy’s strength. And the outside perception probably would be that the defense is more gettable. St. Thomas Academy’s regular season was book-ended by a pair of disappointing defensive efforts in losses to Andover and Chaska.

But Walch loved the way the defense responded Saturday. Guys were challenged to have a hard focus, good eyes and good tackling. All three were solid against Two Rivers.

“Response is something we talk about with our program all the time. We can’t look back on what just happened,” Walch said. “I loved the response. What was really good for us is we saw a very similar-type approach. Kudos to our defense. I’m just really proud of the plan that was put in place.”

There were certainly cracks early, as Two Rivers (8-2) took the ball to start and claimed a 7-0 advantage on a 67-yard touchdown run by Ramzi Rislove. But the sledding got considerably tougher from there. St. Thomas Academy scored the game’s next 47 points.

“You want to get out ahead, and to have an explosive play like that was a great play call and great execution by our kids. … it gives you that good boost,” Warriors co-head coach Tom Orth said. “Unfortunately, we were not able to sustain on D.”

Prior to Saturday, the Two Rivers defense hadn’t given up more than 21 points in a game this season, and pitched two shutouts over its past three contests. But Orth credited the Cadets for their scheme and personnel. Two Rivers also played a lot of guys two ways, which leads to fatigue — particularly when it just played in a section quarterfinal against Hastings on Tuesday — and makes it difficult to make adjustments when key players are always on the field.

Saturday’s result was not the ending the Warriors envisioned, Orth admitted, but Two Rivers won eight games and a subdistrict title — feats not previously thought achievable over the past decade.

“Our guys battled their tails off the whole year, and they have a lot to be proud about,” Orth said. “A lot of credit to our seniors. We don’t have a lot of them, but those guys saw things through, and they’ve put the challenge to the guys behind them to continue with. So it’ll be exciting to see how they do that.”

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