Sean Fries shattered the state championship record Saturday afternoon on the Lee Bolstad course, finishing at 14 minutes, 50.6 seconds, claiming the title.

Fries set out to do something “special” in his senior season and accomplished his goal and then some. The Minnetonka native crossed the finish line 33.9 seconds before runner-up Owen Stuwe of Shakopee.

Rosemount’s Channing Goodwin came in fifth, while Two Rivers’ Max Molinaro was sixth.

Blaine won the team title, powered by a fourth-place finish from David Meberg. Rosemount finished third as a team.

In 2024, Fries came in second to Roseville Area senior and now North Carolina freshman Robert Mechura. But one year later, he conquered the competition and broke Mechura’s state record of 15 minutes, 3.7 seconds.

“Obviously, that’s an honor to have,” Fries said about being the new record holder. “Lots of talent that’s come from Minnesota. So I’m very happy to be able to continue that legacy and hopefully, it just continues, as Minnesota keeps on producing more.”

Fries said his race strategy was straightforward, and getting out to a strong start was a big part. He finished the first mile with a 12.3-second lead over Stuwe and furthered his advantage to 25.8 seconds after mile two.

A driving factor in his performance came from his experience with the course and his loss to Mechura last season.

“You can always use that to your advantage,” Fries said about having raced the Les Bolstad course before. “So that definitely helps just get every bit of experience you can.”

Experience that Fries had been compiling since eighth grade, since he first raced in the state meet for the Skippers.

“Five years of experience in the state meet really helps and gets you familiar with what everything will be like, what the day will be like, and kind of be able to better prepare yourself mentally for that,” Fries said.

Fries made his dream come true when he committed to Stanford on July 12. But when he started running cross country in middle school, winning a state championship did not cross his mind as a goal.

“I think every little kid in sports usually has pretty lofty goals,” Fries said when asked if a state title was a dream since the beginning. “I didn’t think that I would be able to do it, but I think it’s obviously something that everyone would want to do. But yeah, I guess I probably didn’t have it in my mind at the time.”

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Michigan State seemed to represent a great hangover cure for the Gophers on Saturday.

Minnesota was able to sleep off the awful 41-3 loss at Iowa last week and welcomed a struggling Spartans squad to Huntington Bank Stadium. At 0-5, the Big Ten basement dweller had the worst scoring defense in the conference, a leaky offensive line and felt the need to make a starting quarterback change.

The elixir was working just enough as the Gophers led 10-0 at the half, but a pounding headache returned in the second half. The Spartans scored 17 unanswered points to take a 17-10 lead, yet in a two-minute drill, Minnesota put together a 65-yard drive to tie the game on a Drake Lindsey 1-yard run with 29 seconds left to force overtime.

Lindsey did it again in overtime with a naked bootleg run on third and goal from 3 yards out for a touchdown and Minnesota escaped with a 23-20 win.

With the narrow win, Minnesota (6-3, 4-2 Big Ten) reached bowl eligibility, while Michigan State (3-6, 0-6) lost after taking 20-17 lead with 35-yard field goal to start the overtime session.

The Spartans was allowing 32 points per game, but Minnesota managed to score roughly half that in regulation. Michigan State’s defense — led by former U coordinator Joe Rossi — stifled his former team for most of four quarters.

The Gophers’ first-half lead was curtailed, in part, to two underwhelming red-zone trips — a 30-yard field goal and missed 33-yard field goal just before the break.

Michigan State stepped through that opening with a 71-yard touchdown pass to Rodney Bullard on the opening drive of the second half. Gophers defensive backs Aidan Gousby and Kerry Brown botched coverage and tackling to allow the explosive play.

As Minnesota’s offense remained stuck, Michigan State tied the game 10-10 early in the fourth quarter. But the Spartans missed a 23-yard field goal with five minutes left in the game.

A bigger play from the Spartans offense came when Elijah Tau-Tolliver made multiple Gophers miss and broke off an 85-yard run and the Spartans punched it in two plays later.

Michigan State’s offensive line came into the game as one of the most porous in the Big Ten and Minnesota cashed in with six first half sacks. Minnesota got only one in the second half.

The Spartans made a surprising change at quarterback as redshirt freshman Alessio Milivojevic replaced junior Aidan Chiles. In his first career start, Milivojevic spent the first half running for his life and scraping himself off the turf.

The Gophers offense continued to struggle on its opening drive; they went three-and-out and settled another punt. Against FBS competition this season, Minnesota has a total seven punts, one field goal and zero touchdowns.

The U wasn’t much better on its second drive, another punt, but got going with a 49-yard cutback run from Fame Ijeboi. It was the second-longest run of the season behind Darius Taylor’s 71-yarder against Nebraska.

Filling in for injured Taylor, Ijeboi capped the drive with a 1-yard touchdown run to take a 7-0 lead.

After that, the Gophers put together their longest drive of the half, a 10-play, 51-yarder, but they have to settle for a 30-yard field goal from Brady Denaburg.

At the end of the half, Minnesota had a nine-play, 60-yard drive, with a 35-yard completion from Lindsey to Javon Tracy, but that drive also stalls in the red zone. The failed opportunity was exacerbated by Denaburg missing a 33-yard field goal wide right.

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It is not as dramatic a game-changer as in football or lacrosse, but possession matters a great deal in hockey, especially when there is someone in the penalty box.

Among the many things that John Hynes did not like about his team’s 4-1 loss to Pittsburgh in its final outing of October was its propensity to lose faceoffs. As the Wild coach cited in a clearly disappointed postgame press conference, Minnesota won two special teams faceoffs – just two – during the 60 minutes they were facing the Penguins.

One of the reasons the Wild signed Nico Sturm in the offseason was the German center’s historically good faceoff stats. Of course, Sturm was injured before ever playing a game this season, and after back surgery, his future was uncertain.

But if fans were questioning Hynes’ decision to sit rookie Danila Yurov on Saturday, and add sporadically-used Ben Jones as the fourth line center to face Vancouver, a glance at the season stats for faceoffs tells the tale.

Jones played just three of the Wild’s first 12 games this season, but in those contests, he won more than 70 percent of the time when the puck was dropped with Jones staring down an opposing center. That success does not come by accident.

“Obviously some guys make a living off it, so it’s something to take pride in,” Jones said, following the Wild’s Friday practice at TRIA Rink.

There is plenty of video study that goes into knowing what an opponent might do when the puck is dropped. And sometimes it comes down to luck. But doing your homework, if it provides even a slight edge, can be important.

“Sometimes it comes down to some technique stuff you can look at. Sometimes it comes down to the players you’re going against,” said Jones, 26, who began his career with a two-game stint for the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2021-22 season. “It’s kind of a weird little one-on-one battle that happens for some guys. As you get more into the groove of it you get more confidence, you start getting a couple more bounces and sometimes your percentage is better.”

And for a team looking to put a disappointing October in the rearview mirror, any and all bounces are good, especially if the Wild emerge with the puck in their possession.

Briefly

Yurov, who left the Pittsburgh game for a time after taking a shot to the chest in the second period, was a healthy scratch versus Vancouver, per Hynes. The coach said a game off here and there could help Yurov as he makes the transition from the KHL in Russia to the faster, more physical NHL style.

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The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has verified that DWI breath test results previously suspected to be invalid are accurate, the bureau said Friday.

The BCA had ordered all law enforcement agencies in the state to suspend usage of DataMaster instruments earlier this month until they verified that data was correctly entered into each instrument. Errors had been “identified … in particular when changing out a dry gas cylinder that is used for a control test,” said BCA Superintendent Drew Evans at the time, calling into question whether the control tests were valid in hundreds of cases.

“As I said before, we stand behind the instruments and the validity of the testing and the reliability of the instruments across Minnesota,” Evans said at a press conference Friday. “And our scientists are prepared to testify to the results of the new calculations and the instruments that they have done for a long time.”

BCA officials became aware of the data entry errors in September.

Several law enforcement agencies, including St. Paul police and the sheriff’s offices for Ramsey, Dakota and Washington counties were able to resume use of the breath tests shortly after the BCA’s order.

BCA lab scientists conducted a mathematical recalculation of the identified tests using the correct alcohol concentration of the installed cylinder, according to the BCA on Friday. They determined the control tests were successful and within established margins despite the data entry error and would testify that the control tests were valid, according to BCA officials. Police agencies and prosecuting attorneys with cases affected by the issue have been notified.

DataMaster machines are stationed at law enforcement offices around the state and between 19,000 and 20,000 DataMaster tests are conducted each year, according to the BCA. Initial errors were discovered in Aitkin, Winona and Chippewa counties, with additional errors later discovered in Hennepin and Olmsted counties.

To prevent any future issues, the BCA has halted all dry gas cylinder replacements by law enforcement personnel using DataMaster instruments moving forward, and only BCA personnel will be authorized to replace them. BCA staff have begun restricting access to the dry gas cylinder compartment on all DataMaster instruments.

More than 50% of DataMaster instruments have been verified to have proper installation and secured as of Friday, with the process expected to be done within the next few weeks. DataMaster operator training also has been updated. Future updates will be posted to the BCA website.

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