The Gophers softball team opened its season by scoring 28 runs in routing two teams on Friday on the first day of the Northern Lights tournament in Leesburg, Fla.

It beat Western Kentucky 10-2 in six innings in their first game. Sydney Strelow was 1-for-3 with a double and three RBI and Taylor Krapf was 3-for-4, including a double, triple and two RBI. Autumn Pease pitched the first five innings, giving up two runs and six hits. She struck out seven and walked one.

The Gophers had 13 hits in beating Butler 18-2 in the second game. Krapf, a sophomore catcher who transferred from Duke, hit a grand slam and had five RBI total batting fourth. Jess Oakland, a freshman shortstop, had four RBI and Natalie DenHartog and freshman Addison Leschber had three RBI apiece.

Men's, women's curling finals set

Teams skipped by John Shuster, Daniel Casper, Tabitha Peterson and Delaney Strouse advanced through the playoffs Friday at USA Curling's national championships, earning spots in Saturday's title matches in Denver.

Shuster and Peterson, the 2022 U.S. Olympic skips, won their playoff openers to qualify directly to the finals. Peterson, of Eagan, remains undefeated after Friday's 11-10 victory over Strouse. Strouse, of Minneapolis, defeated Chaska's Sarah Anderson rink 9-4 in Friday's semifinals to claim the other finals berth.

Shuster's Duluth-based rink, the No. 2 seed, started the playoffs by defeating top-seeded Casper 8-5. Casper's Chaska-based team bounced back to beat Korey Dropkin of Duluth 8-5 in the semifinals, setting up the rematch with Shuster in the finals.

U gymnasts lose on road

The Gophers gymnastics team set a season high but lost to No. 2 Michigan at the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., 197.975 to 197.075.

Junior Mya Hooten of Minnesota took first in three events: vault (9.950), bars (9.950) and floor exercise (9.975) and tied for fourth in all-around with teammate Gianna Gerdes (39.500).

"Today was another great step forward for the team," Gophers coach Jenny Hansen said. "We had some amazing routines, several career highs and are excited for the opportunity to keep getting better each and every week."

Old U record in 60 falls

Amira Young of the Gophers won the 60-yard dash in 7.19 seconds, breaking a 21-year-old program record, in the Windy City Invitational at Gately Stadium in Chicago. Her time is the seventh best in the NCAA indoor season so far. Teammate Akilah Lewis was second in 7.21 — a time one-hundreth of a second better than Tahesia Harrigan ran for Minnesota in 2002.

In the preliminaries of the 60-meter hurdles, Maja Maunsbach of the Gophers had a time of 8.38 seconds — fourth best in program history, at least for a little while.

Then teammate Zariyah Black ran 8.35 in the 60 hurdles finals to tie for fourth place.

3K mark at St. Ben's

Fiona Smith of St. Benedict broke her own program record in the 3,000-meter run (9:28.14) at the Minnesota State Mankato Massive Meet. Her time is the fifth best ever in Division III and best this indoor track season.

Etc.

  • The No. 9 Gophers wrestling team (11-3, 4-3 Big Ten) will face No. 19 Wisconsin (7-7, 1-6) at 1 p.m. Saturday (BTN) in Madison, Wis.