Sports Memories by Tom Jones

 

50 years ago

• Ed Ernest Realty won the YMCA baseball championship with a record of 9-1. The team was coached by Bill Ankoviak and Al Berg.

• The Albert Lea VFW scored single runs in the fourth, fifth and seventh innings to defeat the Albert Lea Eagles 3-1 in city fastpitch softball league play at Hayek Park. Larry Rasmussen had a triple for VFW and John Stegenga had a triple for the Eagles.

• Twenty-year-old Hank Williams Jr., who has opened up broadcasts of Monday Night Football for years, entertained an overflow crowd at the Freeborn County Fair. It was the first stop of a long tour that was set to run through October.

 

25 years ago: 1994

• The Albert Lea VFW baseball team defeated Austin 13-4 in the first round of the Western Division tournament at Hayek Field. Andy Dooley pitched a complete game, allowing three earned runs and seven hits while striking out one.

• Former Twin Gary Gaetti hit two home runs off of Kevin Tapani as the Kansas City Royals defeated the Twins 5-3, giving the Royals their seventh straight victory.

• Val Nicolaus of Albert Lea recorded a hole-in-one on the 13th hole at the Green Lea club tournament.

 

10 years ago: 2009

• Chris Baas of Albert Lea won the championship flight of the Rice Lake Golf and Country Club men’s club tournament.

• Percy Harvin, who the Minnesota Vikings drafted as the 22nd pick in the first round, signed a five-year contract with the Vikings and was headed to training camp in Mankato.

• Led by goals from Sydney Overgaard and Alayna Chavez, the Albert Lea U-13 girls’ soccer team defeated Orono 2-1 to win the state championship. The team was coached by Troy Waldemar, Darren Hanson and Brad Niebuhr.

 

This year

• Jay Bottelson, a 1980 graduate of Albert Lea High School who resides in Stafford, Virginia, is a member of the Capital Beltway Warriors ice hockey team as a goalie. The team was incorporated in 2018 as a nonprofit entity in the Washington, D.C., area and provides events and opportunities for veterans and disabled veterans of the United States armed forces to learn and play the sport of ice hockey for recreational and therapeutic experience and education. The team has participated in two USA Hockey disabled hockey festivals, bringing home championship banners in Warrior C and B divisions. The USA Hockey Warrior discipline is designed for armed forces veterans who have either a Purple Heart medal for being wounded in combat or a VA disability rating of 10% or more. There are several Warrior hockey teams in the Twin Cities and Duluth areas. For more information on Warrior hockey, go to www.usahockey.com/warriorhockey or www.mnwarriors.com.