jason.olson@apgecm.com<\/a>.<\/p>\nSo much for a slow summer when it comes to sports in late July.<\/p>\n
Of course, the typical baseball happenings continue with Minnesota Twins fans bracing for the pending trade deadline \u2014 remember the fire sale last year \u2014 as the team is within striking distance of a playoff spot.<\/p>\n
Minnesota United returned to action after the World Cup break with a scoreless draw against Vancouver on Saturday after a 2-1 loss to Sporting KC on July 22.<\/p>\n
Vixen, Lynx Riding High<\/p>\n
The Minnesota Vixen won their first championship on Saturday, while the Lynx entered the All-Star break with the best record in the WNBA, leaving their imprint all over the weekend from coach Cheryl Reeve to rookie guard Olivia Miles and Courtney Williams playing on Team Spoon, while Natasha Howard was on Team Coop. Team Spoon won 129-122. The Lynx came into the break on a seven-game winning streak and sport a league-best 22-6 record. Napheesa Collier made her season debut, scoring 24 points with 10 rebounds in 22 minutes in an 86-76 win at Seattle on July 22.<\/p>\n
Add in Kayla McBride, and the Lynx will be a fun team to follow heading into the final 16 games of the regular season (running through Sept. 24) with a postseason run pushing into October.<\/p>\n
On the football field, Vixen quarterback Erin Kelley completed 15 of 20 passes for 152 yards and two touchdowns to earn game MVP honors in a 42-14 win over the Pittsburgh Passion for the team’s first Women\u2019s Football Association (WFA) Pro division title on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Minnesota\u2019s defense dominated the game forcing five turnovers including four interceptions, one of wich was a 49-yard interception returned for a touchdown by linebacker Paige Condie.<\/p>\n
Minnesota, coached by Connor Jo Lewis, is the nation\u2019s oldest team (founded in 1999) and compiled an 8-1 record while breaking through with the league title after going 0-4 in four previous championship appearances. Saturday\u2019s win came at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio.<\/p>\n
The team is filled with personalities, including 52-year-old defensive lineman Cynthia \u201cRed\u201d Bryant, who is one of three original Vixen players still on the team.<\/p>\n
The Vixen went 5-1 during the regular season, with a sole loss to the St. Louis Slam that was later avenged in the postseason, when Minnesota eliminated the Slam. The Vixen returned to the championship game after defeating the reigning champion Salt Lake Wildcats by a field goal to win the American Conference championship.<\/p>\n
Vixen running back Tiffany Wright scored from 1 yard out in response to a first-quarter fumble inside the Pittsburgh 40-yard line, running for 98 yards and two touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Several teammates are Minnesota natives, including Bloomington offensive lineman Alex Strunk, who completed her seventh season with the team.<\/p>\n
Current St. Louis Park High School flag football head coach Kayla Ross is a former Vixen player and current tight ends coach. She is also a physical education and health teacher at the high school.<\/p>\n
3M near ace<\/p>\n
PGA Tour golfer Jake Knapp did everything but see the ball drop into the cup for a hole-in-one on the fourth hole during the first round of the 3M Open in Blaine. His drive off the tee bounced three times before coming to rest on the lip of the cup. Jackson Koivun set a new tournament-record score with a scorching 25-under-par total to hold off Scottie Scheffler for a three-shot win on Sunday. Koivun earned $1.58 million and 500 FedExCup points in his third professional start. His record wasn\u2019t the only milestone, as Michael Kim set a new course record with a 59 in the second round.<\/p>\n
Editor’s note: Feel free to submit your summer sports team tournament trophy photos to be included in an upcoming edition of the Sun Current or Sun Sailor. Please email jason.olson@apgecm.com<\/a> a photo with everyone identified front row from left to right, the tournament\/league finish, date and a brief recap.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Olson is a sports editor for Sun Newspapers. Reach him at jason.olson@apgecm.com. So much for a slow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[335447,5949,38965,3252,29442,2326,252445,335445,1077,3250,12814,15114,99,335446,333346,434,18553],"class_list":["post-788692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-3m-championship","tag-cheryl-reeve","tag-column","tag-courtney-williams","tag-jake-knapp","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-minnesota-united","tag-minnesota-vixen","tag-minnesota-lynx","tag-napheesa-collier","tag-natasha-howard","tag-olivia-miles","tag-sports","tag-team-coop","tag-team-spoon","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-all-star-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}