I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
Jan. 10, 1999
By Devlyn Brooks
The Lumberjacks boys' swimming and diving team rode the backs of its senior freestylers to a second place finish in their own invitational Saturday at Bemidji Middle School.
Bemidji, which lacks depth in several areas, led for at least half of the meet before the Moorhead Spuds used their deeper roster to rally in the late events, clinching a 633-613.5 win over the Jacks.
Thief River Falls finished third with 364.5, as Detroit Lakes (269.5), Crookston (191.5) and Perham (184) completed the field.
"We swam very well today. I thought Moorhead was going to come out a little bit further ahead (than they did)," Bemidji's swimming and diving coach Todd Walsh said of his team's performance.
The Jacks fell behind Moorhead 88-72 after the first event, the 200 yard medley relay, but won the next three -- 200 yard freestyle, 200 yard individual medley and 50 yard freestyle -- to take 216-200 lead.
After the diving competition, Bemidji led with slim 256-244 margin, but fell 26 points behind because of the 100 yard butterfly race -- a race in which Bemidji had only one competitor, John Schwartz who finished second.
Bemidji scored a major coup in the following 100 yard freestyle, however, taking a 1-2-3 finish.
Sabin Rasmus, Brian Smith and Keko Fragomeni placed first through third, with the Jacks' Jaimie Brower scoring a seventh place finish as well.
With the 1-2-3 punch, Bemidji doubled the Spuds' points in the 100 freestyle, and scored well in the 500 yard freestyle and 200 yard freestyle relay to gain a 463.5-452 lead with three events left.
But that was the last time the Jacks would lead, as the Spuds slammed the door shut in the backstroke and breaststroke events -- Bemidji's other weak points.
Ending the day positively, the Jacks took second and third in the 400 yard freestyle relay to make the final 633-613.5 in the Spuds' favor.
"The (meet) was decided by the backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke events. We're weak in those," Walsh said. "But we had a lot of very good improvement, a lot of time drops ... a lot of best times."
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