Tag: basketball

Hansen leads DSU offensively, but also plays big role on defense

Dickinson State senior Jarek Hansen isn’t a type of basketball player who can be easily categorized. Hansen has steadily increased his output each of the three seasons he has been with the Blue Hawk men after transferring from Williston State College.

He is averaging 10.6 points and three rebounds per game while shooting 89 percent from the free-throw line and 39 percent from 3-point range, all of which are by far the best marks of his collegiate career.

“My role has changed every year,” Hansen said. “My sophomore year, I was expected to bring a spark off the bench when the time was there for me. Last year, I got put in a starting role right at the beginning of the season and was expected to put some points on the board, score for us and play hard, tough defense as well.”
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Nadeau an emotional leader for Blue Hawks

Ask Yianna Nadeau what she brings to the Dickinson State women’s basketball team and her answers have little to do with the traditional aspects of the game.

“Energy, intensity, a positive attitude,” she says without skipping a beat.

Yes, the 5-foot-10 senior forward from Portland, Ore., can shoot the ball and is one of DSU’s best defenders.

But Nadeau’s greatest attribute, players and coaches agree, is the way she can lead the team through her actions and words.

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FUTURE IS NOW: Sophomore Janae Moore shining bright setting the standard for young Hawks

Janae Moore, shown on Nov. 26, 2011, drives to the basket.

Janae Moore is trying to set a standard.

The Dickinson State sophomore has the attitude and demeanor of an upperclassman — of which there aren’t many on the Blue Hawks’ roster — and all season she has played like one too.

“That’s what makes me most excited is if she just stayed where she is right now, she’s a great player,” DSU first-year head coach Caleb Harrison said. “We’ll get to the end of the season and her numbers are going to go up and she’s going to be playing at an even higher level.”

Moore, a 5-foot-11 forward from Sidney, Mont., leads the Blue Hawks in just about every major category coaches expect a frontcourt starter to lead — and even some they wouldn’t.

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Night Hawks avoid tragedy, soldier on despite injuries to key players

Of the millions of bus trips taken every year by schools around the country for extracurricular activities, few were as scary as the one the Hettinger-Scranton boys basketball team took on Jan. 13. That afternoon, on their way to play a basketball game against Dickinson Trinity, the team’s chartered bus went off the road when it hit an ice patch attempting to negotiate a curve widely regarded as dangerous along the border of Slope and Hettinger counties three west of New England. Icy road conditions, which were ruled the reason for the accident, caused the bus to go off the road.

After it went off the road and into the ditch the bus came upon an adjacent north-south gravel road, which had a steep incline. The bus hit it hard and launched into the air, rolling onto the driver’s side, which slowed it down to an eventual stop.

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Move to Europe puts Dufault back on permieter

There have been some learning curves for Austin Dufault in his transition from the high-profile life of a NCAA Division I college basketball player to the nearly invisible existence as the lone American on his professional basketball team in the Czech Republic.

There are no more games in front of 10,000 screaming fans.

Though he is getting paid to play the game he loves, Dufault said BK Prostejov — the team he plays for in the Czech Republic’s National Basketball League — rarely fills its 3,000-seat arena. Some games, he said, have fan turnouts that would be similar to the Class B games he grew up playing at Killdeer High School.

Nonetheless, Dufault has earned a starring role in his new home.

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