Morning State Sports Briefs: Rodgers says lockout having bad effect on Packers

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GREEN BAY - Green Bay Packers’ quarterback Aaron Rodgers says the NFL owners’ lockout is having a detrimental effect on his team.

He answered questions and told stories at a charity event in Milwaukee this week for the Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer. Rodgers said the Super Bowl champions would normally be in their individual position workouts right now. And if the lockout drags into June, he says the players will have to find a way to get together – just like those on other teams have started to do. Rodgers says he’s been working out – and he lost four points during his off-season conditioning work.

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Three Wisconsin teams won their opening games yesterday in the NCAA Division-Three baseball tournament. Carthage was the only team that lost. The Red Men from Kenosha fell to Buena Vista 8-1 at the Bloomington, Illinois Regional. Carthage will play Coe College this afternoon, and the loser will be eliminated. Ripon College won its opener at Bloomington, 3-2 over top-seeded Coe College, as Jason Wierschke tossed a five-hitter. Ripon will play Thomas More of Kentucky this evening in the winner’s bracket. At the Whitewater Regional, top-seeded UW-Stevens Point and Number-two UW-Whitewater both won their openers. The Pointers needed 10 innings to get by Aurora, 3-2. Steve Considine won it with a squeeze bunt that scored pinch-runner Travis Tuschen. Whitewater edged Saint Thomas 3-2 on a sacrifice fly that scored Jeff Donovan. This afternoon, Stevens Point will play Saint Scholastica, which lost to Hamline 3-2 in 14 innings. Whitewater will play Hamline in the second round.

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University of Wisconsin athletes won the Big Ten Conference Freshman-of-the-Year honors in both men’s-and-women’s track. Reed Connor was given the men’s rookie honor, after he won the five-thousand meters at the conference meet last weekend. Wisconsin’s Emily Sisson was named the women’s top freshman, after placing third in both the five-thousand and 10,000-meter runs at the league meet. Connor was also named to the men’s All-Big Ten first team. Mohammed Ahmed of the Badgers made the second squad. Jessica Flax of the Badgers made the women’s all-conference first team. Justin Austin of Iowa and Christina Manning of Ohio State are the men’s-and-women’s track athletes-of-the-year. Michael Hartfield of the Buckeyes and Beth Rohl of Michigan State won the top awards for field athletes. Larry Wieczorek of Iowa and Karen Dennis of Ohio State won the men’s-and-women’s Coach-of-the-Year awards.

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Grinnell College of Iowa has won the Midwest Conference men’s all-sports title for the second year in a row. And Monmouth of Illinois took the women’s honors for the first time. The all-sports rankings are based on each school’s finish in 20 sports throughout the school year. The Ripon College men placed third, resulting in part from its division title in baseball. Saint Norbert is fourth on the men’s side. In the women’s all-sports rankings, Saint Norbert placed second, based in part on its league crowns in women’s basketball and cross country. The Carroll women finished third.

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Lance Armstrong will play in a charity golf event in northeast Wisconsin in August. The seven-time Tour de France winner will appear at the U.S. Venture Open on August 10th. The event will be held at five golf courses in the Green Bay region. All the money raised goes to Fox Valley groups which help those in poverty. The Venture Open has raised over 12-and-a-half million dollars since 1986. Last year’s event took in the most ever – two-point-two-million – when golf legends Arnold Palmer and Nancy Lopez appeared.

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