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Annie Adamczak-Glavan will finally be inducted into the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s “Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame.” She’s already been inducted into the Softball Hall of Fame, and next week will be inducted into the state Basketball Hall of Fame.

It will seem as though something is missing when the NCAA men’s hockey tournament  gets underway in Boston next week.

The UMD Bulldogs will not be there, and while Duluth area hockey fans can find a dozen diversions, we’re hockey fans at heart and we’ll have to watch the Frozen Four to feed our passion as well as to see which Western team can win in Boston.

Can Denver uphold the NCHC’s clear regular-season edge in fierce competition when the Pioneers face powerful Michigan?

Can Minnesota State Mankato ride to its first championship for the honor of the new CCHA when they face Minnesota in the other semifinal next Thursday?

Or can Michigan and Minnesota – both highly skilled teams – come through to support the tiresome repetition of Big Ten marketing claims of superiority?

We’ll know soon enough.

In last weekend’s regionals, UMD, led by the superb goaltending of junior Ryan Fanti, shut out Michigan Tech 3-0 as senior Kobe Roth scored twice, including a 150-foot empty-net tally to clinch things, after little-used freshman fourth-line wing Kyler Kleven pounced on an overskated puck and scored on a breakaway.

That was in the Western regional at Loveland, Colo., where Denver was No. 1 seed and overcame Massachusetts-Lowell 3-2.

In the regional final, Darian Gotz scored first for UMD, but the Pioneers broke through Fanti’s string of three consecutive shutouts – including a 2-0 victory against Denver in the NCHC semifinals a week earlier – to gain a 1-1 tie.

The cruel twist of UMD’s valiant effort in their annual NCAA pursuit came late in the third period when a Denver shot was partially blocked by Fanti, as he sprawled in the crease. The puck slid along the goal line and Carter Savoie partially shot the rebound, and it glanced off Fanti and went in.

The Bulldogs threw everything at the Pioneers to the finish, but were eliminated 2-1.
After their season ended, Fanti signed a contract with Edmonton, passing up his last season at UMD, and captain Noah Cates signed with the Philadelphia Flyers, just in time to make his NHL debut at Xcel Energy Center against the Wild.

At Allentown, Pa., St. Cloud State was left with star goaltender David Hrenak still unable to play while recovering from a serious dose of flu, and they fell 5-4 to a quick-striking Quinnipiac.
That allowed Michigan’s powerhouse, which eased past AIC 5-3 in its opener, to run up a 4-0 lead and cruise past Quinnipiac 7-4 to reach the Frozen Four.

At Albany, N.Y., MSU-Mankato stalked to leads of 3-0 and 4-2 but had to hold off Harvard for a 4-3 opening victory. Mankato goaltender Dryden McKay regained his touch in the regional final to blank Notre Dame 1-0 and reach the Frozen Four CHC contender.

At Worcester, Mass., Minnesota fell behind defending champion UMass-Amherst 2-0, and it was 3-1 before Tristan Broz scored for the Gophers late in the second period. Matthew Knies scored the tying goal in the third period, and the Gophers advanced to the region final on a Ben Meyers goal at 7:31 of overtime.

In the final, Knies scored again midway through the first period against NCHC power Western Michigan, and Aaron Huglen made it 2-0 with a power-play goal in the first minute of the third period. Blake McLaughlin’s short-handed goal with 1:57 remaining clinched a 3-0 victory over the Broncos and earned the trip to the Frozen Four.

At the Frozen Four, Denver’s big, strong and experienced Pioneers should give the quick and highly-skilled Michigan Wolverines a major test in one semifinal, and it will be the Gophers skill and explosiveness against MSU-Mankato’s great goaltending and tactical wizardry of coach Mike Hastings.

Women take over

I’m not sure when it happened, but the current women’s NCAA basketball tournament has boiled into its Final Four as the more exciting version of the game compared to the men’s.

The fact that the women’s Final Four is in Minneapolis helps, and so does the competition on the courts – especially Monday night’s dramatic double-overtime victory by Connecticut against North Carolina State.

Former Hopkins star Paige Bueckers, in the process, may deserve a repeat performance as NCAA women’s basketball player of the year after single-handedly leading UConn to its victory.
Bueckers, a slick guard who directs the UConn attack, had missed 19 games after needing knee surgery, and she forced her early return to even get back in the lineup.

She had played under wraps, but Monday the wraps came off. She had scored only four at halftime, and when the Wolfpack challenged UConn’s attempt to reach its 14th consecutive Final Four, Bueckers got hot at precisely the right time.

Down the stretch, when the game raged back and forth, exchanging the lead almost every time down the court, Bueckers sent eight straight shots, most of them high-arching jumpshots from mid- or long-range that gave new meaning to the cliche “nothing but net.”

And when her teammates fell into a woeful shot-missing stretch that included going 1-8 on free throws, Bueckers calmly made six or eight free throws in a row.

North Carolina State tied the game with dramatic buzzer-beating 3-pointers at the end of regulation and the end of the first overtime. But Bueckers, who finally missed a running jump shot in the second overtime, connected on great passes when she wasn’t shooting, and UConn escaped to reach Minneapolis.

Bueckers scored 27 points in the spectacular display, 23 of them  after halftime.

Women’s basketball will take over the Twin Cities this week for the Final Four, and take my advice and watch as much as you can.

And there’s a lot more women’s athletic news to come, including the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s “Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame.”  

Being inducted in the pandemic-delayed class of 2021 are: Lindsay Vonn from skiing; Krissy Wendell-Pohl of Gopher and Olympic hockey fame; Chris Voeltz, former Gopher women’s athletic director; distance runner Carrie Tollefson; soccer star Briana Scirry; Lynx basketball stars Seimone Augustus and Maya Moore; and Annie Adamczak-Glavan – my nomination for the greatest individual female athlete in Minnesota history.

We can say all of them deserve such accolades, but we also can ask what took so long in Amdamczak’s case. We put her into the Duluth-area DECC Hall of Fame a few years ago, because she is from Moose Lake, and while all of the rest of the athlete inductees were outstanding in their specialty sport, Adamczak was the best high school volleyball player, basketball player and softball player all in one girl’s high school career.

If you think a one-sport specialist can match Annie’s incredible accomplishments, check them out, first.
She played varsity basketball in ninth grade, and Moose Lake made it to the state tournament, losing only one game before finishing “fourth, I think,” she said.

As a sophomore, she was the leading scorer on the volleyball team that played in the smaller of two high school classes and reached the state tournament, losing only in the state tournament final, then she returned to her first love, basketball, and led the Lakers to the state tournament where they won the consolation title.

In springtime she was a standout at shortstop to lead the Moose Lake softball team to the state tournament, where they were runner-up.

That was all preliminary stuff, thought, compared to her junior and senior years. As a junior, she led Moose Lake through an undefeated season to win the state title in volleyball, then she was the leading scorer on an undefeated basketball team that only lost in the state tournament final, and in the spring, she switched from shortstop to pitcher and hurled Moose Lake through an undefeated season and on to the state championship.

In her senior season, while she is quick to credit her outstanding teammates, Adamczak was the top hitter on a volleyball team that capped an undefeated season with a state title, then she led the Lakers in scoring through an undefeated season culminated with the state basketball championship, and in softball, she threw every pitch as Moose Lake went – you guessed it – undefeated through the entire season to win the 1982 state tournament.

After such a sensational career, the 5-foot-11 Adamczak was perturbed that she got no Division 1 scholarship offers in basketball, her first love.

Meanwhile, she had what she estimates as more than 100 scholarship offers for volleyball from places like Hawaii, USC and UCLA.

Her family said she needed a scholarship to go to college, so she accepted a full scholarship to Nebraska for volleyball, “because it was close.” She acknowledges that she knew nothing about the finer points of volleyball when she went to Nebraska, but got great coaching there from a head coach who assigned an assistant to take her to a back gym and show her how to position herself, and all the basics.

“I was like a bull in a china shop, diving for balls like a shortstop,” she said. “But because I had to learn the game from the ground up, and had great coaches, it has helped me in my career.”

Adamczak’s two daughters finished college careers at UMass and at NYU, and Adamczak has developed a specialized team and coaching program for top volleyball prospects, and has coached aspiring girls in basketball and volleyball.

It’s uncertain if she has any videos of herself shredding opponents in her high school glory days that put Moose Lake on the state’s sports map, but it would be a stirring teaching tool.

And it’s about time the Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame inducted her and her illustrious fellow inductees on Wednesday at the Mall of America rotunda.

In another week, she will be inducted into the state basketball hall of fame, which will include a ceremony at a Timberwolves game at Target Center.

I asked her about softball, and she said, “I’m already in that one.”