Lets…just forget about this weekend, K??
Valentines Day Weekend 2025 was not kind to the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Gophers fans were looking for love, but they got a lot of pain and anguish instead. Below is the recap of the weekend—look away if you are squeamish.
Gymnastics:
Let’s start with the good news first. The #16 ranked Gopher Gymnastics team went into Columbus and defeated #20 Ohio State 197.375-195.800 on Sunday afternoon. The Gophers score was a season high for the team. Gopher 5th year senior Mya Hooten had her best meet of the season winning the vault after tying her season-high with a 9.950. She also tied with Gopher sophomore Jordan Lydon for the bars title with a 9.900 and took home a solo floor event title with a 9.925. This was her first time winning event titles on vault, bars and floor in the same meet since the 2024 Big Ten Championships.
The Gophers added the beam event win as well as sophomore Brooklyn Rowray won her third beam title this year with a season-best 9.950.
The Gophers moved to 6-1 on the season and 4-1 in Big Ten action. They close out the Big Ten home schedule when they host Nebraska at the Pav on Saturday at 4PM.
Men’s Basketball:
The Gopher men picked up a gritty 69-66 win at USC on Saturday afternoon Lu’Cue Patterson led all scorer with 25 points. You can read our full recap HERE. The Gophers stay in So Cal and will face UCLA Tuesday night.
Indoor Track
The Gophers had a good weekend at the Windy City Classic in Chicago. The Gophers picked up three event wins and posted five different program top 10 performances. Graduate student Erin Reidy had the best performance on the weekend for Minnesota. Reidy ran a lifetime best 4:36.99 to win the women’s mile on Friday. She shaved five seconds off of per former personal best and it is now the second best time in program history.
Also on Friday the Gophers got an amazing performance from true freshman Kitania Headley in the 600m. She ran the event in a time of 1:31.21 to win the race and put herself at the No. 8 spot in Minnesota history. Saturday belonged to the Gophers triple jumpers. Brooke Moore pulled off the win in dramatic fashion with a mark of 12.96m on her final attempt of the competition to win the event by one centimeter over teammate Diarra Sow who jumped unattached. Moore’s leap catapults her to the No. 7 spot among Big Ten triple jumpers this season.
The final program top 10 marks came in the women’s 3000m. Ali Weimer (9:17.85) was able to drop nearly eight full seconds off her previous lifetime best to put down the No. 6 time in school history. In the same race redshirt freshman Izzy Roemer (9:22.16) also posted a lifetime best which now sits at the No. 10 spot in Minnesota history in the 3000m.
The Gophers return home this weekend for their final indoor regular season meet. The Snowshoe Open will take place on Friday and will kick off at 2 p.m.
Baseball:
The Gopher baseball team kicked off the Ty McDevitt era with a season opening 14-3 win on Friday night before dropping the final two games of the series to the Houston Cougars. ON Friday the Gophers plated four runs in the top of the first inning to give Texas transfer Cole Selvig a good cushion on the hill. He wouldn’t need it as he went six innings striking out six and allowing just three runs in his final inning of work. Joe Sperry came in and pitched the final three innings allowing just one hit. Weber Neels hit his first home run of the season and finished 2-5 with 4 RBI on the night.
The Gophers would fall 4-2 on Saturday. The Cougars scored one in the first inning before Minnesota plated a pair in the third on a Drew Berkland home run to take a 2-1 lead. Sophomore Kyle Remington started for the Gophers and took the loss. He gave up a pair of runs in the bottom of the 5th before being pulled for Will Whelan who gave up one more run on a wild pitch in the 6th inning. The Gophers had the bases loaded and nobody out in the 8th inning with a chance to regain the lead, but they would ground into a 1-2-3 double play nd then run into the final out of the inning on a ground ball to end the threat.
Sunday the Gophers blew a late lead and fell 8-7. The Gophers scored three runs in the top of the 6th to take a 7-5 lead on a three-run home run by Berkland. But, Houston would score three of of reliever Noah Rooney in the bottom of the 7th on three singles and a pair of walks.
Minnesota will be back in action next weekend at the Karbach Round Rock Classic in Round Rock, Texas where they will see three D1 powers in Oklahoma, Virginia, and Oregon State.
Softball:
The Gopher softball team struggled at the Joan Joyce Classic in Boca Raton, Florida over the weekend. Minnesota went 1-4 losing to Florida Atlantic, Villanova, and Louisville twice before picking up a 2-0 win over NC State Sunday morning. Sydney Schwartz threw a shutout in their win on Sunday giving up seven hits, walking one and striking out eight in seven innings.
Minnesota is now 2-7 on the season. They are off to the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic in California next weekend. They will face Fresno State, Missouri, Duke, Tennessee, and Long Beach State. The Duke game will be a reunion with former star Jessica Oakland who transferred this winter to the Blue Devils after being the 2024 Big Ten Player of the Year for the Gophers.
Women’s Hockey:
The Gophers split their home and home series against #11 St. Cloud State with each team winning on the road. Minnesota gave up the game winning goal with just 33 seconds left in Friday’s game in Minneapolis to fall 4-3 before coming from behind and scoring a pair of third period goals on Saturday in St. Cloud for a 2-1 win.
Minnesota has a three point lead on UMD for 3rd place in the WCHA and faces the Bulldogs at home this weekend to close out the regular season. The Gophers need just two out of a possible six points this weekend to clinch third place, and could potentially catch 2nd place Ohio State if the Buckeyes falter against St. Cloud State.
Wrestling
The #7 ranked Gophers wrestling team dropped a duel meet to #3 Iowa 23-11 to close out the regular season. Minnesota fell behind early with losses at 125 and 133, and could not claw their way back. The Gophers took just three wins on the night with #8 Vance VomBaur defaing an unranked wrestler for the Hawkeyes at 141, and then Minnesota two two wrestlers in #4 ranked Max McEnelly at 184 and #1 Gable Steveson at heavyweight picked up wins.
McEnelly won a hard fought battle against #8 Gabe Arnold for Iowa. After a scoreless first period, each wrestler logged an escape to send the match to sudden victory. In the extra frame, McEnelly scored on a re-attack, grabbing Arnold’s left leg and rolling him over before securing the takedown. The victory moves McEnelly to 18-0 on the year and 33-0 including his redshirt season a year ago. He’s 6-0 against ranked opponents, highlighted by a 3-0 mark against top-10 opponents.
Gable did what Gable does in the final bout of the night destroying #11 Ben Kueter. In his final match at the Pav, Gable took home a dominant 19-3, first-period tech fall. The win, which was the 30th career tech fall win for Steveson and the first tech fall loss for Kueter, moves Steveson to 11-0 on the year and 96-2 in the Maroon and Gold. Steveson finishes with an unblemished career dual record at 59-0, including 44-0 in the Big Ten. He’s won 63 straight matches, two off second place all-time in program history.
Those next two wins will need to come at the Big Ten Championships in Evanston, Illinois in March.
Men’s Hockey:
The Gophers hockey team headed into Ann Arbor after their bye week looking for a couple of big wins to down down NCAA Tournament seeding and prepare for a final run at the Big Ten regular season crown. Oops. Minnesota struggled against the #12 ranked Wolverines taking home just two points on the weekend falling in overtime on Friday 3-2 before forcing a shootout thy would lose on Saturday after a 2-2 tie. Minnesota struggled offensively all weekend and while they outplayed the Wolverines for good chunks of both games just could not get the puck in the net.
The stage is set for an epic showdown the final two weeks of the regular season in the Big Ten. Michigan State leads the conference with 43 points, three ahead of Minnesota and Ohio State who are tied for second place with 40 points. The Gophers and Buckeyes will square off in a massive series next weekend in Minneapolis.
Women’s Basketball:
The Gopher women fell at home to Oregon on Sunday 76-70 in a game they really needed to win. Minnesota took an early lead, but got very sloppy against an Oregon full court press in the second quarter and fished the half with 10 turnovers, and 16 points off of those turnovers for the Ducks. The Gophers tries clawing their way back late in the game as is their M.O., but it was took little too late as the Ducks hung on. Minnesota has three regular season games left—at Purdue and #22 Michigan State and at home against Washington. The games against the Boilermaker and Huskies are must wins to stay on the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble. They head to West Lafayette Wednesday night to face Purdue.
Tennis:
The Gopher tennis team headed to Alabama for a trio of matches this weekend and is coming back 0-3. Minnesota lost on Saturday morning to East Tennessee State 4-3 before falling at Alabama-Birmingham 4-2 Saturday afternoon. The Gophers would take on the Alabama Crimson Tide on Sunday and would fall to them as well losing 4-1 to fall to 6-5 on the season.
Minnesota is off until February 28th when they open the Big Ten season at home against Wisconsin.