We are excited to start the Club Sports Monthly recap! At the end of every month during the academic year, we will send out an update on the Humboldt State University Club Sports.  This month, we have recaps of baseball, men’s rugby, women’s ultimate, men’s ultimate and cycling.  For more information on the Humboldt State Lumberjack Club Sports’ Teams, click here.

Baseball

The Lumberjack baseball team has been very active this Fall semester.  The Lumberjacks started 1-2 in a conference series at Saint Mary’s College.  In game one, the ‘Jacks defeated the Gaels 10-2. In the final two games of the three-game series, Saint Mary’s College defeated the ‘Jacks 8-7 and 12-5.  Tyler Martin was named the Player of the Weekend, going 7-for-10 with four doubles while driving in five runs. CJ Martinez was the winning pitcher in game one.  The Lumberjacks will return to the diamond November 5-7 when they travel to Rohnert Park for another league series.

Women’s Ultimate

After hosting Sonoma State in the Redwood Bowl on September 25th, the Hags went to Sectionals for DII Collegiate Play.  On October 16th, they faced an enormous challenge when they jumped straight into competition after play being suspended during the pandemic.  Although only four women’s teams competed at Sectionals, other teams had larger numbers and more experienced players.  HSU lost the first match 15-0 to Stanford. The Hags were able to regain some composure and played a tough U of Reno, losing 15-8.  The Hags will return to competition in the Spring. 

Men’s Ultimate

Two weeks ago, men’s Ultimate traveled to Sacramento to compete in the USA Ultimate NorCal Sectionals. Normally, the event hosts 16 teams with a total of 8 teams advancing to Regionals. This year, due to cancellation, Humboldt State only competed against six other teams. Going into this tournament, HSU was seeded sixth and the 5 best teams were allowed to continue their season at regionals.

Their first game was against UC Santa Cruz, who was seeded second.  HSU lost 10-7 to the Banana Slugs.   The second game of the day was against the fourth-seeded UC Davis, and the ‘Jacks lost 12-5.  In their third game on the first day of competition, the ‘Jacks fought hard but unfortunately lost 13-7 to UC Berkeley, who was seeded first.  In their final game of the day, the ‘Jacks went up against the fifth-seed University of Nevada Reno.  In the past three years, HSU has not conceded a match to UNR.  Two years prior at Sectionals, HSU beat UNR on a universe point (the last point of the game, where whoever scores wins) to go to Regionals.  This year, HSU defeated the Wolfpack 13-7 to pick up their first win of the season. 

HSU started day two with a 13-7 victory over Sonoma State to guarantee the ‘Jacks a shot of going to Regionals.  In their last game of pool play, HSU trailed 6-5 to the third seeded Stanford Cardinals at the half.  Stanford held on to defeat the ‘Jacks 11-6. The Lumberjacks’ final game of the tournament was against Nevada.  At the half, HSU was trailing 7-6.  The ‘Jacks came back and tied the game at 12-12, but Nevada won the game on universe 13-12.  The Lumberjacks will return to competition in the Spring. 

Men’s Rugby

The Humboldt State Men’s Rugby team had an amazing season opener defeating Sonoma State 55-12. Both teams came out strong with big hits and a physical game. As Humboldt State took over the game, Hooker Jason Uipi and Full Back Jake Barry both recorded a pair of hat tricks for their start of the 2021-2022 campaign. Overall, it was a great win for the Humboldt State Jacks as they look to keep this winning momentum in their match at Cal Maritime on October 30.

Cycling

Nationals  - Cross Country Race Club Men:

●     Thoughts from HSU cyclist Taj Krieger on his recent competition representing the Lumberjacks:  “I arrived in Durango, Colorado and headed up to Purgatory Ski Resort about 30 minutes out of town. Purgatory resort is at 9,000 feet elevation, and coming from sea level I could definitely feel the lack of oxygen just by walking up a set of stairs. Once I got my bike all set-up and unboxed I headed out to do a pre-ride. It was snowing pretty hard and the course was covered with a few inches of snow already. Volunteers and race officials worked hard to try and keep the course clear, but ended up having to shorten the race loop because of how much snow was on the upper section. This meant that we would be racing 2/3rd’s of the course. The course was a 3-mile loop which climbed about 900 feet per lap. During the pre-ride most of the course was still frozen, but as the day went on it began to unfreeze. By the time I finished my pre-ride, much of the snow on the trail had melted and turned to a mixture of mud and slush. I tried to prepare for the next day’s race by lowering my tire pressure (giving me more surface area and grip), and putting on more water-resistant clothes. The club division was the last to set off for the Cross-Country race, meaning that the women’s varsity and club teams, and the men’s varsity teams had gone before us. This softened up the snow and hard packed dirt, turning it into ankle deep mud around nearly the whole course. The race started fast, but by the first corner people were already dismounting their bikes and trying to run around the muddy sections. I tried to stay on my bike as long as I could but eventually my chain dropped due to the sheer amount of mud stuffed in my bike. I tried pushing and running, but the mud was clogging the clearance between my frame and the wheels, so I had to clear off my tires and then carry my bike up a hill covered in mud. This theme continued all the way up the hill, constantly on and off the bike either fixing my chain or carrying my bike. The quick and easy lap that I had ridden during the pre-ride the day before was getting progressively slower and more difficult each lap. I managed to catch a group who wiped out in the icy corners on the descent, then continued to reel people in over the following laps. By the end I had finished 18th, with 15+ chain drops and one whole lap where I couldn’t clip into my pedals”.

Short Track Club Men:

●     “Going into this race after XC the day before was a little stressful. I was worried I would have similar mechanical problems due to the amount of mud on the course, and probably place worse since I tend to do better at longer events. I checked the course about an hour before my race started and saw some good lines around some of the major mud patches and technical sections. This course was a lot shorter and took about 5 minutes per lap. It started with a short uphill, into a steep corner that led to either running your bike or taking a wide line and muscling through. I opted to stay on my bike (since I hate running), which ended up saving me time and energy from mounting and dismounting. The race started fast and I found myself in the front group of riders. I decided to try and stay out of the red zone since it's much harder to recover at altitude from hard efforts. My consistent pace meant that I often fell back a few places in the faster parts of the course but made up for it by keeping power over the top of the technical features and corners. As the laps ticked by, more and more people got pulled from the race and eventually left the top 10 out on course. I managed to catch a rider who was really struggling in the mud on the last lap, and hold him off to the line to take 8th place. This was much better than I was expecting to do in such a short and high intense event.”