Former Gophers hockey players and Minnesota Arctic Blast teammates Cory Laylin and Randy Skarda were named to the Roller Hockey International All-Star team, which will play July 8 in Anaheim, Calif.
The game will be the first all-star appearance from both players.
The Blast lead the Central Division with a 7-3 record, and Laylin and Skarda are two major components to the team.
Laylin, a forward, leads the squad with 15 goals and 13 assists and Skarda, a defenseman who joined the team after the league opened, has seven goals and nine assists.
The two players competed together with the Gophers in 1989 and again with the Blast in 1994.
Skarda held the Gophers’ single-season record in goals by a defenseman with 19 until last season when Mike Crowley scored 21.
A list of three all-star candidates from each of the 18 RHI teams was submitted by the head coaches. That list was compiled into one master list, which the coaches and Commissioner Ralph Backstrom voted upon to create the final roster.
The game will be aired on ESPN at 2:30 p.m. July 9 and twice on ESPN2 at 6:30 p.m. July 10 and 2:30 p.m. July 12.
U swimmer getsNCAA award
Former Gophers swimmer Bernie Zeruhn recently added a postgraduate scholarship from the NCAA for $5,000 to his list of accomplishments this spring.
The native of Hamburg, Germany, graduated in June with a 3.93 GPA from the Carlson School of Management, which was good enough to be named GTE Co-Academic All America of the year.
He also won three individual conference titles this spring at the Big Ten Swimming and Diving Championships, which Minnesota won for the first time since 1926. Additionally, he earned All-America honors by placing eighth in the 200-meter freestyle at the NCAA championships.
Zeruhn will continue his studies this fall at the Carlson School of Management.
Stephenson honored by gymnastics coaches
Gophers women’s gymnastics assistant coach Meg Stephenson was re-elected to her second two-year term as the president of the National Association of Collegiate Gymnastics Coaches for Women.
Stephenson works as the coach/choreographer of Minnesota’s balance beam competitors. Since she was hired by her husband and Gophers head coach Jim Stephenson, Minnesota athletes have broken the balance beam record score five times.
Volleyball recruit denied admission to the U
Tanash Lawrence, who signed a national letter of intent to play volleyball with the Gophers starting this fall, was declared ineligible to attend the University by Minnesota women’s athletics director Chris Voelz earlier this week.
Former Gophers women’s track athlete dies
Former University women’s broad jumper and sprinter Lauretta Nightingale (Horejs), 90, died July 2 after a long battle with lymphoma, usually characterized by painless enlargement of the lymphoid tissue.
The former physical education teacher and playground instructor in St. Paul lettered in track as a University junior in 1926.
At that time, women could not letter until they were juniors and reached 1,000 meet points, with no more than 400 points creditable for each year of competition.
Horejs broke the Gophers record in the broad jump and ran the 50-yard dash in six seconds flat. She also played field hockey and intramural ice hockey before graduating with a degree in physical education in 1927.
Later, she was captain of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary Drill Team, which won the national championship in 1930.
Horejs was preceded in death by her husband, a former professor emeritus of the School of Business Administration (now the Carlson School of Management) at the University.