St. Ben's foreign foursome doesn't get many varsity minutes for now, but could change the look of the team in the future. St. Benedict athletics file photo

St. Benedict has been a well known commodity in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The Blazers won five straight titles from 2005-06 through 2009-10 and played in the Division III Final Four before that. Although the program didn't have the season it wanted a season ago, with a 13-12 mark, a dash of national flavor will be on the Blazers roster for the next four years to attempt to get the Blazers back to the winning ways.

"We've had more geographic diversity on the roster than in my 26 years here," St. Benedict coach Mike Durbin said.

Sarah Berbos, Meghan Carter, Andi Houck and Sydney Hughes all hail from states much further west than St. Joseph, Minn.

Berbos hails from Fullerton, Calif.; Carter from Las Vegas; Houck from Superior, Colo. and Hughes from Olympia, Wash.

"You've got to choose a school you're excited to be at the next four years," Durbin said. "(Hughes and Houck) , they had Minnesota connections. While the other two did not, every factor was taken into consideration for all of them and the first one was, was there an academic fit. It's been an incredible fit, beyond my expectations."

Along with some great stories to tell.

 "I think it's really fun for everyone involved when you have a player from California or Nevada when they have never experienced winter," Durbin said. "That geographical diversity coming to St. Joseph, Minnesota, has been very impressive."

St. Ben’s, a sister school to St. John’s in central Minnesota, is a few minutes’ drive north of St. Cloud and a little over an hour north of Minneapolis.

The quartet will be counted in the future although Hughes has earned some spot minutes on the varsity. Durbin said if he can find players all over the country to fit the mold of his program and the college, he will continue to, but it is a little more work.

"I would like to continue recruiting national and institutionally they are very supportive of that," Durbin said. "Recruiting nationally takes up to double the work. You really have to look at a pool of national students and determine if they fairly interested in going out of state. When considering this they have to be able to come home to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Students have to be able to change, be able to determine early on before jump in with both feet that this is the place for them."

Stout off to a fast start

A dose of successful northern exposure gave UW-Stout coach Ed Andrist a good feeling about his team this season. The Blue Devils are off to a 6-1 start, including winning their first six games of the year. The lone loss was a 64-58 loss to defending national champion UW-Whitewater.

The success was helped along by a preseason foreign tour to Canada, where the team could play some exhibition games against Canadian schools and have an extra week-plus of practice to prepare for the season.

"It's always been very good," Andrist said. "We went there for nine days. We went up there and played five games, we won the first three. After we played well in Canada we had an inkling that we could be pretty good."

Stout has struggled the last two years, going 19-31 overall, including 8-24 in WIAC play.

 "Last year we had so many crazy things happen and had eligibility issues," Andrist said.

The last three games of last season, however, showed that the Blue Devils had a potentially solid basketball team by knocking off the last three WIAC opponents including UW-Stevens Point, a perennial power.

"It was a great finish to the year," Andrist said.

And this season brings a group of four juniors and one senior in the starting lineup.

"We brought everybody back," Andrist said. "You've got a lot of experienced guys that can win and all of a sudden things go well."

One of the five starters, Erik Olson, needs just three assists to break the Blue Devils' all-time mark.

"He's one of the best point guards in the league," Andrist said.

The leading scorer is senior Chris Hortman, who has 13.1 points all off the bench. Juniors Alex Oman and Jarvis Ragland add 13 and 11.9 points respectively.

"These guys have a lot of experience from last year and are ready to crank it up this year," Andrist said.

Andrist said the biggest surprise so far has been the way his team has been limiting miscues on the floor.

"We've only had nine or 10 turnovers," Andrist said. "If we take care of the ball and defend we not only think we have a chance to do well Wednesday, but for the rest of the year.”

Which is important to play near mistake-free basketball in the tough WIAC.

"You better pack your lunch and probably pack a couple," Andrist said. "You can still be a good basketball team in the league and struggle."