Aug. 19: Featured at the fund-raising Joy Ranch Rendezvous in rural Watertown was pro rodeo legend The One Arm Bandit and Company. The One Arm Bandit (John Payne of Shidler, OK) lost his arm in an accident when he was younger, and now the trick rider performs with his family in his Wild West Rodeo Show featuring horses, buffalo, cattle, mules and zebras for thousands across the nation. Payne has won the PRCA Specialty Act of the Year 15 times. Joy Ranch (founded by Joy Nelson in 1989) is a 126-acre ranch to help challenged individuals get a chance to meaningfully connect with horses.
Aug. 25: Chester Area quarterback Layke Wold had a hand in nine touchdowns in his team’s 63-34 win over Centerville. Wold passed for six and ran for three more.
Aug. 29: The Elkton-Lake Benton volleyball team defeated Castlewood 3-1 to give coach Melissa Erickson her 400th career win.
Aug. 30: Sioux Falls golfers Ryan Trasamar and Charlie Jacobson qualified for the 2024 USGA 4 Ball Championship May 25-29 in Philadelphia. The 4 Ball format is where each player plays their own ball and the low score between the two golfers is used for each hole. The South Dakota duo qualified at a tourney in Cedar Rapids, IA.
Aug. 31: Still in the process of a $100 million makeover of its athletic facilities, Dakota State played its first football game on its new soybean-based turf (a 31-6 loss to Wisconsin-LaCrosse). It also held the naming ceremony for its new Dan Beacom Track Complex. Beacom (Feb. 26, 1956-May 24, 2023) was a 1979 DSU graduate who was a standout track athlete for the Trojans. He graduated from Sioux Falls O’Gorman in 1974.
Sept. 1: The Sturgis football team defeated Mitchell 38-6 to start the season 2-0 for the first time since 2010.
Sept. 1: The Augustana soccer team opened its season with a 1-0 home win over Central Missouri. Helping the Vikings were coach Brandon Barkus and his daughters Jillian Barkus (the senior starting goalie) and Sierra Barkus (a top reserve).
Sept. 1: Clear Lake native Chad Lavin was inducted into University of Wyoming Hall of Fame. Lavin was named head coach of the Wyoming Cowgirls basketball team in 1986 and had an immediate impact on the program. He produced a 175-162 overall record, with one conference championship in 1989-90 (still the only regular-season conference championship in Cowgirl history), and four top-three conference finishes. A two-time conference coach of the year, Lavin coached many outstanding players including fellow UW hall of famers Amy Burnett (Huron) and Courtney Stapp (Newell). Lavin also had a major influence on girls’ basketball in the state of Wyoming, conducting numerous coaching clinics in Laramie and around the state as well as girls’ basketball camps which had grown to 2,000 players and 120 teams participating. Lavin, a former USD coach who is a member of the Coyote Hall of Fame, played a major role in raising the level of play and coaching of girls’ basketball in Wyoming and surrounding states.

Sept. 3: Aberdeen late model driver Chad Becker won four feature races in a row Aug. 31-Sept. 3, three at the Big Bucks Nationals at Brown County Speedway in Aberdeen and then at Casino Speedway in Watertown.
Sept. 3: Yankton native Marc Gubbels won the amateur championship at the 50 th annual Hillcrest Invitational Pro-Am Golf Tournament in his hometown. Meanwhile, Zander Winston of Tempe, AZ, won the pro tourney to earn $25,000. In July, Winston won the Western Printing Pro-Am at Aberdeen’s Moccasin Creek. The Yankton tourney is normally played in the beginning of August (Aug. 1-4 in 2024), but was moved due to construction of a new clubhouse. Hillcrest demolished its old clubhouse at the end of last season and began building a new one that will be double in size. The club was established in 1953 and the old clubhouse opened in 1954.
Sept. 7: The annual One Day for State 24-hour, fund-raising campaign raised a record $2,481,275 from 6,227 donors. Most of the money raised was directed by donors to athletics ($714,062 raised from 3511 donors). However, money benefitted programs and SDSU students campuswide, including the colleges of ag, arts, engineering, pharmacy and natural sciences; the choir and band programs; and McCrory Gardens.
Sept. 9: The Black Hills State cross country teams opened their season at the annual Gage McSpadden Memorial meet in Sturgis. The winner of the women’s 4,000-meter race was Sylvia Brown of the Yellow Jackets, and the winner of the men’s 6,000 was her twin brother Tim Brown. The Browns, who are from Sheridan, WY, are team captains of the Yellow Jacket teams.
Sept. 9: Arizona State starting senior right tackle Emmit Bohle will miss the rest of the football season with a lower leg injury. The former Selby and Northern State standout left the field on a cart with an air cast on his lower left leg during the Sun Devils’ 27-15 loss to Oklahoma State.
Sept. 10: An estimated more than 400 family and North Dakota hometown friends came to U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis to see Hankinson native Cody Mauch start in his first NFL game for Tampa Bay. Hankinson, a town of 921 near Sisseton, is only about three hours away from Minneapolis (and 120 miles from Aberdeen) so residents came out in full force as did Mauch’s family. The starting right guard for the Buccaneers and his teammates nip the Minnesota Vikings 20-17. Mauch was a second round draft pick this year out of NDSU.
Sept. 11: Several players with South Dakota connections were on active rosters to open the 2023 season including former SDSU standout tight ends Dallas Goedert (Philadelphia) of Britton-Hecla and Tucker Kraft (Green Bay) of Timber Lake. Others were C.J. Ham (Augustana) of Minnesota; Trey Pipkins (Sioux Falls) of the L.A. Chargers; Christian Rozeboom (SDSU) of the L.A. Rams; Jack Cochrane (USD) of Kansas City; Dennis Gardeck (Sioux Falls) of Arizona; and Pierre Strong (SDSU) of Cleveland. Practice squad or injured reserve players are Riley Reiff (Parkston) of New England; Cade Johnson (SDSU) of Seattle; Kameron Cline (USD) of Buffalo; and Chris Oladokun (SDSU) of Kansas City.
Sept. 12: The Miller volleyball team won a dramatic 3-2 match (15-12 last set) against Northwestern, giving coach Linda DeBoer her 700th career win. In 31 seasons, DeBoer is 700-253-2 (opposing coach Nora Groft has more than 640 wins). DeBoer and Kari Jung of Warner are now the only two active volleyball coaches with more than 700 wins. Only two other coaches — now both retired — have more than 700 wins: Jill Christensen (837) of Parker and Anita Boeck (731) of Arlington.

Sept. 12: A dozen female athletes and 14 adults are alleging in a lawsuit filed in federal court that the Sioux Falls School District is in violation of federal equal opportunity law after it decided earlier this year to defund the district’s gymnastics program.
Sept. 13: Former Northern State All-American Parker Fox has been cleared medically to play this upcoming season for the Minnesota Gophers. Fox, who has two years of eligibility left, has been sidelined the past two seasons with different knee injuries.
Sept. 14: DWU’s three-time All-American volleyball player Ady Dwight of Langford has won the NAIA A.O. Duer Scholarship Award for 2023. The award is named in honor of the NAIA’s former executive secretary (1949-75) and has been annually presented since 1967 to only one male and female student-athlete completing their junior season in any sport who has excelled in scholarship, character, and citizenship. Dwight, a two-time academic All-American as well, has been a key player in helping the DWU program take the next step as the Tigers have reached the national tourney the last two seasons, including the quarterfinals last season. She is only the eighth athlete from a South Dakota college to win the award: 1989, Stacy Nicolaisen, DWU; 1996, Julie Hinrichs, Mount Marty; 2000, Tom Nelson, MM; 2006, Kyle Kattke, SD Mines; 2009, Trevor Holleman, Sioux Falls; 2011, Danielle Bellet, DWU; and 2021, Jeff Schuch, DWU.
Sept. 15: Lakota Tech High School opened its new turf football field five miles east of Pine Ridge. The field, which features a beautiful Lakota Tech Tatanka and buffalo logo at mid-field, is part of a multi-million dollar project that eventually will include a football stadium and track.
Sept. 15: Boston Katzer of Lennox had a hand in eight total touchdowns in a 58-7 win over Custer. The junior quarterback threw for 370 yards and seven touchdowns and rushed for 83 yards and another TD. 
Sept. 15: The Watertown football team celebrated homecoming by defeating Sioux Falls Washington 41-27 to snap a 17-year, 12-game losing streak to the Warriors. The Arrows last defeated SFW 17-14 — also a Watertown homecoming — on Sept. 29, 2006.
Sept. 16: DWU went on a 15-play, nine-minute, homecoming drive that ended with a Jamin Arend (Emery) one-yard touchdown run with 82 seconds left in the game that gave his Tigers a 33-32 win over Midland. Midland has beaten DWU the last five seasons, with the last Tigers’ win over Midland coming on Sept. 30, 2017, in another DWU homecoming win (55-21).
Sept. 16: With nine different players scoring touchdowns, SDSU racked up its most points and yards in a game in five years while rolling over Drake 70-7 before 18,174 fans at Target Field in Minneapolis. Groundskeepers at the home of the MLB Minnesota Twins built the temporary football field in less than 48 hours after the Twins wrapped up their home series against the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday. The other two football games played at 13-year-old Target Field were on Sept. 23, 2017 (St. Thomas defeated St. John’s 20-17) and on Aug. 31, 2019 (NDSU defeated Butler 57-10).
Sept. 16: South Dakota’s 2023 stint on the NASCAR circuit has ended. A South Dakota marketing strategy to promote its Freedom Works Here campaign led by Gov. Kristi Noem and her staff included a partnership with the NASCAR team Live Fast Motorsports for two races. NASCAR driver B.J. McLeod’s No. 78 Chevrolet Camaro was specially wrapped to promote “South Dakota is hiring” and the state campaign’s web site in hopes of attracting workers to fill some 20,000 open jobs across South Dakota. In the first race at the Cook Out 400 in Virginia on July 30, finished last (36 th ). At this weekend’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race at the Bristol (TN) Motor Speedway, McLeod finished 31st in a field of 36 cars. The $130,000 NASCAR sponsorships were funded from marketing dollars by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and were part of a $6.5-million marketing campaign.

Sept. 17: Defending champion Steve Stricker won the sixth annual Sanford International PGA Champions Tour event in Sioux Falls. Stricker earned $300,000 of the $2 million purse. Stricker won the first title in Sioux Falls in 2018 followed by Rocco Mediate (2019); Miguel Angel Jimenez (2020); Darren Clarke (2021); and Stricker (2022).
Sept. 20: One of the best golfers in South Dakota history is having a wonderful September. Ryan Jansa tied for first in a qualifying tournament in California to qualify for this weekend’s Champions Tour event at Pebble Beach. Last weekend at the Sanford International in his hometown of Sioux Falls, Jansa finished at even par at the Minnehaha Country Club to finish tied for 55th to earn $4,400 in his first PGA Champions Tour event. He will be the third Jansa to play Pebble Beach as daughter Reese and cousin Claire both played as First Tee participants. Jansa, 50, has won 33 South Dakota Golf Association tournament championships.
Sept. 22: Multi-sport Clark-Willow Lake star Tyson Huber made his only football play of the season count as he kicked the game-winning PAT in his team’s 7-6 homecoming win over Mobridge-Pollock. His prep athletic career is over after two serious knee injuries. Huber, his family and team agreed to a plan to give him one last chance to step on the field. Mobridge-Pollock scored with seven minutes left, but CWL stopped the Tigers’ attempt at a two-point conversion.
Sept. 22: Two of the state’s best nine-man football teams played one of the most exciting games in the young history of NSU’s Dacotah Bank Stadium, which opened in 2021. Warner quarterback Hunter Cramer scored on a 1-yard TD run with 12 seconds left and Alec Mikkelsen added the PAT to lift the Monarchs past Faulkton 27-20. Faulkton tied the game with 5:42 left on Layne Cotton’s 71-yard TD run.
Sept. 22: Cole Snyder of Sioux Falls Christian not only caught three touchdown passes from Lincoln Prins in their 35-7 road win over Chamberlain, but he also intercepted three passes.
Sept. 22: Two-time defending State B champion Warner (21-0) had an impressive outing to win the Sanford Pentagon Volleyball Tournament in Sioux Falls, defeating a couple of Class AA schools (Huron and Sioux Falls O’Gorman), a team (Gretna East) ranked eighth in Nebraska’s biggest class and top-rated Class A Sioux Falls Christian twice. Leaders on the day for Warner included Ava Nilsson (114 assists) and Kyra Mracuson (33 kills).
Sept. 26: Equivalent to a 20-foot brick wall as an MLB Hall of Fame third baseman, Baltimore Orioles legend Brooks Robinson (1937-2023) won 16 Gold Gloves in his 23 seasons (1955-1977) with the Orioles. Robinson had one hit when he and his Baltimore teammates defeated their farm club Pheasants 6-3 on June 8, 1964, in Aberdeen.

Sept. 26: Coach John Vogel and his Aberdeen Central girls’ team won the Golden Eagles’ first Eastern South Dakota Conference tennis championship since 2013. The Central duo of Livia Douglas at flight four and Reese Comstock at flight five won individual titles by beating foes that they had lost to this season. The Golden Eagles also won two doubles titles with Laney Gonsor and Douglas in flight two and Comstock and Olivia Geier in flight three.
Sept. 28: The two-season-old Rapid City Marshals alerted media in a unique way to changes that would be announced the following week. The indoor football team sent out their press releases on pairs of underwear stating: Time for a fresh start. The Marshals announced they would be leaving the Champions Indoor Football League for the overhauled Arena Football League.

Sept. 29: Clark native and pro golfer Kim Kaufman joined former Texas Tech football coaches Kliff Kingsbury and Mike Leach (1961-2022) among others as inductees to the school’s Hall of Fame. Kaufman was a four-time All-American and the first women’s golfer in school history to earn a No. 1 ranking in the nation. Other inductees were Gonzalo Escobar (men’s tennis), Greg Lowery (men’s basketball), Matt Wingo (football), Jason Young (track and field) and Cathy Carlson (women’s tennis).
Sept. 29: The Custer football team (1-5) snapped two losing streaks when it defeated visiting Lead-Deadwood 29-19. The Wildcats snapped a 15-game losing streak (last win was 24-6 over Bennett County on Oct. 15, 2021) and a 12-game home losing streak (last win in Custer was 42-0 over Lead-Deadwood on Oct. 9, 2020). Custer was led by Ryder Bailey who rushed for 147 yards and three touchdowns as well as recovering two fumbles and forcing another fumble.
Sept. 29: The Brandon Valley football team defeated Pierre 35-14 to snap the Governors’ 20-game win streak. Levi Veskrna rushed for 267 yards and three touchdowns for the winners.
Sept. 30: Unranked USD (3-1) defeated second-ranked NDSU 24-19 in Fargo on the Bison’s homecoming weekend with an offense lead by Carter Bell (two touchdown catches of 50 and 52 yards from Aidan Bouman) and a defense led by Dennis Shorter (13 tackles and two interceptions — NDSU’s first turnovers of the season). In 2015, USD defeated NDSU 24-21 in Fargo. Since 2015, NDSU has gone 106-13 and 67-6 in the Fargodome. Thus, wins against the Bison, especially at home, are rare.
Sept. 30: South Dakota Mines (4-1) dominated the 138 th annual Black Hills Brawl to win the coveted Homestake Trophy 49-14 over Black Hills State (3-2). Mines junior quarterback Jayden Johannsen (Sioux Falls Washington) led the charge by passing for 237 yards with three touchdowns and rushing for 78 yards with two TDs. Mines leads the oldest series in NCAA DII football 66-61-11.
Sept. 30: Viborg mom of six Beth Saltzman took home gold for Team USA after winning a right arm wrestling world title in Malaysia. She finished third in the left arm world championships.

Email us at dave@sdsportscene.com if you think we missed something or if you have an event you would like us to consider for this feature.