Former Duluth East post player Akolda Manyang, who was with the Greyhounds for part of a tumultuous 2011-12 season, made an oral commitment to play college basketball at the University of Oklahoma on Sunday.
Manyang, a 7-foot center, will play one more year at Indian Hills Community College in Iowa before joining the Sooners in 2015-16. He averaged 8.5 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.8 blocks per outing this past season as a freshman at Indian Hills, which went 34-3 and reached the National Junior College Athletic Association championship game.
Manyang was part of East’s Section 7AAAA champions in 2012. But he was ruled ineligible for the postseason after he was found to have broken the Minnesota State High School League’s no-tobacco policy. Manyang came to Duluth from Rochester (Minn.) Century High School after running afoul with the law. He was sent to Woodland Hills, a residential treatment facility for youth in Duluth, before enrolling at East.
His suspension from the basketball team ultimately led to the ouster of Greyhound coaches Chuck Tolo and Will Starks, who had backed Manyang.
According to online reports, Minnesota, Arizona State and Kansas also were interested in Manyang. Instead, he opted to play where a 7-foot cousin, former Rochester prep star Longar Longar, played.
BASEBALL
Nailbiters in Class A, Class AA
In Monday’s Class AA state championship baseball game, St. Cloud Cathedral erupted for four runs in the top of the seventh inning to stun Fairmont 5-4 at Target Field in Minneapolis.
Three of the Crusaders’ seventh-inning runs came with two outs. Steven Neutzling drove in two with a triple down the right-field line to tie it at 4-4 and came around for the go-ahead run on a Fairmont error. St. Cloud Cathedral stranded a pair of Cardinals runners in the bottom of the frame to secure its eighth state baseball crown.
- In the Class A title tilt, New Life Academy made its early five-run lead stand in a 5-4 victory over New York Mills. Matthew Palkovich and Sam Horner each drove in two runs from atop the Eagles’ lineup. Horner relieved his brother, John, and allowed just one hit in three scoreless innings to hold off New York Mills’ comeback bid. The Section 6A champs opened their state tournament by scoring four runs in the sixth and seventh innings for a 4-3 triumph over Ely. New Life Academy won its first title in its first trip to state.
- Heavy rain at Target Field pushed back the Class AAA championship affair, between Mounds View and Eden Prairie, to 4 p.m. today at Target Field. Also, the boys lacrosse title game, between Eden Prairie and Rosemount, was delayed from Monday to 11 a.m. today at Rosemount High School.
