Briefs

Minnesota volleyball junior Paula Gentil was named the CSTV student-athlete of the week on Monday.

Gentil, the Gophers' libero, has 437 digs in 18 matches and is currently averaging 6.5 digs per game. Her 26 service aces also lead the second-ranked Gophers this season.

She already has a Minnesota school-record 1,667 career digs and is just 264 digs from the Big Ten record. She has already broken her own single-match digs record twice this season.

Minnesota (16-2, 5-1 Big Ten) will travel Wednesday to Iowa City, Iowa, for a match with the Hawkeyes.

When Blake Wheeler, a 17-year-old Breck High School hockey standout, verbally committed to play for the Gophers in 2005-06, he never imagined shaking hands with Wayne Gretzky as the fifth pick in the National Hockey League draft - not to mention before his senior year even began.

With this in mind, it might seem obvious that Wheeler's commitment to Minnesota is now in doubt.

But Wheeler, who became the highest-selected Minnesota native ever Saturday, said he would still prefer sporting an "M" on his sweater before a coyote.

Adam Steele and Cassie Busse were both awarded the Big Ten Medal of Honor this past weekend for their accomplishments in athletics and academics.

Steele was a member of Minnesota's runner-up 4X400-meter relay team at the 2004 NCAA Championships. He was also a finalist for Academic All-American honors.

Busse led the Gophers to the NCAA volleyball Final Four Tournament this past season and was named to the All-Tournament team. She was the Big Ten Player of the Year and became the first volleyball player to be named a First Team Academic All-American.

Lindsay Whalen

Minnesota senior center fielder Sam Steidl was named Big Ten player of the week Monday. It marks the second time this season and third time in his career that Steidl has claimed conference player of the week honors.

It is also the third time a Minnesota player has claimed the honors this season in the nine weeks it has been announced, which is the most by any team in the Big Ten.

Steidl led the Gophers to three wins in Indiana last weekend, batting .563 with six runs and six RBIs. He also had a .650 on-base percentage in the four-game conference series.

Former Minnesota men's hockey captain Grant Potulny has signed a one-year contract with the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League.

The forward, who in his freshman year became the first non-Minnesotan on the team since 1987, said he was scheduled to fly to Binghamton, N.Y., on Tuesday night and play the rest of the season with the American Hockey League team there on an amateur tryout.

"(The Senators) were really good and really fair," Potulny said. "They came up with a good offer, and they took care of me."

Minnesota women's hockey sophomore forward Natalie Darwitz has been named one of the WCHA offensive players of the week for her stellar performance against Ohio State last weekend. It is her third WCHA honor of the season and the Gophers' 12th weekly honor this year.

The Minnesota 4x400-meter relay team of Mikael Jakobsson, Adam Steele, Robb Merritt and Mitch Potter automatically qualified for the NCAA championships and placed second in the Iowa State Classic in Ames, Iowa, on Saturday. The team ran a time of 3:05.82, its fastest time this season by nearly three seconds.

Merritt and Jakobsson also provisionally qualified in the 400-meter dash. Merritt finished seventh with a time of 46.84 seconds while Jakobsson placed ninth in a time of 47.04.

Minnesota women's basketball coach Pam Borton is one of 25 finalists for the Naismith coach of the year award.

Borton joins two other Big Ten coaches in Penn State's Rene Portland and Purdue's Kristy Curry.

Borton is in her first season at Minnesota. She has led the Gophers to an overall mark of 21-4, including a 10-4 record in the Big Ten.

The Naismith award winner will be announced in Atlanta on Apr. 11.

Men's tennis

With six straight victories against ranked opponents, Minnesota's men's tennis team moved up one spot to No. 10 in the latest ITA national rankings. It is the highest ranking for the Gophers since the team finished the 1985-86 season rated ninth in the country.

The Gophers defeated No. 29 Harvard, No. 33 Clemson and No. 73 Boise State last weekend in the Harvard Invitational.

Gophers sophomore-to-be center Ralph Sampson III will have a chance to make the USA under-19 basketball team that will compete in New Zealand in July.