New Ulm Sports Central - Preserving and Sharing New Ulm Area Sports History

Tomahawk League East Secretary and former Essig baseball manager has been selected to umpire the NCAA Division III baseball world series at the end of May in Appleton, WI.

The former New Ulm Cathedral athlete will serve as the crew chief for three college major D II or III tournaments this spring.

Several teams involving New Ulm players are involved in competition to advance to regional playoffs for their respective classifications in the NCAA baseball program. Texas-Tyler's Coach Paul Wyczawski's Patriots who lost lost the conference championship in the 9th inning last weekend is ranked 24th nationally. It, however, stands a chance of being selected one of the 55 teams competing at the national level in regional playoffs. The Patriots have won 33 games so far.

(Winona State University (Nate Van Roekel) and St. Cloud State University (Kyle and Garrett Fischer) will be entering regional Conference competition this week at Mankato and face regional tests later. Last year Winona state made it all the way to the championship game for Division II world series. The Central Regional is next week will probably be held in Mankato.)

Helget will work the regional for Division III at Whitewater, WI. Teams vying to reach that level include St. Thomas, Mankato Bethany, St. Scholastica, St. John's, Bethel and Winona St. Mary's and be a winner which would earn a trip to Appleton.

Appleton will be Helget's first "world series" and he will be one of eight umpires selected from around the country. This is the Division III equivalent to the D I world series in Omaha. The weekend before and for the third straight year, he will be umpiring the DIII Midwest Regional being hosted by Whitewater University in Whitewater, WI.

This weekend he calls 'em at the MIAC Conference tournament at Minnetonka High School’s Veterans Field

In 2009, he has umpired in the DII Central Regional in Grand Junction, CO. starting a string of four years working collegiate national tournaments. In 2010, 2011 and 2012 the tournaments were held at Whitewater.

Working college conference tournaments dating back to 2006 or 2007 included the NCC Conference Tournament for three or four years in a row, the NSIC Conference tournament in 2009, the UMAC Conference Tournament in 2010 and 2011, and now the MIAC Conference Tournament in 2012. And besides those activities, he managed and played for Essig in the Tomahawk as well as being the league secretary.

By the end of current college baseball season, Helget will have umpired approximately 50 college games this spring—seven Division I games (all Gopher non-conference games), approximately 15 D II games, and approximately 25-30 D III games.