When the NFL fails to keep us entertained (yawn, snooze), there’s always somewhere else to turn. You just need to look hard enough. Last night, that came in the form of the Vermont Catamounts and their magical run to becoming National Champions in Men’s Soccer. Sure, you had the NBA, too. But nothing beats a state that is typically full of snow winning a sport typically played somewhere it’s warm.

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Today’s Trivia🧠

(answer at the bottom of the Stump)

On This Day…

🏌️ On this day in 2014, 103-year-old golfer Gus Andreone records the 8th ace of his career on the 113-yard, 14th hole of the Lakes Course, Palm Aire Golf Club, in Sarasota, FL.

He is the oldest golfer on record to score a hole-in-one. Gus fought in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II and was a PGA pro, what a life for our guy Gus!

Today’s Stump Story…

⚽️ Vermont is a Soccer State

Every now and then you get a team who is just destined to make a run, and you had exactly that in the NCAA Men’s National Champions.

When you think of the University of Vermont, I’d bet you wouldn’t think the following: “Wow, I bet they’re really good at Men’s Soccer! With all that sun year round, they must be able to practice all the time”. If you thought that, you should probably look up what Vermont looks like in the winter.

Despite our perceptions about Vermont, they ARE good at men’s soccer. So good, in fact, that they are your NCAA National Champions. It was a magical run from the Catamounts, too.

UVM became just the third team in the last decade to beat two top-four seeds in one tournament en route to a National Championship. UVM defeated No. 2 Pittsburgh and No. 3 Denver in the two rounds before the finals, where they faced the No. 13 team in the country Marshall. They went to OT with Marshall after scoring a second half equalizer. It was a beautiful pass ahead to a one-on-one where the Vermont player beat the Marshall defender, then the Marshall goalie and tapped in the game winner to make Vermont National Champs.

While I may have made it seem like just some miracle run, this team has been building to a championship. In 2016, UVM made their first semifinal in program history, but lost 4-3 to a juggernaut in University of Virginia. Over the last three seasons, UVM has won 10 NCAA tournament games, more than any other program in the country.

This is the first championship in the programs history, and the 7th overall for the university. The other 6? All in skiing. Pretty poetic.

Quick Hitters

🏈 Monday Night Football Double-Header! Well we had two games last night and you would think that would mean double the fun double the action. I’m actually not quite sure if that was the case. If you tuned into Falcons-Raiders you must have had some serious serious fantasy football implications because that was a snoozefest. I’m just going to say it…PENIX deserves a shot! We gotta see what he’s got because Kirk looks off! Falcons got the win against a tanking Raiders team, 15-9! The other matchup was between the Vikings and the Bears and it was all Vikings from the start! When they came out in white-out uniforms you had to know they were getting the win! Just going to say this. The Vikings may be the quietest 12-2 team of all time! If they can win their next two games, they will faceoff against the Detroit Lions in Week 18 for the possible 1-seed in the NFC! Absolute CINEMA! Falcons win, Vikings win.

🤔 Sacramento State and Norfolk State are apparently both vying for former NFL star and No. 1 overall pick, Michael Vick, to be their next head coach. Vick has never been a head coach, at any level, as far as I know. Vick has been an analyst on a few different networks since he retired from the game a few years ago. It’ll be interesting to see how this goes, we haven’t seen too many guys with zero coaching experience have a ton of success.

⚾️ The Baltimore Orioles have agreed to a one-year, $13M contract with Japanese pitching legend Tomoyuki Sugano. The 35-year old is one of the most successful Japanese pitchers of his generation. He’s a two time winner of the Sawamura Award, Nippon Pro Baseball’s equivalent of the Cy Young Award. In 24 starts this year, Sugano went 15-3 with a 1.67 ERA while striking out 111 and walking only 16.

Other News:

• 🎯 Top defender in Transfer Portal finds a new home

• 🏈 Lions lose their star RB for the season

• 🏈 Chiefs waive their former first-round pick

Top Performers:

• 🏀 Cade Cunningham (DET): 20 points, 18 assists, 11 rebounds

• 🏀 Paul George (PHI): Moved to 10th all-time in career 3’s

• 🏈 Justin Jefferson (MIN): 7 rec, 73 yards, 1 TD, W

• 🏀 Tyrese Maxey (PHI): 40 points, 5 assists, 5 rebounds

Stump Favorites

🏈 Randy Moss tribute by Justin Jefferson

🏈 Epic sign from a Raiders fan

🏀 Madness in Charlotte courtesy of LaMelo

🏒 He shot this from BEHIND THE NET

💯 Full Scoreboards: MLB, Soccer, PGA, NFL, WNBA, NCAAF, NHL

Today’s Slate

*All times are ET*

🏀 NBA Cup Championship: Bucks vs Thunder (8:30 PM on ABC), full schedule

🏀 NCAAM: W. Carolina vs (1) Tennessee (7:00 PM), George Mason vs (5) Duke (7:00 PM), North Carolina vs (7) Florida (7:00 PM on ESPN), (25) Clemson @ South Carolina (7:00 PM), Georgia State vs (2) Auburn (8:00 PM), full schedule

🏀 NCAAW: Seton Hall vs (5) LSU (6:00 PM), Iowa State vs (4) UConn (8:30 PM on FS1), (10) Oklahoma vs (20) Michigan (9:30 PM on ESPN2), full schedule

🏒 NHL: Kings @ Penguins (7:00 PM), Islanders @ Hurricanes (7:30 PM), Devils @ Blues (8:00 PM), Bruins @ Flames (9:00 PM), Jets @ Sharks (10:30 PM, full schedule

⚽️ Coppa Italia: Juventus vs Cagliari (3:00 PM), full schedule

Trivia Answer:

A. Lausanne, Switzerland. Of course, the Olympic Committee would be headquartered in Switzerland, it just makes too much sense.

Can’t thank you enough for sticking to the end of this thing we call The Daily Stump. If you know anybody who might want this bit of daily sports news in their life, send them this link, it would go a long way. Appreciate the hell out of you all…

Trees get chopped. Stumps hold strong 💪