Mini-sota Monday Qualifier 2025

Ten competitors gathered at the Burnhaven Library in Burnsville, Minnesota, USA on May 5, 2025, to test their mastery across three distinct disciplines. The Mini-sota Monday Qualifier 2025 offered a concentrated schedule featuring five rounds of intense action. With a compact lineup, every solve carried heightened significance as contenders pushed through two rounds of big cube solving, a memory-intensive blindfolded bracket, and a showcase of single-handed precision on the classic Rubik's Cube.

The 3x3x3 One-Handed event took centre stage, demanding meticulous finger ergonomics, table manipulation, and algorithmic efficiency without the stability of a second hand. Solving with one hand forces cubers to rethink standard turning technique, requiring rapid wrist motion and precise index and pinky flicks to execute turns cleanly. In this technical test, Andy Wong delivered a commanding performance across two competitive rounds, capturing first place with a final winning average of 12.37 seconds and posting a remarkable best single of 9.45 seconds.

Wong faced steady pressure from a competitive final flight in the one-handed division. Tyler Johnson earned the runner-up spot on the podium with a solid average of 14.20 seconds, while Walker Welch claimed third place with a 17.73 average. The event proved to be a major highlight of the cubing competition, drawing out razor-sharp times from all ten participants who entered the preliminary round before advancing toward the final showdown.

Beyond the one-handed event, the big cubes delivered their own brand of drama in the 6x6x6 Cube category. Tyler Johnson topped the podium after completing two rounds, securing the victory with a winning average of 1:43.71 and a best single time of 1:37.29. Kaius Young took second place with an average of 1:49.05, edging out Walker Welch, who stepped onto his second podium of the meet in third position with a time of 1:49.77.

The event lineup also featured the formidable 4x4x4 Blindfolded discipline, an event requiring complete memorisation of centres, edges, and parity states before donning the blindfold to execute the solve entirely from memory. Andy Wong returned to the top step of the podium with a winning single time of 4:59.41. Kaius Young finished in second place with a successful attempt of 5:17.54, while Walker Welch completed the podium trio with an 8:08.78 mark.

Away from the podium race, several participants delivered exceptional milestones that defined the depth of the field. Jonah Boisclair produced one of the most substantial leaps of the day in the 6x6x6 Cube, logging a personal best single of 2:15.61, which improved on his previous best of 2:32.71 by 11.2 percent on the way to a fifth-place finish. Zach Calin also showed sharp improvement in 3x3x3 One-Handed, dropping his previous personal best of 17.28 down to 15.75 seconds, an 8.9 percent drop, to secure fifth place overall.

Other competitors across the lineup marked notable achievements across multiple categories. Andrew Surine entered three events and delivered a 5.9 percent personal best improvement in the 6x6x6 Cube with a mark of 3:28.16 while also taking a fourth-place finish in 4x4x4 Blindfolded. Lisa Kucala tackled two events and recorded a personal best single of 43.40 seconds in 3x3x3 One-Handed. Andrew Tyberg took on two events and achieved a sixth-place finish in 3x3x3 One-Handed, while Shain Papalotl Longbehn also completed two events, earning a sixth-place finish in the 6x6x6 Cube.

The official 3x3 results from the one-handed rounds reflected a day of consistent execution and technical skill across every single solve. Representing the United States, competitors claimed all nine podium positions across the three events staged during the gathering. The high level of focus shown across both rounds of one-handed play underscored the preparation required to succeed under official speedcubing regulations.

As the Mini-sota Monday Qualifier 2025 concluded its five rounds of play, the meet proved how much competitive excitement can emerge from a focused, ten-person field. The combination of one-handed agility, large-cube endurance, and blindfolded recall gave every participant an opportunity to test their abilities against the clock. With new personal bests recorded and clean execution throughout the day, the speed cubing community in Minnesota wrapped up an efficient WCA competition.