Feb. 11: Here's What's Happening

Congratulations to Minnesota high school football alums who are Super Bowl champions with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

--Tyler Johnson, Minneapolis North

--Joe Haeg, Brainerd

 --Jack Cichy, Hill-Murray

--Antoine Winfield Jr., Eden Prairie (freshman season, then moved to Texas)

This week’s state tournament

Congratulations to all the schools that have qualified for this week’s one-act play state festival. It’s normally held at O’Shaughnessy Auditorium at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, but this year it will be held virtually. Class A schools will compete Thursday and Class AA Friday, with and online awards ceremony will be held Saturday.

Class A: Fillmore Central, Belle Plaine, Central Minnesota Christian, Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted, Milaca, Hawley, Rock Ridge, Bagley

Class AA: Rochester Mayo, Prior Lake, Irondale, St. Michael-Albertville, Holy Angels, North Branch, Alexandria

Milestones and more

--The busiest basketball coach in Minnesota reached a big milestone Friday when the Mountain Iron-Buhl boys team defeated Lakeview Christian 90-61 in Mountain Iron. The victory was the 500^th for MIB coach Buffetta; he has coached the MIB girls for 23 years and is in his second season as the head coach of the Rangers boys basketball team.

I wrote about Buffeta’s dual coaching roles in December 2019. You can read that story by clicking here https://old.mshsl.org/mshsl/johnsjournal.asp?index=77 and scrolling until you see this headline: One Coach, Two Teams: A Busy Season at Mountain Iron-Buhl.

--Parkers Prairie girls basketball coach John Noga is on the verge of 600 career victories. The Panthers lost for the first time in seven games this season against Hancock in a battle of unbeatens, 37-35 on Saturday. They will host Brandon-Evansville on Thursday. 

--Cambridge-Isanti girls basketball coach Jody Ledahl reached the 250-win mark with a win at Princeton.

--Congratulations to Wayzata boys hockey coach Pat O’Leary on his 150th career victory. The Trojans defeated St. Michael-Albertville 8-2 on Saturday, giving them a record of 5-2. Wayzata will play at Edina on Thursday and at home against Eden Prairie on Saturday.

--With a career-high 54 points Monday night in 103-77 win over Hermantown, Duluth Marshall's Gianna Kneepkens has the most 50+ point scoring games in Minnesota girls history, surpassing Carlie Wagner of New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva.

--There was a special moment for the Proctor boys basketball team on Friday when the Rails hosted Greenway. Proctor senior Nick Jauhola suffered a broken leg during the football season and is still recovering from that injury. But in an agreement between both teams, Nick was able to be in the starting lineup and score a basket. Good job by both teams.

--There is an award called the High School Mascot of The Day -- apparently it’s a Twitter thing – and Wednesday’s winner was the Moorhead Spuds. That is no surprise to anyone who followed our Nickname Challenge contest last year, in which the Spuds topped a field of 64 Minnesota high school nicknames in Twitter voting, narrowly defeating the Blooming Prairie Awesome Blossoms in the championship matchup.

Thank A Ref

Great note from Darren Glynn, principal of Bertha-Hewitt:

Our student council advisor, Al Hanson, has the student council kids make a gift basket (photo above) for every official that comes to our district. The basket will include a Powerade, candy, mints, a few energy bars, sometimes a gift from our entrepreneurial class, and most importantly, a hand-written Thank You from a student for coming and officiating at our school. We've been doing this for many years. When the refs show up, they get their paycheck, gift basket, and a Thank You card. Mr. Hanson's intent is to teach students about kindness, character and respect for officials. Win/Win.