Out of the blue

I’ve been running off at the mouth for most of the past season about high school hockey, and some of the loyal readers here have wondered if I have forgotten my roots.

But the last two weeks provided me with the opportunity to get back to said roots, those entrenched in basketball, the sport of my youth. (That seems like so long ago.)

This spring was the 10th consecutive that I’ve covered the girls and boys state basketball tournaments for the Minnesota Basketball News and was once provided many memorable moments. While the Mesabi East boys and Nashwauk- Keewatin girls teams (and marginally the Grand Rapids boys) were the only squads from northeastern Minnesota, there were plenty of Iron Range connections in Minneapolis. We’ll get to those soon. But first, in no particular order, here are my 10 favorite moments from the tournaments from the last decade.

1. Blake Hoffarber’s ESPY-winning shot, 2005. Hoffaber, then a high school sophomore at Hopkins, was propelled into the national spotlight when he hit an 18-foot shot from the corner from the seat of his pants at the buzzer in overtime to force a second OT in which the Royals won their fourth state championship. (Hopkins has since won three more Class 4A titles, including the last two.) The shot beat out Tiger Woods’ Masters birdie chip for Play of the Year. Hoffarber, 2007’s Mr. Basketball, has a knack for the big moment as evidenced by his gamewinning left-handed buzzerbeater to beat Indiana in the Big Ten Tournament in 2008, a shot for which he was also nominated for an ESPY.

2. Cory Mountain’s outburst, 2006. Topranked Maranatha Academy may have edged unranked Albrook in their quarterfinal match up, but they could not hope to contain Mountain, a senior and future Mesabi Range Norseman. Mountain poured in a tournament record 51 points, including 10 three-pointers (also a since-tied record) for the Falcons in a memorable performance at Williams Arena.

3. The Noreen legacy, 2008. Albany was making its sixth straight appearance in the girls tournament in 2008 and their window was inches from closing on classy coach Jon Noreen and his third and last basketball-playing daughter, Jennie, a senior fourth-year starter. But Jennie hit 6-of-6 free throws down the stretch to seal the Huskies first title since 1983, erasing the heartache of a one-point loss in the championship game the year before on a three-pointer that clearly should have only counted for two. (That play prompted the MSHSL to adopt instant replay for the tournament.) Noreen had tears in his eyes after the game as he tried to put the win into words.

4. Brittany Chambers leaving it all on the court, 2008. The Jordan junior point guard’s line after nearly single-handedly willing the Jaguars to a five-point upset of No. 1 Crookston in the semifinals was 36 minutes, a tournament 47 points on 16-of-27 record shooting and 14-of-16 free throws, 14 rebounds and four steals. She was nearly too exhausted to speak after the performance that saw her give a good impression of a whirling dervish. Now at Kansas State, Chambers, who as a sophomore was rated the top high school volleyball player in the country at her age, not surprisingly to anyone who saw her semifinal performance the night before, did not have enough left in her legs to lead Jordan to another upset over Albany in the finals.

5. Virginia breaking the drought, 2009. The Blue Devils have a long and storied basketball history and were one of the major powers in the early decades of the boys basketball tournament, one of, if not the oldest high school tournaments in the state. Virginia appeared at state 11 times from 1915-’65, but it took the Blue Devils 44 years before they reached that apex again last season. The Blue Devils lost their first round game, but provided their fans with a thrill merely by ending their absence.

6. Other Iron Range teams make the trip: Mesabi East, 2010; Chisholm, 2008-09; Mountain Iron-Buhl, 2005; Tower-Soudan (girls), 2005; Nashwauk-Keewatin, 2004; Ely, 2001. It’s always gratifying to see a Range team reach state. This year, the Giants broke a lengthy 23-year drought of their own to make the under the direction tournament prior two years in Section of Jeremy Fleming. The Bluestreaks made their ninth and tenth trips south under the state’s all-time winningest coach, Bob McDonald. The Rangers made just their second appearance at state five years ago (after making their first in 2000, both under Luke Winans), preventing the Golden Eagles from sweeping Section 7A that season. (Randall Johnson mentored T-S to its first tourney that season.) The Spartans made an unlikely run to the title game in their only visit to state under Josh Lamppa, while Tom McDonald took the Timberwolves to its only tourney in my first year writing for MBN. Unfortunately, Iron Range team has not an won a state title since Joel McDonald and Chisholm triumphed way back in 1991.

7. Fosston wins back to back titles, 2001. The tiny town, located in the very northwestern corner of the state, capped off an unbeaten season with its second straight championship behind future Gopher Kelly Roysland. I don’t remember much in particular about this game except that it went down to the wire. It was, after all, 10 years ago, but it was also the first state championship game I ever covered. Fosston came back two years later to win its third title in four years.

8. The Dahlman dynasty, 2004-06. Behind the (then) state’s all-time leading scorer Isaiah Dahlman and his younger brother Noah, the Braham Bombers rattled off three straight state championships. Both Dahlmans played in this year’s NCAA Tournament. Isaiah is a senior reserve for Michigan State, which is back in the Final Four, while Noah, at 6-foot-6 the shortest starting center in Divisision I basketball, led Wofford to its first-ever state tournament. Their father Nate played in the state tournament around three decades ago while growing up in Orr, and their grandfather John Kundla was the head coach of the Minneapolis Lakers.

9. “You’re Kevin Garnett,” 2005. I was running low on definite top 10 moments, so I grabbed one from off the court. Patrick Reusse, the excellent Star Tribune columnist, took this writer and his editor out to eat after an evening session at J.D. Hoyt’s in Minneapolis. Devoured some of the best pork chops ever while listening to some classic basketball stories while Bucknell upset Kansas in March Madness on TV, after which Reusse picked up the tab and uttered, “You’re Kevin Garnett, and you’re Kevin McHale.” This came one night after this writer’s best friend’s dad took him out to eat at Mancini’s, a famous steakhouse in St. Paul. Talk about bliss. This writer’s taste buds still haven't recovered.

10. Ellsworth, enrollment 61, owns Class 1A, 2003-2010. The Panthers, easily one of the smallest schools in the state, reached their first state championship game in their first appearance back in 2003 behind Curt Schilling. They lost but began a four-year run in the title tilt when they got back there again in 2006, winning the 2007 and 2008 crowns behind Cody Schilling, who topped Dahlman’s career scoring record. Behind the third and youngest Schilling, Casey, a sophomore, who scored 27 points, the Panthers nearly made it five straight championship game bids this year, falling by one point in the semifinals to Sebeka last weekend when a potential game-winning shot went halfway down before popping out of the cylinder.

• • •

Yes, the girls and boys state basketball tournaments have provided this writer many memorable moments over the past decade. I’m sure I omitted some worthy choices in the prior list, but those are the ones that come most quickly to mind. As I mentioned, the last two weeks provided some more memories to the bank, starting with Barnum finally capturing a Class 1A state girls championship after finishing third and second the previous two years, both times losing to two-time champion Ada-Borup. That was nice to see from a class-act team that we can nearly claim as our own in northeastern Minnesota.

The Braham girls nearly made it a great afternoon to be a Bomber, losing to Minnehaha Academy in the Class 2A finale. And yes, there are more Dahlmans still coming up, and freshman Rebecca may be the best of the bunch. She already has scored 1800- plus career points (28-plus per game this season) and may be well on her way to breaking the all-time state scoring record. Incidentally, Braham is coached by Tim Car wash with p urcha se Service Malone, whose first head coaching job out of college was at the helm of Babbitt- Embarrass, where he led the Knights boys to within one win of their first-ever state tournament.

Those were the things that stick in my mind from the girls tournament. The boys tournament marked the 50th anniversary of maybe the most unforgettable state championship ever. In 1960, tiny Edgerton beat favored Chisholm, Richfield and Austin to finish off an unbeaten season and capture the crown in what was then a one-class field. The coach of The Flying Dutchmen was 23-year-old Mountain Iron native Richie Olson, who went on to become a coach and athletic director in Virginia. It was neat to see Olson and his team honored throughout the weekend, culminating with a halftime ceremony during the Class 4A finale as Olson’s brothers “Govie” and Bob looked on from their year-in, year-out courtside seats.

Championship Saturday started with a heroic performance from Minnesota Transitions senior Kevin Noreen, who surpassed Schilling as the state’s all-time scoring leader (unofficially a jaw-dropping 4,086 points) this season. Noreen, a 6-10 forward, took a devastating fall in the opening minutes of the first half, landing on the small of his back and his head. After lying prone for several minutes, Noreen missed just one second of play, though he was clearly in a lot of pain, and put up 24 points, 15 rebounds in nine blocks as the Wolves became the first charter school ever to win a state title. Noreen was later diagnosed with a ruptured spleen and possible fractured back. I’d say he’s pretty tough.

The Class 2A championship saw Crosby-Ironton, under the tutelage of former Norseman Dave “Tucker” Galovich, post a furious second half rally that fell just (LUBE) short against New London-Spicer. It was a rematch the 2008 tilt, also won by NLS. The gracious Galovich said after the game that the team might not have been his biggest, but that they had “the biggest hearts.”

Grand Rapids nearly became the first Iron Range school to win a championship since 1991 (if you consider Grand Rapids to be on the Range) in the Class 3A title tilt, falling 59-55 to St. Paul Johnson, who completed an undefeated season. The Thunderhawks trailed by as many as 14 points in the second half, but kept battling back behind senior guards Michael Johnson (who’s coast-to-coast triple- clutch layup in traffic was this writer’s most memorable play of the tourney) and Eric Stark and actually twice took leads in the final minutes. The Thunderhawks, who were unseeded, nearly knocked off the top three seeds in Class 3A after beating Benilde-St. Margaret’s and De La Salle in the first two rounds.

All in all, it was an outstanding couple of weekends of hoops. It’s always nice to see familiar faces at the Target Center and Williams Arena year after year. Special thanks to Ely Dairy Queen proprietor Paul Ivancich for providing a certain somewhat stranded writer a lift home Sunday.

For those of you who have suffered through these 2,000 words, I think I’ve made up for my relatively sparse basketball conversation this season. I might point out, but my West Virginia Mountaineers, a certain writer’s pick to cut down the nets in Indy, are in the Final Four. Oops. Just jinxed them.

Until next time…

Brian Miller is a longtime local sports writer and the co-founder of iSportsNorth. He currently resides in Eveleth and can be reached at miller24bri@gmail.com.