In this edition of Lots O’ Stuff, some area athletes have been named among the top basketball players in the state, the date has been set for the Karson Janssen Memorial in Trimont, a JCC grad is an assistant coach on a national runner-up volleyball team, a Lakefield native was a member of an undefeated esports team and we clear up some news on college cross country runners.
All that, and a special Something Completely Different to wrap it up.
Top basketball players
Minnesota Basketball News has named its top 50 players in the state by class and several local players made the list.
Jackson County Central junior Rylie Cother is on the list for Class 2A girls, as are sophomore Brylee Miller and senior Neveah Rahm of Fairmont.
Cother is averaging 34.3 points per game for the 3-0 Huskies, scoring 39, 30 and 34 points. JCC is at Estherville Lincoln Central (4-1) Friday.
Sophomore Roman Voss of JCC is on the list for Class 2A boys. Voss is out of the Huskies lineup as he recovers from a concussion sustained during the state football playoffs.
Martin County West junior Emily Anderson is the Class 1A girls list. She’s averaging 20 points per game for the Mavericks, who are 5-0 and don’t play again until next Tuesday at St. Clair in a key early season Valley Conference matchup.
The Class 2A 14th-ranked Cyclones are 3-0 with games against Maple River and No. 17 Winona Cotter this weekend before hosting MCW.
There are 11 other players from Big South Conference schools who were honored:
Class 2A boys
Luke Means, jr., Redwood Valley
Isaiah Dow-Hilliard, sr., Redwood Valley
Damarius Russell, jr., Waseca
Class 2A girls
Kendell Huhnerkoch, jr., Redwood Valley
Hadley Sammons, jr., Windom
Class 3A boys
Jackson Baynard, sr., Marshall
Class 3A girls
Taliegha Bigler, soph., Marshall
Daviney Dreckman, sr., New Ulm
Brooklyn Lewis, soph., New Ulm
Rhyan Holmgren, sr., St. Peter
Annika Southworth, jr., St. Peter
Janssen Memorial
The date is set for the Karson Kent Janssen Memorial Basketball hosted by Martin County West. The Mavericks will host Granada-Huntley-East Chain/Truman/Martin Luther in Trimont on Saturday, Feb. 10.
The game schedule for that day:
3 p.m.: B-squad girls
4:30 p.m.: B-squad boys
5:45 p.m.: Varsity girls
7 p.m.: Varsity boys
During the evening there will be a silent auction, bake sale, and half-court shot. All proceeds go to the Karson Kent Janssen Memorial Fund and Scholarship program.
National runner-up
Indiana Wesleyan defeated Northwestern 3-2 (20-25, 25-20, 13-25, 25-17, 15-10) in the finals of the NAIA volleyball tournament in Sioux City Tuesday.
JCC grad Lacey (Wacker) Reitz is assistant coach for the Red Raiders, who finished the season with a 31-3 record.
Recently she was named West Central Region Assistant Coach of the Year by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. Lacey is in her second season as an assistant coach at Northwestern.
Red Raiders’ coach Kyle Van Den Bosch was named AVCA Region Coach of the Year.
Reitz joined the Northwestern volleyball staff as a full-time assistant coach in January 2022 after playing four seasons for the Red Raiders. She had more than 5,000 assists in her career and is second in program history in career assists.
Stumpf on unbeaten team
Lakefield native and Heron Lake-Okabena graduate Calvin Stumpf, a sophomore at Dakota State University in Madison, S.D. was a member of the Trojans Valorant team that recently concluded a perfect season.
DSU hosted the Fall College League of Legend Finals at the Dakota Prairie Playhouse in Madison.
Dakota State won its semifinal match over South Dakota State 2-0 and then won the championship game over North Dakota State by the same 2-0 margin.
It was the first time in DSU history that Valorant has compiled a perfect season record of 8-0.
The Trojans will continue game play in the spring.
Cross country news
These items are a little old, but I wrote them quite a while ago but never got them posted. Here you go:
Jackson County Central graduate Andrew Boyum, a sophomore at Iowa Central Community College, competed in a pair of national events for the Tritons in Huntsville, Alabama.
On Nov. 11, Boyum finished 80th out of 199 runners with an 8K time of 26:41.90 at the National Junior College Athletic Association Cross Country Championships. ICCC was eighth as a team.
And then on Nov. 14 he was 57th of 155 runners in the NJCAA Half Marathon (13.1 miles) National Championship. His time was 1 hour, 16 minutes and 48.1 seconds. The Tritons were fifth in the team standings.
Two Fairmont graduates represented Hamline University at the NCAA Division III North Regional at Whitetail Golf Course in Colfax, Wis.
Will Saari placed 174th of 199 runners in an 8K time of 28:33.8 and Connor Artner was 195th in 29:41.0. Both are sophomores.
In the women’s 6K race, Aspen Clarksean finished 180th of 199 finishers in 26:45.6. A Mankato West grad and a junior with the Pipers, Aspen is the daughter of JCC graduate Dallas Clarksean and his wife, Nikki, and the granddaughter of Charlie and Linda Clarksean.
We’ll try to get back to more current college updates next week.
You may need to be of a certain age to appreciate this, but here’s Jack Tripper holding Mannix at gunpoint at the Brady Bunch house.
Mannix and The Brady Bunch were both produced by Paramount Television and Mannix was in the Brady house on several occasions during its run from 1967-1975.
But wait, there’s more.
Actor Robert Reed pulled double duty from 1969-1974.
Virtually everyone remembers that he was architect Mike Brady on The Brady Bunch.
You may not be aware that for those years Reed was a semi-regular on Mannix as an LAPD cop who occasionally helped out private investigator Joe Mannix.
Here are Robert Reed and Mike Connors together, during a scene in which Tobias awakens Mannix from one of the 55 times he was knocked out.
Concussion protocol must not have been a thing on 1970s TV shows.