100 Years 100 Stars: #1-25

These are the biggest stars of the state tournaments--including boys and girls, players and coaches, other contributors.

1. Janet Karvonen, New York Mills girls, F, 1977-78-79-80. Karvonen and the Eagles were the 2^nd high school team ever to win 3 straight state titles. Karvonen set tournament records with 59, then 98 points in a tournament and with 329 career tournament points. More than just New York Mills, she put girls basketball on the Minnesota map.

2. Khalid El-Amin, Mpls. North boys, G, 1995-96-97. North became the 3^rd team ever to win 3 straight Minnesota state titles. And though he was a pass-first point guard, he led all scorers in 5 of North’s 11 tournament wins and set a (then) career tournament scoring record with 238 points.

3. Jim McIntyre, Mpls. Patrick Henry boys, C, 1944-45. McIntyre led Patrick Henry to 2 state titles while setting single game scoring records of 29, then 36 and finally 43 points. He also set tournament records of 86 points in 1944 and 100 points in 1945.

4 (tie). Coco Miller and Kelly Miller, Rochester Mayo girls, G, 1993-95-96-97. The Miller twins led Mayo to 4 state tournaments, a 4^th place as 8^th graders in 1993, a 3^rd place in 1996, and Class AA championships in 1995 and 1997. Coco led all scorers in 1995 with 75 points; Kelly did the same with 63 points in 1996; and Coco led with 72 points while Kelly scored 71 in 1997.

5. Edgerton boys, 1960. The Flying Dutchmen are the smallest school from the smallest town to win a state title in the single class era, and the most famous of the “Cinderella” champions of the era. Leroy Graphenteen, Darrell Kreun, Dean Veenhof and Dean Verdoes earned all-tournament honors.

6. Harvey Roels, Chisholm boys, coach, 1930-40. Roels like the Bluestreaks to 5 straight state tournaments in 1930-34 and to the state title in 1934. More than that, he kept an up-tempo style of play alive during a period dominated by a “dead ball” style of ball control and defensively-oriented play.

7. Butsie Maetzold, Red Wing boys, G, 1920-21-22; Hopkins boys, coach, 1942-53. One of few individuals to win state titles as both a player and a coach. Red Wing won the title in 1920 and 1922, and Maetzold always said they would have won in 1921 but for having to leave 2 starters at home with the flu. As a coach, he won 508 games while losing just 62 for the best W-L percentage ever among coaches who have won 500 games. The  Royals won the 1952 and 1953 titles under Maetzold.

8. Tayler Hill, Mpls. South girls, G, 2007-08-09. Hill led South to 3 straight Class AAAA title games, a pair of losses to St. Paul Central and, finally, a win for the 2009 state championship. Hill tied the girls tournament record in that final game with a remarkable 47 points. She finished her high school career with a girls record 3,888 points.

9. Dorothy McIntyre, MSHSL. More than anyone, it was McIntyre who paved the way for Minnesota’s girls to finally have a state basketball tournament of their own more than 60 years after the boys.

10. Rev. Fred B. Hill, Carleton College. Hill, professor of biblical literature and chairman of the faculty committee on athletics, was most instrumental in the founding of the state tournament in 1913. He rallied the Carleton community to its support and offered to pay the travel costs of the participating teams. At the banquet honoring the participants, a committee was formed to assure that there would be a tournament again in 1914 and beyond. Hill was elected its chair. By 1917, this committee had become the Minnesota State High School League.

11. Mark Olberding, Melrose boys, C, 1973-74. Melrose won the 1974 Class A and overall championships after losing the 1973 Class A final to a last second shot by Chisholm’s Mike Kochevar. Olberding led both tournaments in scoring with 91 (in 3 games) and 112 points (in 4 games). It was his career tournament scoring record that Khalid El-Amin broke in 1997.

12. Myron Glass, Rochester Lourdes girls, coach, 1986-2010 and Rochester Lourdes girls, 1986-2010. The winningest coach in state tournament history—boys or girls—with 8 state championships. Glass brought the Eagles to 15 tournaments in 25 years. Glass is also #2 among girls coaches with almost 700 wins.

13. Kenny Novak, Jr., Hopkins boys, coach, 1993-2011. With 3 straight state titles in 2009, 2010 and 2011, Novak became the winningest boys coach with 6 state titles. Those 6 titles have come in the space of just 10 years, and 5 have come in just 7 years from 2005-11.

14. St. Paul Central girls, 2007. The undefeated Central girls were widely acclaimed as the best girls team ever in the state of Minnesota. They out-scored 3 tournament opponents by an average of 78-54. Kiara Buford, Georgie Jones, Angel Robinson and Theairra Taylor earned all-tournament honors. 4 girls had transferred into Central after starting their careers otherwise. It was this that inspired the anti-transfer rule that says a player who transfers after his or her freshman year shall forfeit a year of eligibility for athletics.

15. Edina boys 1966-67-68. The Hornets were the 1^st 3-peat champion. It was a struggle in1966 with wins by 1 point, in 3 OT and in 1 OT.  The 1967 and 1968 editions cruised by an average score of 74-54 (1967) and 75-52 (1968). Bill Fiedler, Jay Kiedrowski, Kurt Shellhas, Mark Thoele, Jeff Wright and Bob Zender won all-tournament honors.

16. Ron Johnson, New Prague boys, C, 1955-56. Led the tournament in scoring with 94 and then a record 109 points. The 109 points and his 203 career points stood as records until Mark Olberding surpassed both in 1974.

17. Kelly Skalicky, Albany girls, G, 1980-81. Skalicky led Albany to the 1980 state title, and scored a record 45 points in 1 game and 102 in a tournament (both records later were  broken by Tayler Hill). But first she and Albany faced Karvonen and New York Mills in the 1979 final, the game that really put girls basketball on the Minnesota map.

18. Randy Breuer, Lake City boys, C, 1978-79. Led Lake City to the 1978 and 1979 state titles, and scored a record 113 points in the latter year that still stands. He scored 41 and 42 points in 2 tournament games in 1979.

19. Red Wing 1915-1933. The Red Wing Wingers were the 1^st Minnesota high school dynasty, winning 3 of the 1^st 10 tournaments and 4 in 21 years. It would be more than 50 years before another school would match Red Wing’s 4 titles and almost ¾ of a century before its record would be broken. Stars of the Red  Wing dynasty included Butsie Maetzold, the Nordly brothers—Louis, Carl, Oliver and Harold, Art Lillyblad, Dick Seebach and others. And from 1920 through 1933, when Red Wing was successful, the state tournament would set new attendance records.

20 (tie). Mpls. North boys 1995-96-97 and Mpls. North girls 1997-2005. The boys were the 2^nd 3-peat champion after Edina, while the North girls played for a remarkable 8 of 9 state championships, winning 5 including 3 straight in 2003, 2004 and 2005.

21. Isaiah Dahlman, Braham boys, F, 2004-05-06. Dahlman led the Bombers to 3 state titles, and he led the tournament in scoring in both 2004 and 2005 with 75 and 88  points. In 2006 he scored another 73 points, 14 fewer than Cody Schilling. Meanwhile his career total of 236 is just 2 short of El-Amin’s record.

22. Blake Hoffarber, Hopkins boys, G, 2005-06. Led Hopkins to 2 Class AAAA titles. In 2005 he made perhaps the single most dramatic shot in tournament history while sitting on the court to force OT and avert defeat. Led the  Royals in scoring in both championship games with 25 and 19 points.

23. Faith Johnson Patterson, Mpls. North-DeLaSalle girls, coach, 1997-2011. Patterson led Mpls. North to a remarkable 8 Class AAA title games in 9 years, of which they won 5 and lost 3. She added a runner-up in 2009 and then a 6^th state title with DeLaSalle in 2011.

24 (tie). Jack Evens, Bloomington Jefferson boys, coach, 1975-90, and Kevin Lynch, Bloomington Jefferson boys, F-G, 1986-87 and Bloomington Jefferson boys, 1976-1987. Evens and Lynch combined to win back-to-back state titles in 1986 and 1987. For Evens, these were the 3^rd and 4^th titles, making him the 1^st coach ever to win 4 and Jefferson the 2^nd school to win 4 state titles.

25. Bob McDonald, Chisholm boys, coach, 1973-2011. McDonald coached the Bluestreaks for more than 50 years, and has more wins than any other Minnesota coach—boys or girls—with more than 970. His teams also won the Class A state title in 1973, 1975 and 2011.