Email us at dave@sdsportscene.com if you think we missed something or if you have an event you would like us to consider for this feature:

Feb. 1: The Ethan girls’ basketball team gave coach Tom Young the 500th win of his 29-season career of coaching girls’ and boys’ teams in the Mitchell area. He is in his eighth season coaching the Ethan girls. In his first seven seasons there, the Ethan girls went 161-16, made seven state tourney appearances finishing no lower than fourth place and have been state champs once (2015) and state runners-up twice (2016, 2019).
Feb. 4: For the first time, Webster 1985 classmates and veteran South Dakota basketball referees Jerry Beers, David Brown and Kevin Potas officiated a game together in Plankinton. The trio has more than 85 years’ experience of refereeing South Dakota basketball between them, but this was the first time all three shared a high school varsity basketball court together since they were Webster seniors on Feb. 21, 1985. On that night, Brown scored 16, Beers 15 and Potas 14 to lead Webster past Langford 79-68 for third place in the District 3B Tournament. They also grew up playing football and baseball together and helped the Bearcats win the 1983 football state championship as juniors.
Feb. 4-5: The Northern State wrestling team travelled 976 miles to pick up weekend wins over two nationally ranked teams. The Wolves defeated No. 15 Upper Iowa 23-15 and No. 17 Minnesota State Mankato 30-13.
Feb. 5: Langford graduate and Platte-Geddes boys’ basketball coach Frank Cutler picked up his 500th career win in Miller. The Claremont native has been coaching at his school for 33 years and has taken the Black Panthers to 13 state tournaments. He is one of nine boys’ basketball coaches in state history to hit the 500-win mark: Larry Luitjens (all-time leader with 748), Gary Munsen, Burnell Glanzer, Gayle Hoover, Paul Raasch, Mike Tuschen, Jim Schlekeway and Doug Groth.
Feb. 5: Sanborn Central/Woonsocket girls’ basketball coach Tim McCain picked up his 400th career win in Wolsey.
Feb. 5: The South Dakota State women defeated rivals South Dakota 75-65 in Brookings. It ended the nation’s longest women’s basketball winning streak in Division I basketball as the Coyotes had won 16 in a row, including a 65-42 beatdown of the Jacks on Jan. 8 in Vermillion. SDSU was led by freshmen guards Paige Meyer (Albany, MN) and Haleigh Timmer (Rapid City St. Thomas More), who combined for 27 points.
Feb. 5: USD student Mary Margaret Borer of Sheldon, IA, drained a bank shot from half court during halftime of the Coyotes’ men’s basketball game against SDSU in Vermillion to win $10,000. It gave the pro USD crowd a chance to celebrate in eruption even though their beloved Coyotes fell 89-79.
Feb. 5: USD graduate and Olympic silver medalist pole vaulter Chris Nilsen cleared six meters for the first time in his pole vault career. The 23-year-old cleared 6.02 (19.75 feet) to set a new American indoor record and to win an elite international pole vaulting title in Tourcoing, France.

Feb. 8: In a girls’-boys’ basketball doubleheader at home, Wagner had two athletes score their 1,000th career points. Junior Shalayne Nagel hit the milestone in the girls’ game and senior Dustin Honomichl did so in the boys’ game. Both teams got wins over Tripp-Delmont/Armour.
Feb. 10: Kalen Garry of De Smet became the 41st South Dakota high school boys’ basketball player to score 2,000 points in a career in a home win against Wolsey-Wessington.
Feb. 10: SDSU women defeated visiting Denver 79-52 as fifth-year senior Tylee Irwin (Wahpeton, N.D.) made her 145th career appearance, becoming the Jackrabbits career leader in games played. Irwin has started in 108 of those 145 games and has logged 3,488 minutes of playing time for the Jacks. SDSU is 114-32 in Irwin’s five years at the school.
Feb. 11: Hanson girls’ basketball coach Jim Bridge got his 600th win when the Beavers defeated Kimball/White Lake 57-29 in White Lake. Bridge is in his 36th year of coaching, all at the school in Alexandria where he is the superintendent.
Feb. 11: In one of the most exciting team gymnastics state championships in history, O’Gorman and Madison emerged as the top teams in Mitchell. O’Gorman edged Mitchell 150.3-149.7 to win the Class AA crown while Madison edged Deuel 135.333-134.933 to win the Class A title. While it was Madison’s 21st team state championship in school history; Deuel had won the last four state titles. O’Gorman last won a state title in in 2005.
Feb. 11-12: Salem hosted the 17 boys’ and girls’ basketball games of the Dakota Wesleyan Classic and it resulted in consecutive hours of a packed gymnasium with some of the state’s best high school teams playing exciting games over two days. The DWU Classic was moved from the Mitchell Corn Palace, which was hosting the state gymnastics tournament.
Feb. 12: The Sioux Falls Stampede had to postpone its third home game in a row at the Sanford Premier Center after its ice machine stopped working. Eventually, a team of Canadian technicians were called in to fix the issue.

Feb. 13: This year’s Super Bowl had an Aberdeen connection. Cincinnati Bengals starting linebacker Logan Wilson is the son of former Northern State wrestling coach Trevor Wilson. He moved to Wyoming at the age of 3. His late-game interception keyed a playoff victory over Tennessee and he also was in on 10 tackles in the AFC Championship game victory over Kansas City.
Feb. 13: Former SDSU record-setting linebacker Christian Rozeboom (475 career tackles) helped the Los Angeles Rams defeat the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 to win Super Bowl LVI.
Feb. 14: For the first time since December 2015, the SDSU men’s basketball team received votes in the DI AP Top 25 poll. The 23-4 Jacks have reeled off an impressive 14 wins in a row in Summit League play.
Feb. 14: Maleighya Estes of White River became the 32 nd high school girls’ basketball player in South Dakota history to score more than 2,000 career points.
Feb. 15: All five Aberdeen high school basketball teams that played won; the girls’ teams from Christian (over Langford); Central (over Watertown) and Roncalli (over Florence-Henry for coach Derek Larson’s 200 th career win) and the boys’ teams from Christian (over Langford) and Central (over Watertown).
Feb. 17: It was a clash of top-rated Class B girls’ basketball teams at one of South Dakota’s iconic basketball arenas as No. 1 Aberdeen Roncalli defeated No. 3 Aberdeen Christian 58-37 at the Aberdeen Civic Arena. Roncalli finished the regular season 20-1 while Christian finished 17-3. Nine seniors started the game, including the Roncalli duo of Madelyn Bragg and Morgan Fiedler who combined for 40 points on the night.
Feb. 17: The Sully Buttes girls’ basketball team of coach Mark Senftner finished the regular season 16-4. Senftner collected his 500th win as a girls’ coach on Dec. 14 vs. Lyman. In 17 seasons at Sully Buttes, his teams have won four State B championships (2007, 2008, 2016 and 2017) and were state runners-up twice (2012 and 2015). Entering the 2022 post-season, Senftner has a career girls’ record of 513-215. Also a successful football coach and former boys’ basketball coach, Senftner was inducted into the Sully Buttes Hall of Fame earlier this month as well.
Feb. 18: Aberdeen Roncalli announced it will start playing its home football games at NSU’s new on- campus Dacotah Bank Stadium in the fall. The Cavaliers had been playing its home games at Swisher Field on the Aberdeen Central campus.
Feb. 19: The 15 th annual Weiner Dog Race to benefit the Dakota Dachshund Rescue was held by the Sioux Falls Stampede on their home ice in the Sanford Premier Center. Top dog in a field of 40 was a Sioux Falls Dachshund named Kuzco. Sioux Falls, which changes its moniker for one night to the Fighting Weiner Dogs, defeated Omaha 6-1.
Feb. 19: The SDSU men’s basketball team (25-4, 16-0 Summit League) finished its home schedule undefeated (14-0) for the seventh time in the last 11 seasons.
Feb. 19: USD starting guard Mason Archambault (a junior from Rapid City Stevens and a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe) was one of 11 Native American student-athletes honored at his school’s Native American Appreciation Day ceremonies. He and his teammates then went out and defeated visiting Western Illinois 78-65. Included in the crowd were 18 middle school students from Fort Yates on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation along with school administrator Chuck Archambault (Mason’s uncle), who made the seven-hour journey to cheer for Mason and the Coyotes.
Feb. 22: The Mitchell boys’ basketball team won its first Eastern South Dakota Conference title since 2012. When the current seniors on the team were freshmen, Mitchell endured a 2-19 season.
Feb. 22: Corsica-Stickney girls’ basketball coach Lorisa Broughton earned career win No. 300.
Feb. 24: SDSU junior Luke Appel (Marshalltown, IA) came off the bench to collect 41 points (16-20 FGs; 7-9 FTs) and 10 rebounds to pace the Jacks to a 106-102 overtime win over Oral Roberts in Tulsa, OK. The Jacks committed only three turnovers in a game for the first time since March 9, 2013 (vs. IUPUI). It was only the 11th time in school history an SDSU player has scored 40 or more points in a game. The feat was pulled off by Mike Daum (2016-19) four times, Steve Lingenfelter (1980-81) twice, Kent Hyde (1955-58), Tom Black (1963-64), Dave Thomas (1970-73) and Nate Wolters (2010-13, the SDSU record-holder with 53 points in a 2013 game). Also during the SDSU-OR game, Appel’s teammate, sophomore Baylor Scheierman (Aurora, NE), became the 50 th member of the SDSU 1,000 point club.
Feb. 25: The Yankton boys’ basketball team defeated host Spearfish 93-57 to set a new school scoring record. It broke the record set on March 6, 1974, when Yankton, with no three-point shot, defeated Lennox 92-50 to win the Section 2 championship. Yankton 6-foot-11 senior Chad Nelson led five double-figure scorers against Lennox with 24 points.
Feb. 25: The Hamlin boys’ basketball team closed out its regular season with a 56-40 win over Redfield to secure a piece of its first Northeast Conference title since 2000.

Feb. 24-26: There were lots of milestones at the state high school wrestling tournament in Sioux Falls: In its second year of girls’ wrestling, the state offered a team championship and the Pierre girls earned it. Pierre is coached by Groton native and former NSU football player Matt Thorson. The Class A boys’ 113-pound champion, Watertown sophomore Sloan Johannsen, finished 50-0, the first undefeated Arrow wrestler since 2004 when Dan Olson finished 39-0 at 130 pounds. Johannsen has won 81 matches in a row. Carlee Laubach of Canton defended her 170-pound state title by going 34-0 and winning all her
matches by pin. Kaden Keiser of Winner area won the 145-pound Class B boys’ title by going 57-0. It was his fourth straight state title and along the way the senior set the all-time mark for most victories in a career. Keiser finished with a career record of 286-22, winning his final 120 matches with his last lost coming in January 2020. The previous state record of 280 career was set in 2011 by Jarrett Jensen of Rapid City Stevens.
Feb. 25: The Waubay-Summit boys’ basketball team of coach Mark Amdahl finished the regular season 17-3. Last month on Jan. 7, Amdahl collected his 300th career coaching victory. He coached the Summit girls for 11 years and the Waubay-Summit girls for one. In those 12 years, his girls’ teams went 252-41 with 10 conference titles, 10 district titles, eight region titles, three State B titles (2009, 2011 and 2012) with one State B runner-up finish (2010). His teams compiled a 94-4 record in the Eastern Coteau Conference that included an 87-game winning streak in league play from 2006 through 2016. Amdahl now is in his sixth season as Waubay-Summit’s head boys coach and has compiled a 59-68 boys’ record and an overall record of 311-109. 
Feb. 26: The SDSU men’s basketball team defeated host Kansas City 86-75 to finish the Summit League regular season 18-0. The Jacks (27-4) are the first team in the 40-year history of the Summit League to finish conference play unbeaten. SDSU has won six consecutive Summit League regular season titles and nine of the last 11.
Feb. 26: The first Rapid City Central Athletic Hall of Fame Class was inducted: Euc Cobb, Howard Naasz, Jesse Herrick, John Dutton, Anne (Richardson) Vollmer, Jake Maas and Colette (DeMoss) Christensen.
Feb. 27: The South Dakota Amateur Basketball Association celebrated its 75 th annual state tournament in Presho. Watertown Foothills Contracting won the Class B division and Redfield Haider Construction the Class C division.
Feb. 28: Ryker Erstad led Arlington to a 79-53 Region 3B win over Iroquois-Doland with a school-record 48 points along with seven rebounds, seven assists and six steals.