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BRAINERD — A trend started in 2024.
It started immediately, continued throughout the year and hopefully will continue in 2025.
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The trend was state titles and the Brainerd Warriors enjoyed quite a few this passing year. Let’s get right to it with this year’s Brainerd Dispatch Sports top 10 stories of 2024.
It was a season of first-time-in-a-long-time for the Brainerd Warriors dance team.
It started with a clean sweep of the Central Lakes Conference Championship Monday, Dec. 18, 2023.
Brainerd won kick with 628 points and four rank points and jazz with 586 points and five rank points. The last time Brainerd was a conference double winner was the 2013-14 season.
“We won kick and jazz both times this season in the conference so we were overall champs,” Brainerd head coach Cindy Clough said . “The team is so excited. We can’t get them to come out to the bus. They’re still in the school enjoying the moment.
“I thought we looked great. I thought we were going to come out on top, but you just don’t ever know. They really brought it.”
Another first-time-in-a-long-time came Saturday, Jan. 20, when the Warriors beat two of the top teams in the state for over a decade as they won the Wayzata Invite over Eastview and Wayzata.
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Clough said it was Brainerd’s first victory over Eastview in 14 years.
“I think this is a real confidence boost,” Clough said. “They realize they can be up there. It’s been the dream to be that far up, but I think it’s been 14 years since we’ve come out ahead of Eastview. It’s been a long time coming. The confidence piece for our student-athletes is going to be great.”
The Warriors won the Section 4-3A kick title Feb. 2 with 5 rank points. Brainerd also placed second in jazz to advance to state in both disciplines.
The first-time-in-a-long-time theme continued at the Class 3A State Tournament Feb. 16-17. More importantly Saturday, Feb. 17 , during the kick competition.
Brainerd scored 760 total points and five rank points to top second-place Wayzata, which was awarded 734 points and 12 rank points for the state title. It was Brainerd’s first state title in 25 years.
“Today was just overwhelming,” Clough said. “I felt like the whole stadium of competitors just embraced us. It was a pretty amazing thing. We had a standing ovation at the Target Center.
“I think this routine was a trendsetter in that we went a different direction than what anybody has ever done before. I think a lot of it was the music. It had a real hip-hop feeling. It was a hip-hop routine with kick. Nobody had ever done it. I think another thing was all of our transitions and the way we moved from place to place was exciting.”
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A day before, Brainerd recorded a program-best fourth-place finish in the Class 3A State jazz competition . Brainerd scored 21 rank points, which was two better than fifth-place Edina.
To start the 2024-25 season, the Warriors swept the Central Lakes Conference again Dec. 13 in Cold Spring. Brainerd won the jazz division with 587 total points and four rank points. It captured the kick title with 620 total points and four rank points.
Brainerd’s Lance Hastings and Taite Knapp raced to state championship glory Feb. 15 .
The Brainerd Warriors relay team won the state title in 11:55.94 to help the Warrior boys finish fourth at the state meet at Giants Ridge.
Hastings opened with a 2:55.1 to give Brainerd the lead, which it only built upon.
The girls’ relay team of Bridget Collins and Madi Miller skied a seventh-place time of 15:23.85 to help the Warriors to ninth.
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During the pursuit portion of the state meet Feb. 14, at Giants Ridge, Gabe Hallgren and Annelise Baird earned All-State honors with Top -5 finishes. Hallgren placed 24th in 25:42.1. For the second year in a row, Baird earned her All-State honor with a 14th-place 29:02.4.
Eli Knapp was 29th and Joe Neumann 45th for the boys, while Addie Ryan finished 46th and Caroline Holcomb-Smith raced to 80th.
It was clear to see good things were on the horizon for Brainerd, especially after winning the Mesabi East Invite Saturday, Jan. 6.
Brainerd scored 490 points to top Wayzata’s 487.
Hastings finished second in classic and Eli Knapp was third in freestyle to lead the Warrior boys. Annelise Baird finished eighth in classic and Izzy Smith was 18th in freestyle to help the Warrior girls finish 14th out of 49 teams.
The Mesabi East Invite is considered the largest high school Nordic ski event in the nation. It was Brainerd’s first-ever win at the event.
The Warriors then toppled the Central Lakes Conference with wins on both the boys’ and girls’ sides.
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Hastings and Taite Knapp won the conference relay title and Elias Knapp was second for the boys in the pursuit with an 18:32.2. Annelise Baird won the conference crown for the girls with a first-place 20:31.3.
The Warriors then moved to the Section 8 meet and again swept the competition. The boys, led by the Hastings-Knapp relay, won with 391 team points. Hallgren was second, Eli Knapp third and Owen Robertson sixth.
Baird’s section-championship time of 29:15.48 led the Warrior girls to 389 team points. The duo of Bridget Collins and Madi Miller also won a section title in the relay. Addie Ryan placed fourth and Isabelel Smith eighth.
Brainerd co-head coach Chris Hanson was named the State Coach of the Year.
While not a state title, and not Nordic skiing, Brainerd showed its strong skiing heritage when the girls’ Alpine team placed third with 137 points. It was the program’s second-best finish at the state meet Tuesday, Feb. 13 , at Giants Ridge Resort.
Calia Chaney and Lauren Kalenberg recorded All-State finishes to lead Brainerd to third place behind Minnetonka and runner-up Washburn.
Chaney finished eighth in 1:22.68 and Kalenberg was 15th in 1:25.25. Piper Grillo placed 31st and Aubrey Wiczek placed 63rd. Ceceyla Rasinski finished 71st and Sophia Blanck was 78th.
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The Warriors’ best finish was a state title in 2015.
Brainerd placed second in the Section 5 Championship Feb. 6 at Wild Mountain to advance to the state meet.
Chaney posted a fifth-place 1:02.92 followed by Kalenberg in ninth, Grillo in 13th and Blanck in 18th for the Warriors’ 379 points. Minnetonka won the team title with 388.5 points.
Wiczek placed 32nd and Rasinski was 86th.
Brainerd head coach Jim Ruttger was named the State Coach of the Year.
The opening day of the Class 3A State Track and Field meet saw lots of Gold go to the Blue and White.
Cora Clough captured the state high jump title followed by Ty Nelson in the triple jump and Dylan Gross in the shot put Thursday, June 6, at St. Michael-Albertville High School.
Clough became the first Warrior girl to capture a state title since Trend Fields, who won the 100-meter hurdles in 1987. Gross and Nelson followed the 2022 state champion, Andrew Albright.
Gross launched the shot put 62-foot-10.5. He was the only competitor to surpass 60 feet.
Nelson skied to a 47-7.5 first-place distance and Clough jumped 5-4 for her state title.
On Day Two of the Class 3A State Meet, Gross made it a double by winning the discus title with a 175-9 toss.
Brandon Stark placed seventh in the 800 run for another top-10 finish.
During the Section 8-3A meet, Wednesday, May 29 , Gross threw a first-place 60-foot-0 shot put to win the section title. Nelson also scored a section title with a section record 47-2.5 triple jump.
Teammate Joe Smith qualified for state with a fourth-place 12-11 pole vault.
Clough couldn’t repeat as the section high jump champion, but did place second with a 5-2 leap to place second and advance to state.
On the second day of the Section 8-3A meet , Gross won the discus with a 172-foot-6 effort and Nelson placed second in the long jump with a 21-3.5 effort.
Also advancing to state was Kyle Peterson in the 110 hurdles and Natalie Smith in the 300 hurdles.
Brainerd 4×800 relay of Madi Miller, Brooke Wenz, Annelise Baird and Sophia Blanck advanced as did the boys 4×800 relay of Leif Hoffman, Lance Hastings, Brandon Stark and Carter Mielke.
Stark also qualified for the 800 run.
Brainerd Warrior Mya Tautges is a soon-to-be college softball player. When she’s not throwing strikes she’s standing on state swimming and diving podiums.
Tautges became just the second Warrior to win a Class 2A state swimming title when she captured the 50-yard freestyle title Saturday, Nov. 16, at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center.
Tautges won the event with a school-record 22.79 swim. It was 0.09 seconds faster than her prelim time to earn All-American honors.
She then added a third-place finish in the 100 freestyle with a school record of 50.45. After the individual accomplishments, Tautges then helped Brainerd’s 200 freestyle relay to second. The foursome of Avery Duerr , Aralyn Marcelo, Isabelle Ploof and Tautges swam a 1:35.19. That same foursome then placed sixth in the 400 freestyle relay in 3:32.59.
Duerr added an eighth-place finish in the 100 breaststroke to help Brainerd place seventh as a team .
The memorable state meet capped off a memorable season for the Warriors team.
On Saturday, Nov. 9, Brainerd captured its second Section 8-2A title in the last three years. The section victory capped off a perfect 10-0 regular season , a Section 8-2A True Team title , the first in program history, and a Central Lakes Conference title for the first time in 19 years.
When asked if this was his best team ever, Warrior head coach Dan Anderson said: “They’re certainly one of them,” Anderson, who was voted the section coach of the year said. “Last year’s group was really good. The year before, too. This year, I don’t know. They clicked. They did everything we asked them to do and more.”
After collecting two state titles in the spring track and field season, Staples-Motley’s Audrey Brownell showed she’s one of the state’s top distance runners with the Class 1A State Cross-Country title Nov. 2, at the Les Bolstad Golf Course.
Brownell won the title with a time of 18:17.2. She averaged 5.52.8 per mile to lead her young Cardinals team to seventh place.
Brownell won the Section 6-1A title Oct. 24 in 18:33.9 and led the Cardinals back to the state meet by placing second behind Minnewaska.
A week earlier, Brownell captured the Heart O’Lakes Conference title with a time of 17:50.1. She opened the season with wins at Staples, Wadena-Deer Creek and at Moorhead.
Crosby-Ironton’s 4×400-meter relay team capped off a perfect season by winning the Class 1A State Title Friday, June 7.
The f oursome of Noah Larson, Nate Hachey, Joe Ringhand and Jordan Mount won the title with a school-record 3:22.8.
Mount also won the state long jump title with a 23-foot-2.25 leap.
Like Mount, Staples-Motley’s Audrey Brownell was also a double winner in the 1A finals. The then-sophomore captured the 1600 run with a personal-best 5:00.73. She added a personal-best 2:16.16 to win the 800 run. It was Brownell’s second and third career state titles and she would add more state titles in the fall.
Finishing off the Class 1A state title trend was Bertha-Hewitt/Verndale’s boys 4×800 relay of Zane Guderjahn, Zach Baumgartner, Brady Rach and Preston Miller. The foursome ran a first-place 8:05.11.
A day later, during the Class 2A state finals, Pequot Lakes’s Calia Chaney added three more state medals to her resume.
She opened with a second place in the 1600 run with a 4:52.7. She then secured her second career 800 run state title with a 2:15.02.
Chaney finished her Patriots’ career by anchoring Pequot’s first-place 4×400 relay to a winning time of 3:58.17.
Eli Hall placed fifth in the 1600 run. Little Falls’ 4×200 relay finished sixth and Bode Eggena placed sixth in the high jump.
Pequot’s girls’ 4×200 relay also placed sixth.
In front of friends and family, Crosby-Ironton junior Tori Oehrlein made University of Minnesota Gopher fans happy when she announced her verbal commitment to attend and play for the U of M during a ceremony Friday, Nov. 8, in the Dave Galovich Gym in Crosby.
“It’s close to home, but I also have a great relationship with the coaches,” Oehrlein said. “The biggest thing for me was the culture and I wanted to have all my Crosby fans who cheered me on to cheer me on in college. I want people to be able to watch me and have that support around me.”
She became the fastest Minnesota girl to reach 3,000 points for her career when she surpassed the mark with 16:20 remaining in the first half of a 93-75 loss to Class 2A’s top-ranked Providence Academy Jan. 30 , in Plymouth. Oehrlein finished with 27 points, but needed just one to reach 3,000.
In the game prior, a 77-47 Mid-State Conference blowout of Staples-Motley, Jan. 26, Oehrlein scored 42 points, but was one short of the 3,000 mark.
The then sophomore, helped the Rangers return to the Class 2A state tournament later that season with a 46-45 Section 7-2A victory over Pequot Lakes March 8.
For the first time in C-I girls’ basketball history, Oehrlein and the Rangers won a state tournament game as they knocked off New London-Spicer 63-50 in the state quarterfinals March 13, at Williams Arena. Oehrlein led the Rangers with 33 points, 15 rebounds, five assists and eight steals.
C-I then fell to Providence Academy in the semifinals and Minnehaha Academy in the third-place game to finish fourth. Oehrlein finished with 35 points, 11 rebounds against Providence and 46 points and 17 rebounds against Minnehaha.
For the fourth straight year, she was named the Brainerd Dispatch All-Area Player of the Year.
This fall, Oehrlein showed off her versatility by winning the Section 7-1A singles title in tennis. She didn’t drop a set during the section tournament to advance to her first state tennis tournament.
At state, Thursday, Oct. 24, Oehrlein won her opening match against Maple River’s Tabitha Barkosky before falling to Blake’s Fetemeh Vang in the quarterfinals.
An 82-69 victory over the Pillager Huskies Friday, Jan. 5, 2023, pushed Crosby-Ironton Rangers head coach Dave Galovich into rare company .
The victory was Galovich’s 800th of his 46-year career and landed him in a group with just three other Minnesota coaches — Bob McDonald of Chisholm, Bob Brink of Rocori and Ken Novak Jr. of Hopkins.
Following the victory, Galovich said : “When you’re in it right now the thought process is day to day and hoping to get better. Once a person retires and looks back, I think they’ll appreciate it more than they do now. Although, I really appreciate that we had about 35 former players here from 1987 to today. It was really great to see these guys. Several of them drove several hours to get here.”
The Staples-Motley finished where they should have.
The Cardinals entered the Class 1A state team tournament as the No. 2 seed and finished that way Feb. 29 at the Xcel Energy Center .
S-M opened with a 51-9 victory over LeSueur-Henderson and then topped Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa 38-21 in the semifinals.
In the finals, SM fell to Chatfield 47-7.
Bertha-Hewitt/Verndale/Parkers Prairie opened against Chatfield and lost 50-9. In the consolation semifinals, BHVPP fell to Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial 28-21.
In Class 2A, Little Falls lost to top-seeded and eventual state champion Simley 46-18 and then dropped a consolation match to Watertown Mayer 34-24.
S-M highlighted the individual tournament as well as eighth-grader Gage Bjerga won the 107-pound state title for Class 1A. He won his state title with a 9-1 major decision of Deer River’s Charles Ikola. He finished his second year of varsity wrestling with a 48-1 record.
Teammate Eli Greenwaldt finished his sophomore year with a 50-5 record and a third-place finish at state. Colbe Tappe was second in the 152-pound bracket.
BHVPP rostered two state runner-ups. David Revering at 160 pounds and former state champion Abby Ervasti, who placed second in the 170-pound bracket.
Ivan Petrich of Little Falls placed third in the Class 3A tournament at 215 pounds.
Pierz’s Kyle Stangle also placed third in the 107-pound bracket of the Class 2A Tournament.
This fall, many of those state wrestlers helped the Cardinals football team to a state runner-up finish. The Cardinals finished the season 12-1 after falling to Jackson County Central 42-26 in the Class 2A Prep Bowl Friday, Nov. 22, at US Bank Stadium.
S-M advanced to its first state title game since 1988 after eliminating Chatfield 36-24 in the Class 2A State Semifinals . In the state quarterfinals Nov. 7, S-M upset the Barnesville Trojans 46-44 in double overtime.
Just two years removed from a winless season, the Cardinals advanced to state by winning the Section 6-2A title 36-30 over Osakis Nov. 1 at the Fargodome.
For the second straight season, the Pequot Lakes Patriots secured the fifth-place title in the Class 2A boys’ basketball tournament. This time the Patriots topped Jackson County Central 51-44 March 22 .
Pequot finished the season 28-5.
In the Class 2A State Consolation bracket, Pequot rallied to eliminate Waseca 48-46 to advance to the fifth-place game.
The Patriots opened the state tournament with a 63-47 loss to No. 5 seeded Minnehaha Academy March 20 .
Pequot Lakes returned to the Class 2A state tournament thanks to a 55-42 Section 7-2A Championship victory over Esko March 15.
The Patriots knocked off Aitkin in the opening round, Pillager in the quarterfinals and then topped Staples-Motley 67-43 in the Section 7-2A semifinals March 13 . Ten different Patriots scored against their former Mid-State Conference foe.
This fall, the Pequot Lakes Patriots football team returned to its third state tournament and advanced to its second state semifinals. The Patriots concluded the season 11-1 after falling to Dassel-Cokato in the semifinals.
They advanced to their first semifinals since 2017 after eliminating Annandale Nov. 9, 22-15.
Pequot advanced to its third state appearance after defeating Two Harbors 36-15 Oct. 31 in the Section 7-3A Final.
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