Boys’ basketball wins Henning’s 1st state title
By Heather Rule
The last time Henning boys’ basketball made a trip to the state tournament, the United States hadn’t yet landed on the moon, the Lakers finished as the NBA runner-up just a few seasons after moving out west from Minneapolis and Henning’s Dick Peterson was the boys’ state high school basketball tournament’s leading scorer with 71 points in three games.
Yes, that year was 1966 when Henning boys’ basketball completed back-to-back trips to the state tournament. The 2019 Hornets boys’ basketball team ended that 53-year drought by taking it a step further – winning the first state championship for Henning High School in any sport.
No. 7-ranked Henning defeated No. 6-ranked North Woods 67-42 to capture the Class 1A state title last March at Target Center in Minneapolis. Senior guard Sam Fisher scored a game-high 22 points in his 33 minutes on the floor, shooting 7-for-11 with 7 rebounds and 3 assists. Junior guard Parker Fraki scored 13, including a 3-for-8 mark from beyond the arc, 5 rebounds and a team-high 5 assists. The Hornets also forced 24 turnovers from North Woods, the Class 1A runner-up for the third consecutive year.
Fisher, Fraki and junior guard Isaac Fisher were named to the All-Tournament Team. Henning, the No. 4-seed in the tournament, beat 5-seed Christ’s Household of Faith (St. Paul) 63-56 in the state quarterfinals and downed unseeded Spring Grove 67-34 in the semifinals.
But Henning had another player with the team, the sixth player for the squad’s “6-on-5” motto: Jacob “City Boy” Quam. Henning won its state title nearly two years after the 16-year-old Quam was killed in a car accident in April 2017. He would have been a senior on the 2018-19 championship-winning squad. Instead, Quam’s presence was still felt by the team, with his No. 33 jersey on the bench and in team photos.
Led by coach Randy Misegades, Henning finished its magical season 31-1, the only blemish coming in the regular-season finale with a 77-74 overtime loss to Parkers Prairie, the same team Henning later beat 60-58 in the Section 6A final to make the return to state. The Hornets went 14-0 to take the Park Region Conference crown for the second straight season, following their 18-8 (11-3 in conference play) season in 2017-18.
Before the team headed down to the Twin Cities for the state tournament last March, it spent some time at Quam’s gravesite. From there the Hornets won three more basketball games to win the state championship. Hornet pride – and that No. 33 jersey – was out in full force.
