Dague scores 2,000th career point
Sports | Published on February 18, 2021 at 5:31am EST | Author: Chad Koenen
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As junior Grace Hammer looks on, Henning High School senior Ellie Dague takes a shot in the lane during last week’s Park Region Conference game against Wadena-Deer Creek. Dague, who is already Henning’s all-time leading scorer, needed just 12 points to become the first person in school history to score 2,000 career points. For more information, check out page 4.
Henning senior is the Hornets’ all-time leading scorer
By Chad Koenen
Publisher
Nearly one year to the day after Ellie Dague became Henning’s all-time leading scorer, the Henning High School senior guard became the first person in school history to score 2,000 career points.
The accomplishment came against a familiar opponent, as Dague broke Dick Johnson’s school scoring record of 1,579 points against Wadena-Deer Creek on Feb. 6, 2020.
This time around Dague helped the second ranked Hornets to an 81-31 win over the Wolverines on Thursday night, and in the process, became the school’s first ever 2,000 point scorer. It is quite an accomplishment for a player, who missed a good part of her freshman and sophomore basketball seasons, due to a variety of injuries.
Ellie Dague was congratulated by teammates after scoring a point midway through the first half of Thursday’s Park Region Conference game against Wadena-Deer Creek. Dague is the first Henning Hornet to score 2,000 career points.
Dague knew she was getting close to breaking the 2,000 point career mark after she looked at the end of season stat book head coach Mike Hepola put together at the end of last season.
“I kind of knew I was close because Hep put all of the stats in the book,” she said.
Just how close she was leading up to last week remained a mystery to her, albeit if most of the people in the stands on Thursday night knew she needed just 12 points to get her 2,000th point. Dague said her dad was the one who let it slip that she was only a handful of points away from eclipsing the 2,000 point mark.
“Hep let 1,000 slip and this time it was my father,” she said with a smile. “He said ‘yeah you are close.’”
The North Dakota State University commit scored her 2,000th point late in the first half of Thursday’s game with a jump shot in the corner. The game was subsequently stopped as the school’s all-time leading scorer was congratulated on the court by Hepola and the rest of her teammates.
The accomplishment came one year after Dague broke Peterson’s scoring record that stood for over 50 years.
Peterson set the scoring record in 1966 when he helped to lead the Hornets to back-to-back state tournaments during the 1965 and 1966 seasons. Dague is hoping to do something similar as Henning is currently 9-1 on the season and is looking for a second straight state tournament berth after advancing to the state semi-finals last year. The tournament was subsequently canceled after the Class A quarterfinals due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dague will look to add to her career totals this week when the Hornets host New York Mills on Tuesday and Verndale on Friday.
Top 10 career points Ellie Dague 2,042 (2021), Dick Peterson 1,579 (1966), Ross Greenwaldt 1,529 (1979), Bob Peterson 1,492 (1966), Les Torgerson 1,370 (1958), Paige Wallevand 1,304 (2017), Steve Misegades 1,292 (1998), Courtney Dague 1,287 (2016), Casey Haugdahl 1,270 (2013) and Zach Torgerson 1,204 (2013).