Seventh grade team finishes season with a 7-4 record, eighth grade finishes 2-9

Photo by Scherling Photography
Members of the junior high boys basketball team included: Front row: Beck Thorson, Parker Samuelson and Trevor Arndt. Middle row: Trystan Loghry, Gabe Froslee, Bradon Grabe and Conner Reinbold. Back row: Ryan Despard, Andrew Suchy and Elliot Severson.

The Henning Hornet junior high boys’ basketball team wrapped up their season by taking on Menahga just before Christmas break. 

The seventh grade team pulled an 11-point comeback to take Menahga into overtime. Unfortunately, Menahga made two critical free throws in overtime and beat the Hornets 28-26. The seventh grade team finished with a record of 7-4 on the year. 

In the eighth grade game, the Hornets were able to play their best game of the year and defeated Menahga by the score of 29-18. The eighth grade team finished with a record of 2-9.

The seventh grade team was composed of Trevor Arndt, Gabe Froslee, Trystan Loghry, Conner Reinbold, Elliot Severson and Beck Thorson. With limited numbers in both grades the coaches also asked sixth graders to join the team, which were Tyson Eckhoff, Justin Redfield, John Umland and Koltan Reineke. 

The team got off to a bit of a slow start losing their first two games to Parkers Prairie and Wadena-Deer Creek, but then started to win more games when they started to become more physical and aggressive. They went on to win seven of eight games in the middle stretch, before losing their final game to Menahga. When the boys got going, they did a really nice job of distributing the ball around.  

The eighth grade team was composed of Ryan Despard, Bradon Grabe, Parker Samuelson and Andrew Suchy. This team had never played together with some new faces and it was really a year of growth. 

With four kids on the team the Hornets also used the seventh graders to fill the rest of the team. The team was often outmatched with some pretty good eighth grade teams in the area, but really came around by the end of the year. 

The team started being in games and were able to play really well in their last game of the year against Menahga. 

The Henning coaching staff said they are very proud of the gains these players made in all grades and all look forward to seeing what these athletes are able to accomplish in the future.