Basketball players share rare company with historic milestone

By Chad Koenen

Publisher

As the old saying goes—records are meant to be broken. Of course some records are a bit more attainable than others.  ¶  For example, Cal Ripken, Jr. played 2,632 consecutive professional baseball games, Wilt Chamberlin scored 100 points in professional basketball and Michael Phelps won 28 Olympic medals for the United States swimming team.  ¶  Tyson Misegades, Mason Hammer, Faith Fisher and Lyvia Misegades set their own record on the basketball court this season that may never be broken at Henning School. The four basketball players etched their names in the history books by reaching 1,000 career points. While Henning has been putting up points and wins on the court at a fevered pace over the past few years, having four players reach 1,000 career points in a single season is about as rare as seeing a white rhino run through the streets of downtown Henning.  ¶  All four of the players have had a lasting impact on the basketball programs, both on and off the court.

“Tyson and Mason have grown up together in our program. They’ve been part of junior high, C-squad, JV, and varsity teams without ever having a losing record. The groups before them set the tone with expectations in our program and Tyson and Mason continued that tradition. We’ll expect our younger guys to follow the same model,” said head boys basketball coach Randy Misegades about the pair of boys basketball players.

Head girls coach Mike Hepola echoed Misegades’ notion that Fisher and Lyvia Misegades have left a lasting impact on the basketball program.

“Faith and Lyvia have both had huge impacts on our girls basketball program, they’ve given us a tremendous inside and outside combination.  They’ve done a great job and would be the first ones to acknowledge they were fortunate to have a great group of teammates around them to help them reach the 1,000 point milestone,” said Hepola. “Faith has been a tremendous leader from that point guard position and Lyvia leads us in that post position, but also has the ability to step out and hit some outside shots as well.”

There have only been a handful of times since 1914 in which two Hornets reached 1,000 career points in the same season. 

In 2020, Isaac Fisher and Blake Wallevand both reached 1,000 points and were the first teammates since Steve Misegades and Adam Trites in 1998 to score 1,000 points as teammates in the same season. 

  This year not only did two members of the boys team hit that mark, but the girls had two members score 1,000 points as well.

The first Hornet to reach the 1,000 point career milestone was Fisher, who is the daughter of BJ and Shari Fisher. She joined her mother Shari, as well as her two older brothers Sam and Isaac who all scored 1,000 points during their time playing basketball in Henning. She became the eighth girl to reach that mark when she scored her 1,000th point on January 19.

Even though reaching 1,000 points was always a goal, the Henning senior said “I wasn’t really worried about it.”

Just one day later, Hammer, who is the son of Chris and Brandi Hammer, eclipsed 1,000 career points as part of a boys-girls doubleheader against New York Mills.

“That’s definitely something I had in mind since I started playing varsity as a sophomore,” he said. “Going into the game I was more nervous (knowing he was only a few points away from the milestone).”

Just a few weeks later, Tyson Misegades, who is the son of Randy and Becky Misegades, joined his senior teammate when he scored his 1,000th point on Feb. 14 against Verndale. He joined his dad and head coach Randy who also scored 1,000 points during his time playing for Henning. 

While scoring 1,000 points was a nice accomplishment for him, Misegades said he was more focused on the team coming away with a win.

“It was cool, but honestly the team stuff comes first,” he said. 

The final Hornet to reach 1,000 points came on March 4 when junior Lyvia Misegades hit the milestone  in the sub section semi-finals at Perham High School. 

Even though she had a feeling she would join her dad Steve Misegades in the 1,000 career point club at some point during her high school career, Lyvia said she didn’t know how close she was until the day of the game.

“I knew I was going to get it the day of, but I didn’t think I would get it this year,” said the daughter of Steve and Jodi Misegades. 

While the girls season has come to an end, Tyson Misegades and Mason Hammer will have the opportunity to add to their career totals later this week as the fourth ranked Hornets have advanced to Wednesday’s sub section championship game in Perham.