Henning Happenings

Chad Koenen

One didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the disappointment on the faces of the Henning fans, team and coaches that packed the Otter Fieldhouse in Fergus Falls on Friday night. Henning’s magical basketball season came to an end after posting an amazing 28-2 record, despite being one of the smallest schools in our section and in the bottom quarter of Class A basketball teams for enrollment in the state. 

After posting a combined record of 54-5 between the boys and girls basketball teams this season we shouldn’t focus on the fact we lost, we should celebrate the fact that we continue to show small schools that it is possible to put a competitive team on the court each night. Anyone who doesn’t think Henning is a basketball town must have been living in a cave for the past four months. 

In fact, I would contend a sub section runner up finish for our girls team and a section runner up finish for our boys team is more impressive than three school districts coming together to create a coop and advance to state (this is the first season that Wheaton, Herman-Norcross and Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley have paired for basketball. In the past Wheaton/Herman-Norcross were paired and Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley had their own team. Similar coops have also found immediate success in our area as well). 

I graduated high school in Wheaton and played basketball during my time in school (we even had a game in Henning one year despite it being a two hour bus ride away). My parents still live there and we head back home a few times a year to visit. 

Leading up to the game on Friday night, I received a number of text messages and had a few people stop by the newspaper to jokingly ask who I would be cheering for during the game (it was Henning by the way). My answer was typically some variation of “I did threaten my kids that I would wear my old basketball warm up to the game, which I am still able to squeeze into somehow, but it isn’t Wheaton anymore with their new coop for sports.”

Had they not paired for their sports my answer may have been a bit different, because I continue to feel a bit of loyalty to my old high school, but I have no association with this new coop. 

We have seen these coops pop up before in our area, most recently when Mahnomen and Waubun combined a few years back to create a “super team” of their own. The new coop immediately dominated the area in basketball and football, but after a few years like so many coops do, they have come back to earth as students have opted against traveling to a neighboring community in the dead of winter for a late night practice. 

In Henning, we had brief discussions with Battle Lake a few years ago about combining in all sports. Fortunately, our school boards opted against a similar arrangement for basketball and volleyball as we have with other Otter Tail Central sports. There is a sense of community pride surrounding girls and boys basketball, as well as our volleyball program in Henning. They are the last of the remaining Henning Hornet sports and provide our community an identity that these school districts who are forming these new coops will quickly lose. 

Staying on our own has also provided our students with an opportunity to participate in another activity without having to drive to a neighboring community, which was one of the main arguments for staying on our own for as many sports as we can. Staying on our own for basketball and volleyball can present some challenges in terms of the amount of participants the activity has each year, but on the positive side, more of our students have the opportunity to participate in an activity that will create memories that will last them a lifetime. Winning is important, but providing real life experiences is also a crucial part of helping these teenagers transition into becoming an adult. 

Even though Friday’s loss still stings a bit, we shouldn’t focus on the fact we lost the game, but the fact is a group of teenagers and their coaches once again brought this community together as one. From the stands, you really didn’t get the full effect of what it looked like from the floor to see a sea of orange and black stretching from the floor to the rafters at the Otter Fieldhouse. We are a town of just 800 people, but I would suspect there were over 100 people waiting in the parking lot nearly two hours before the game to get into the gym. 

To put into perspective about how impressive our Henning-only sports were this season, think about it this way—Henning is the smallest school in our conference, yet we took second place in volleyball and went a perfect 14-0 in the conference in both girls and boys basketball. 

Our volleyball team finished with a record of 25-6 and fell to Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa in the Section 6A championship game by a score of 3-2. Not only were we the fourth smallest school in our section with a MSHSL enrollment of 93 students, but we defeated Rothsay (59 students), New York Mills (199 students) and Breckenridge (199 students), before falling to BBE (182 students). There were 20 schools in our section.

In girls basketball we were the fourth smallest out of 20 schools in our section. We finished the season with a record of 26-3 and took second place in the sub section. In the playoffs we defeated Ada-Borup/West (169 students) and Breckenridge (199 students), before falling to Underwood (162 students) in the sub section championship.

The boys basketball team was the third smallest school in our section and finished their season with a 28-2 record and runner up finish in the section. In the playoffs we defeated Underwood (162 students), Hillcrest (101 students) and Battle Lake (132 students), before falling to the coop Border West (a combined 208 students). 

Think about that for a minute and you really get a feeling about how impressive Henning’s seasons were this year. In the playoffs, we played just one school smaller than ours, and most of the schools had an enrollment of twice our size. Yet, we were able to not only compete with them on the court, but in many cases, we had more fans in the stands than any of the teams we played. I would also contend our teams may have been the most respectful and best sports of any of the teams we faced this season, though I may be a bit biased on that one. 

We are proud of their accomplishments on and off the court and continue to be impressed that such a small school can have such success when it comes to wins and losses.

In the end we shouldn’t be disappointed about the outcome, we should be impressed that a tiny school can even have an opportunity to compete for the chance to go to state in the first place. Most places would dream to have just one team compete for a sub section or section championship—yet we had three such opportunities this year. 

Congratulations for all of our winter sports teams, you have given this community a reason to celebrate.