state tournament

The old adage is that, "Defense wins championships." Modern day football seems to fly in the face of that. The average score in the 2016 Prep Bowl finals was 39-21. Owatonna answers that contradiction by leading the state tournament field in defense and offense.

Owatonna is back at the state tournament, along with five others from last year's field of teams. The Huskies beat Apple Valley before losing to eventual state champ Elk River is 2016. The Eagles and Elks are back.

Recent Owatonna High School graduates Andrew Wall and John Swenson earned the chance to play on a pair of courses at Breezy Point this week.

Owatonna High School's trap shooting team competes at the state championships in Alexandria Friday. This is the Huskies first year of fielding a team in the clay target league.

Medford and Blooming Prairie were among the Class A teams at Alexandria for the opening day of the state trap shooting championships on Monday.

Seven Owatonna athletes will compete at the state track and field meet this week at Hamline. Senior Braydon Kubat can thank current technology for his trip in the 3,200.

The winter sports season ended in a flurry of coverage of six state tournaments over five weekends for me. Thankfully there were zero blizzards to deal with.

Minneapolis DeLaSalle won its sixth straight state boys basketball Class AAA title, beating Austin for the third time in that span 72-44 Saturday.

Oakley Baker closed out his prep career with a spectacular performance in Friday's consolation final, lifting NRHEG to the title with a 77-66 win over Lake City.

NRHEG rallied from a second-half deficit and sent the game to overtime with a buzzer-beating three from Benji Lundberg but lost 70-59 to St. Cloud Cathedral at the boys basketball state tournament.