Though 2024 was hardly a bad year by any means in the Northland sports landscape, it might have been less about what happened and more about what is to come.
Even for a Northland football player, Koi Perich was well-known when he started training camp at the University of Minnesota, but the freshman defensive back quickly became a household name, earning all-Big Ten First Team honors at his position in his first taste of college football.
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The Esko native had five interceptions, including two in one game in the Rose Bowl at UCLA, and served as the Gophers’ primary kick returner.
And he’s got three years of eligibility remaining.
High school football in the Northland continued without Perich, and though Esko no longer held a dominant position, Hermantown (AAAA), Moose Lake/Willow River (AA), Mountain Iron-Buhl and Cromwell-Wright (IX-Player) all reached the state tournament, while in Wisconsin, Northwestern and Northwood/Solon Springs both came within one win of their respective state championship games.
Across the Minnesota campus, Isaac Asuma (Cherry) already made a name for himself at Williams Arena, taking the Tigers to “The Barn” for a third consecutive Minnesota state boys basketball tournament and this time, coming home with the trophy.
The Tigers dazzled Fertile-Beltrami with an unparalleled display of passing prowess in March’s Class A final. They scored the first 11 points, led by 22 at the half and cruised to a 78-40 victory and a first state championship.
Their games are very different, but the comparisons between Asuma and Hibbing-born Hall of Famer Kevin McHale were obvious before Asuma’s first Gophers game. Asuma has already made himself comfortable with Minnesota, averaging 5.2 points, 2.5 assists and 3.3 rebounds in 25.5 minutes per game in 12 appearances at the college level.
The arrival of the Plante brothers, Zam and Max, of Hermantown, was expected to put a charge into a Minnesota Duluth men’s hockey program that suffered a second-consecutive disappointing season in 2023-24. Their 12-20-5 mark served as their fewest wins in a season in nearly two decades.
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UMD reached the 2024 Christmas break 5-10 overall and 2-6 in NCHC play. Zam Plante is fourth on the team in scoring while Max still achieved selection to Team USA at the ongoing World Junior Championships in Ottawa (alongside UMD teammate Adam Kleber) despite missing 10 games with an arm injury suffered on the first weekend of the season.
The UMD hockey community suffered another significant loss when longtime coach Mike Sertich died in August after a lengthy bout with pancreatic cancer. Sertich, a true son of the Iron Range, and source of innumerable legendary yarns on and off the ice, led the Bulldogs into prominence in the 1980s and continued piloting the program for 18 seasons. His predecessor, Gus Hendrickson, also passed away in January.
The Hermantown Hawks who succeeded the Plante brothers won a 14th Section 7A boys hockey championship in the last 15 years, but their title defense ended in a defeat to St. Cloud Cathedral in the championship game at Xcel Energy Center. In Class AA, Grand Rapids played what was likely the game of the tournament, extending White Bear Lake’s infamous quarterfinal losing streak with a last-second game-winning goal before exiting in the semifinals at the hands of eventual champion Edina.
Away from the “X,” former Duluth East head coach Mike Randolph piloted St. Thomas Academy to within a win of both the state tournament and the state record for coaching wins before administrators chose not to renew his contract in the summer. He took over the previously unheralded Northern Lakes program based in Pequot Lakes, achieving the record of 708 in November at the first attempt.
The UMD women’s hockey program might have been expected to take a step back after their 2023-24 season ended in a 9-0 regional rout at the hands of Ohio State one game short of the Frozen Four and head coach Maura Crowell opted to take a closer job to her roots, at Dartmouth. However, when the new campaign began under new head coach Laura Schuler, UMD made a big statement by beating the Buckeyes twice in the same Columbus bullring where their previous season ended. They have remained fixtures in the top five of the national rankings, went into Christmas in second place in the WCHA and have the potential advantage of hosting the WCHA Final Faceoff in Duluth in March.
It’s gonna be a busy season for the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center: Amsoil Arena recently had a new scoreboard installed, and the DECC Arena next door will host the nation’s best curlers when the national championships for men and women start in late January, returning to the Northland for the first time since 2008 in Hibbing and to the Twin Ports for the first time since 1999.
A couple blocks away from the DECC in Canal Park, it was a little touch-and-go if Grandma’s Marathon would go off at all in June, due to a bad weather forecast for race day. After the green flag was officially given in the wee hours of June 22, conditions for the 48th annual running were merely inconvenient, as a steady light rain fell on much of the course.
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It didn’t affect the elites, as Kenyan Elisha Barno became the event’s only six-time champion after winning the men’s race in 2:10:54. The women’s course record was smashed by Belarusian Volha “Olga” Mazuronak. Prevented from competing at this year’s Summer Olympics in Paris due to political matters related to her home country’s support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mazuronak tore through the raindrops to get to the finish line in 2:23:52, leading by more than 70 seconds at the halfway point and more than six minutes at the finish.
The men’s and women’s course records also fell in the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon. Minnesota native and two-time marathon champion Dakotah Lindwurm, running the half as training for her appearance in the Paris Olympic marathon later in the summer, was under the previous course record. However, training partner Annie Frisbie of Wisconsin was the winner in 1:07:33.
Lindwurm did well for herself in Paris, briefly leading the race at mile 15 and finishing 12th overall and best among Americans.
Registration for the 2025 marathon sold out in a matter of weeks, and the half marathon in a matter of hours. Just imagine what registration might be like when the event celebrates its golden anniversary in 2026.
The Trust Project
