Kernel championship notebook: Key subs make a difference in title game victory

Mar. 19—Following Mitchell's 46-45 title triumph over Brandon Valley, head coach Ryker Kreutzfeldt was asked who deserved a game ball. And without hardly any hesitation, he offered a name.

"How about Mason Herman?"

A 6-foot-4 junior forward, Herman had played 13 minutes all season entering the state tournament. But in Sioux Falls, he was called upon late in the first half of both the state semifinal and championship games, providing valuable frontcourt cover for the Kernels, who were battling foul trouble in both contests.

Playing just shy of five minutes for the tournament, including three in the title game, Herman grabbed two rebounds, tripling his season total. The state championship was only Herman's seventh varsity game of his career.

"I didn't expect Mason Herman to be playing (key) minutes in the first half, and I don't know if Mason was either," Kreutzfeldt said. "... It's fitting because, at the beginning of the year, the question was: Mitchell has these three guys, but do they have a team? At times, that was still a question throughout the year. But at the state tournament, this was a team, and every single player on the floor contributed."

Summoning Herman was one of a few key defense adjustments for the Kernels in the second half. The Kernels also switched over Parker Mandel to take on a bigger assignment in the second half on 6-foot-8 Josh Olthoff to save the Kernels from further foul trouble, while Gavin Soukup moved over to guard 6-foot-6 Hayden Anderson.

Mitchell had three seniors on the roster this season, and while Soukup earned his share of attention from his play, Kreutzfeldt commended the efforts of fellow seniors Nic Moller and Abe Gunnare.

Moller, a 6-foot forward, noted that he's been a part of Kernel teams that are meaningful to him but the 2024 group of Kernel basketball players will take the cake.

"We've got a lot of guys that are really close and that continued to develop," Moller said. We've been playing basketball together since the first grade. Last year's group was close, but this was a special team."

Gunnare and Moller were key pieces of the scout team, regularly challenging the starters in practice to prepare for games. Gunnare, a 6-foot-8 forward, noted that those practices can get testy but their role is to push the starters.

"And we push back, we make it tough on them and make them mad sometimes," Gunnare said of practices. "But we want to make the team as good as we can. You have to get them better, no matter what."

Moller was a perfect 1-for-1 on the season shooting from the field, with the coaching staff joking with him about not shooting in Friday's semifinal blowout in order to retain his Kernel record with a 100% field goal percentage. Gunnare, however, stole the show in that game by hitting a fadeaway shot from the post that sent the Kernel fans into huge cheers to end the game.

"(Coach) Pat Larson, my freshman year, he was trying to get me to not do the fadeaway shot but it was always what I went to, what I was most comfortable with," Gunnare said. "I didn't really think about it (against Washington) but I got in the game and it was just the move and of course, it went in, which was great."

Moller said the legacy of the championship team is something he's looking forward to celebrating in the future as they grow older.

"Coming back and seeing it, it's something you're going to think about forever," Moller said. "With the type of bond we've made and how special this team was, it will be easy to remember it forever."

There's no shortage of hardware to commemorate Mitchell's season, with a state championship trophy, gold medals, Eastern South Dakota Conference champion and state qualifier plaques and nets from the Corn Palace and Premier Center among them.

But following Saturday's title win, there was one piece missing — championship rings — with the Kernels eagerly pointing to their empty ring fingers in celebration on Saturday night.

"Our student manager Canon Moller brought it up when we got back to the hotel, he was asking, 'Are we getting rings, coach? And I hadn't really thought about it and I had to say, 'Heck yeah, we're getting rings,'" Kreutzfeldt said. "It's exciting stuff for the kids."

"We've been looking at them," Gavin Soukup said on Sunday. "There's some pretty good ideas out there and we were looking at what Roosevelt did a few years ago when they won it. ... We're excited about that."

During Sunday's welcome home celebration, it was a chance to recognize the "old guys" and the "young guys" on the Kernel coaching staff.

There's Pat Moller and Pat Larson, the self-described "old guys" who each have more than 20 years experience coaching Kernel sports, including long tenures with the basketball program. And then there's Matt Henriksen and Travis Salmonson, who were in their first year on the Kernel boys staff.

Together, under Kreutzfeldt, it was a winning combination for the Kernel boys in 2024.

Moller, a Stickney native, has more than 20 years of experience coaching Kernel basketball, starting as a seventh-grade basketball coach at the middle school. Larson was on the 1990 Class AA championship team and he said he thinks about that team every time he walks into the Corn Palace for practice and sees that gold title banner on the wall.

"Last year, we were right there and we could feel it. Coach (Kreutzfeldt) talked about it all year, it was unfinished business," Larson said after the game Saturday. "The last few minutes were tough but the kids didn't back down. ... It is the most wonderful feeling you can have."

The Kernel ties for Henriksen and Salmonson are obvious. Henriksen played for Gary Munsen's final teams and played in two state championships. He was previously a Kernel girls assistant for head coach Wes Morgan, served as boys head coach at Sanborn Central/Woonsocket and returned to the Kernel sidelines this season with the boys team. Salmonson, who was a member of the Kernels' state championship team in 2005, was a late addition to the coaching staff, jumping aboard about a week before the season started, Mitchell Activities Director Cory Aadland said.

"This is a rare group, four Mitchell graduates on the staff, hometown boys," Larson said on Sunday at the team welcome home event. "And coach Moller, he's been coaching almost as long as Salmy and Henriksen have been alive. He's an adopted son of Mitchell, at this point."