The heartbreaking loss for the Boys Basketball team at the hands of Eagan closed the book on the 2024-25 Winter Sports Season. 11 different teams with 316 student athletes participated in winter sports at Hastings High School (HHS) according to a report from Trent Hanson, Director of Athletics and Activities at HHS.
The end of season recaps begin today with a coverage of girls sports this week. Next week we will cover the boys’ sports as well as Alpine and Nordic skiing which are combined teams. Each sport has its own dedicated story recapping the season. The girls get the nod first because of their tenacity, grit, perseverance, inspiration and determination demonstrated this long winter season. Thank you, ladies, for all of your hard work this winter and for providing entertainment to Raider fans all season long.
End of Season Survey Results
The school surveys athletes to ensure successes beyond wins and losses. Among the positive trends, over 95% of all athletes surveyed agreed on the following: I had fun this year. I improved my skills. I learned life skills to apply outside the game. I developed friendships with teammates. My coach cares about me as a person and defines success by more than wins & losses. I am proud to be a member of this team.
Here are the results of the winter survey.
- Average team survey positivity rate of 97% across all sports & levels.
- Average program retention rate of 83% & multi-sport athlete rate of 67%, both of which surpass our target benchmarks of 80% and 55%.
- Average team GPA of 3.29.
- Nine sports finished top three in the MEC; boys basketball, girls basketball, dance team, girls hockey, gymnastics, boys Nordic, girls Nordic all took third while boys swim & dive and wrestling were both second.
- Combined head-to-head varsity winning percentage of 64% in MEC and 52% overall including playoffs.
- Boys’ and girls’ basketball both hosted a section playoff game in the same year for the first time in ten years. Both teams won and advanced to the section semifinals.
- Wrestling was Section 3AAA Champions and state tournament participant for the sixth consecutive year and ninth time in the last 10 years.
- Girls wrestling had 37 participants (top five rate in state), took third at the Minnesota State High School Coaches Association (MSHSCA) team state tournament, and sent a state-high six individuals to the MSHSL girls individual state tournament.
- Dance Team completed its first-ever MSHSL season. 22 student athletes participated, and the team finished third out of five teams at the MEC conference competition.
- 17 student-athletes qualified for MSHSL state tournaments.
- Four students were named all-state, and nine were academic all-state.
- HHS hosted 114 different home games/events on 47 different dates during the three plus month winter season. HHS also hosted home section playoff events in four different sports.
Raider Sports Awards
The third annual Raiders Sports Awards will be held on Monday, May 5 at 7:00 p.m. in the HHS auditorium. This event celebrates outstanding accomplishments by HHS teams and individuals throughout the year. It features over 20 different award categories for athletes, teams, and coaches. Over 100 different student athletes will be recognized, and the next Wall of Honor class will also be inducted. The alumni guest speaker is Erin Ditty Ahneman (Class of 97). The Raider Sports Awards are free and open to the public.
Journal Sports Club
We are always looking for creative ways to be able to tell the stories of these wonderful student athletes and there are a lot of them. As this story started, 316 students participated in sports this winter. That is a lot of families and a lot of eyes on the stories we put together each week. This effort is supported by the business community through advertising and that takes the support of the entire community from you, the reader, supporting the local businesses of Hastings. We know you do Hastings, and we thank you for that.
We are proud to have been your source for sports stories for the last four plus years and we look forward to decades more coverage of all the local sports teams. It is with this in mind that we have worked to provide a very affordable opportunity to support the Journal Sports section, the Journal Sports Club.
Spring feels like the perfect time to release this fresh idea to you, the weather is getting warmer, new life begins to emerge and everything starts to feel fresh, so why not freshen things up on the sports page?
The Journal Sports Club begins advertising in the April 3 paper with a release of the spring schedules in a format that readers can keep on hand to reference for the entire season. April 10 will have the first stories of the spring sports season which runs to the first week in June for the regular season and section tournaments. The second week of June contains many of the state tournaments which will be reported in the June 17 edition. June 26 will have the Spring recaps.
The Journal Sports Club puts you in each paper from April 3 to June 26 plus, your ad will be included in the Graduation Keepsake insert on June 5. 14 ads total at an insanely low price. Send me an email and let’s talk about how advertising as part of the Journal Sports Club can help your business! Bruce@HastingsJournal.news.