1,000 Points

It used to be that tracking high school basketball athletes who scored 1,000 points wasn’t that tough. In my day (yeah, I know) we played closer to 20 games a year and very few of us played before our sophomore or junior years. 1,000 point was a lot of points.

Well, that’s not to say 1,000 points isn’t still a lot of points. But both boys and girls are playing more like 25 to 30 games a year, and a lot of them are playing in 7th, 8th and 9th grade. So while there used to be a dozen or so high school basketball players scoring 1,000 points in a given year, last year about 140 girls did it alone. You can play 25 games a year for 4 years and score 10 points a game and score 1,000. As if that’s easy. No, it’s not easy. But, seriously, it’s easier than it used to be and, so, tracking the 1,000 pointers is a lot harder, which is precisely why, frankly, Northstar Girls Hoops has not previously tried very hard to be comprehensive in covering it.

Fortunately, my friend Matt Pederson of Starbuck, MN, is up to the task. He’s been tracking 1,000 points for several years now. Minnesota Basketball News used to do it, then Matt volunteered to help them do it, now he’s doing it mostly on his own, though Matt tells me that another friend, Ron Haggstrom of MBN and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, sometimes catches some names that Matt misses. But, bottom line, MBN has stopped publishing the list online.

Which brings us to Northstar Girls Hoops. We’re very pleased that Matt has asked us to publish his list, well, his girls list, which experience tells us is about 98.5 percent accurate. Like I said, Matt has a list of 140 girls from the class of 2017 who did it. And if and when he or anybody else misses somebody, well, then we here at NSGH want to sound the alarm. If anybody sees a name that’s missing and should be on the list, please let us know, and Matt will confirm and document the achievement, and we’ll get it on the list.

The List, Part 1

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll publish the list of active girls players who have scored 1,000 points. Today, we’re starting with those who crossed the 1,000 point threshold so far this year. So if you know of someone, a girl, that is, who scored her 1,000th point this season and she’s not on the following list, please let us know. And watch for more such lists throughout this month.

1,000th Point in November-December 2017

All are class of 2018 except as noted.

Wynter Bergner, Rochester Lourdes

Mallory Brake, Hastings, class of 2020

Maggie Streightiff, Hayfield

Aja Wheeler, Robbinsdale Cooper, class of 2019

Alyssa Whitson, Randolph

Lily Wilson, Pine City, class of 2020

Claire Wolhowe, Staples-Motley

The complete list is located at the bottom of the High School pull-down menu above.