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A look back: A historic run for New Ulm girls’ basketball

This photo appeared in the 1983-84 New Ulm High School yearbook. In the photo, Shelly Herzog, now Shelly Boelter, takes a jump shot at the old New Ulm High School. The 1982-83 and 1983-84 New Ulm girls’ basketball teams lost only two games combined in two years.

NEW ULM — Last Friday’s Big South Conference girls’ basketball championship loss left a bit of a sour taste in the mouths of New Ulm basketball fans. The Eagles clinched the East Division title earlier in the week but lost to Pipestone Area for the outright conference title.

New Ulm last won a girls’ basketball conference title in 1987. But some fans will remember when a new program at New Ulm started a run of success in what was the South Central Conference at the time.

The 1982-83 and 1983-84 New Ulm girls’ basketball teams had a two-year run that will more than likely never be duplicated. In that span, the Eagles combined to go 42-2 overall and 36-0 in the South Central Conference. While they missed out on going to state, it was still an experience that the fans and players will never forget.

The Eagles’ girls basketball program began in 1974 and competed during the fall season. They struggled that year, going 3-9 overall. The next year, they went 6-7 overall, but the program slipped to 1-15 in 1976-77 and 2-16 in 1977-78. The Eagles then went 5-14 (78-79), 2-16 (79-80) and 8-11 in 80-81.

The 1981-82 season was a big year for the program. For the first time in the program’s history, a winning record was posted as it went 14-7 and 7-5 in the SCC, good enough for third place in the conference.

That was a sign of good things to come. In 1982-83, New Ulm did the unthinkable, going undefeated in the regular season before losing to Chaska 4-28 in the Region 2AA playoffs. The Eagles finished that season 20-1 and 12-0 in the SCC.

“It’s something I’ll never forget, I still think back to those two years (the 82-83 and 83-84 seasons) when we were undefeated,” Shelly Boelter [then Shelly Herzog] said, who graduated from NUHS after the 1984 season. “It was pretty remarkable, but then we had that region loss and that was quite a crusher.”

The Eagles had pretty much everyone coming back the next year and expectations were even higher for the 83-84 season.

“Not to sound overconfident, but we truly felt that we had everything we needed to get to the state tournament as far as the team goes,” Boelter said. “We were a little bit stronger and [we had] a little bit more experience.”

In that 83-84 season, the Eagles again cruised through the regular season unbeaten. They finished the year 22-1, the only loss coming in the playoffs to Willmar in a 54-53 contest right before the state tournament.

Again, it was tough a tough way to end the season after so much hope.

“I just remember it was a big letdown, everyone was pretty taken by it when we did lose,” Boelter said. “We truly thought that we had the group and that we had the talent to get to the state, but you just never know.”

Deb Donnelly, then Deb Winter, averaged about 15 points and 10 rebounds during the 83-84 season, which was her senior year. She said that the loss to Willmar was tough on not only the players, but those who followed the team.

“We were all just sick over it and so were all our fans,” Donnelly said. “We just felt ill, but as the week went on, we were lifting each other up with positive things about the season.”

Donnelly said that those two teams (82-83, 83-84) brought attention to New Ulm girls’ basketball, something that the program had lacked prior to that run.

“It was a really good time, one thing that I remember was that when we first started playing, the boys would have a full gym,” Donnelly said. “It was after our first year of success, then the second year we were winning, the gym started to get a lot more fans coming. That was exciting instead of playing in an empty gym. But everyone got along really well.”

Boelter and Donnelly said that the team’s ability to play together was definitely the key to the success. The players spent a lot of time working on their game together and the team was very balanced in terms of scoring at multiple positions on the floor.

Those talented team were coached by Kathy Goodrich, who came to New Ulm after being a part of the New York Mills coaching staff before that.

“She was good to play for and I just remember she always tried to instill that positive attitude,” Boelter said. “I remember in one of our first sub-region games, she just told us don’t ever have any doubts and go back out there. We just felt like we could win every game.”

After their high school days, Boelter and Donnelly went on to play college basketball at South Dakota State University and Karin Olson went to Southwest State University to play.

And while a few played at the next level, that two-year run at NUHS was indeed incredible for those who played.

“I’ve never forgotten about it, it was quite an experience and it’s something that I’ll never forget,” Boelter said. “It was pretty monumental as far as being a part of that team.”

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