File photo by Travis Rosenau From this Jan. 28, 2025, Journal file photo, Sleepy Eye St. Marys’ Morgan Mathiowetz dribbles the ball down the court during a Tomahawk Division girls basketball game with Wabasso at St. Mary’s High School.

SLEEPY EYE — As Morgan Mathiowetz has grown and developed her game over the years playing basketball at Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s High School, the attention she’s garnered has grown, too.

As she prepares to enter her junior year of high school, the attention and recognition the 5-foot-8 Knights guard has gotten — and her future in basketball — is officially Bison-sized.

After she graduates from St. Mary’s in 2027, Morgan Mathiowetz will play women’s basketball with the Division I North Dakota State University Bison.

Morgan Mathiowetz, already second on the Knights’ all-time scoring list with 2,519 points behind her sister, Madison Mathiowetz, who has the school record with 3,762 points, took her last visit to NDSU the last week of July before her commitment was officially announced Monday.

“The biggest thing was getting on campus to the schools,” Morgan Mathiowetz said. “I think just being there and kind of experiencing it first-hand and seeing all the things was just kind of nice to put it into perspective. Getting on campus was super nice, and I think once I visited NDSU, I just kind of knew.

“Like they always say, ‘When you know, you know,’ but I never really believed it, but it’s kind of true. So I just realized that that’s where I wanted to be the next four years when I start my college journey.”

Morgan Mathiowetz, who is unsure what she will major in but is thinking of something in the medical field or sports related, made her last visit to NDSU the last week of July this year, which led to a quick commitment.

“I visited there when I was in eighth grade maybe, or freshman year, but it was just a thing where I wanted to get back and see what things have changed,” she said. “I just decided within the last two weeks where I wanted to go.”

While she’ll always be Madison Mathiowetz’s little sister and draw obvious comparisons to her, Morgan Mathiowetz has put a big stamp on the Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s girls basketball program already after starting on varsity as an eighth-grader.

As Madison Mathiowetz gears up for her senior year of basketball with the South Dakota State University Jackrabbits, Morgan Mathiowetz will be getting a fresh start at NDSU.

“SDSU was for sure kind of an interest of mine,” Morgan Mathiowetz said. “I think just how successful their program has been over the years, and just kind of the dynasty that they have there in South Dakota was pretty inspiring, and realizing the kind of experiences Maddie has had there was just kind of nice to know the inside of their program and what she had to do to be successful there.

“Just having that in the back of my head, I think I just kind of realized that I wanted to do my own thing. That was the biggest decision was deciding if I wanted to go there [to SDSU] just because having that comfort of knowing what they’re going to expect and things like that, or if I wanted to kind of carve my own path.”

SDSU and NDSU were just two Summit League schools that Morgan Mathiowetz had interest in and from, but they were on her final list as she looked to stay closer to home. With her big sister graduating from SDSU in 2026, Morgan Mathiowetz said that made her decision to pick NDSU easier also.

“I think it would have been definitely a different situation if she would have still been in college when I would have been a freshman,” Morgan Mathiowetz said. “I think just kind of the family aspect of it, like splitting the family up half and half would be challenging since our family likes to make it to a lot of games, so we’re really close.

“I think part of that and then obviously playing against her would have been a different thing. That kind of gives it a different perspective. It can be fun sometimes, but I think it would have been cool to play with her since I only got one year with her in high school. That definitely changes the decision, but obviously that’s not the situation that happened.”

Morgan Mathiowetz also said her cousin from Bemidji, James Hendricks, was a safety for the Bison football team from 2015-2019, and she has some family in North Dakota also.

Averaging 33.6 points, 7.9 rebounds, 5.6 steals and 4.8 assists per game last season with the Knights as a sophomore, Morgan Mathiowetz has been coached on varsity by Bruce Woitas, the longest-tenured basketball coach in the Tomahawk Division as he prepares for his 37th season this winter. Having a stable coaching staff was something Morgan Mathiowetz said she was also looking for when she decided to commit to play for the Bison and head coach Jory Collins, who has been the NDSU women’s basketball head coach since 2019.

“I think the biggest thing for me was the coaches, knowing that they’ve been there for a long time and they’ve all been there together,” she said. “They haven’t had multiple coaches leaving and coming in, they’ve all kind of been there building the legacy that they want to build in Fargo. Just knowing that really felt good knowing all the coaches that recruited me and I’m not going in with four new, fresh faces of coaching.”

Collins has sent Morgan Mathiowetz some things to work on, but the biggest thing mentioned right away was getting her footwork up to college speed.

Morgan Mathiowetz said she has tried to make as many SDSU games as possible over the last several years despite needing to juggle her own basketball schedule. Madison Mathiowetz has equally made her own efforts to get back to the St. Mary’s gym and watch her little sister play over the years, making it to a few games last season. One big game at St. Mary’s High School Madison Mathiowetz was able to make came on Jan. 28 when Morgan Mathiowetz scored her 2,000th career point in a win over Wabasso.

Morgan Mathiowetz’s biggest supporter may very well be her big sister Madison. As Morgan Mathiowetz looks to finish her career at St. Mary’s strong and begin her own journey at a different college, she knows what her big sister has gone through in college and appreciates what it’s done to motivate and prepare her.

“A lot of people don’t realize how hard it is to play at that level,” Morgan Mathiowetz said. “Just knowing the things that she had to go through, the adversity and things like that, and a lot of people just don’t see that side of the sport. They see the things that go well and not necessarily the things that don’t go so well.

“So I think seeing both sides of it and knowing what it’s going to take to play at that level and just kind of the level of standard that they expect there. I think that goes the same for any division or program. It’s never going to be easy, but when things go well, it’s super rewarding.”