MSU President's Newspaper Column
February 15, 2025
Basketball will dominate at the Lewy Lee the end of February and into March
In a just a short while, we’ll be rolling out the red carpet for the Region 2A high school girls basketball players, coaches, and fans when they participate in the regional tournament hosted at Mayville State University’s Lewy Lee Fieldhouse Feb. 24, 25, and 27. Prior to last year, it had been a long time since we’d had the opportunity to host high school basketball tournaments, and we are extremely excited and honored to be involved again this year.
As you may know, the North Dakota High School Activities Association rolled out a new organizational structure last year. Regions and divisions are quite a bit different from when we hosted the tournaments years ago. Division 2A schools are Carrington, Devils Lake, Four Winds/Minnewaukan, Grafton, Hillsboro/Central Valley, and Thompson.
The teams will play games starting at 5:30 each evening. The second games of the night will start 20 minutes after the first games finish up.
Mayville State will host girls Division A state qualifier games on Saturday, March 1. Teams who placed second or third in their regional tournaments will play in these games for a chance to go to state. The Region 1 second place team will play against the Region 2 third place team at 1 p.m. The Region 2 second place team will play against the Region 1 third place team at 3 p.m. Additional Division A state qualifier games will be played in Minot.
The state tournament for Division A girls will be held in Minot March 6-8.
Mayville State athletic director Rocky Larson and assistant Billy Tomblin are working closely with the North Dakota High School Activities Association representatives to make sure we’re prepared and ready to accommodate our campus visitors. We thank tournament manager Dave Nelson of Hillsboro, who is instrumental in making sure we’ve got all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed, for helping to secure Mayville State’s opportunity to host the tournament games.
To ensure that we’re providing the best possible accommodations for those who participate in and attend the tournament games, things like concessions, hospitality rooms, parking, and so much more are being considered. I tip my hat to the Mayville State Athletic Department and all Mayville State employees, including Dining Services and Facilities Services, who are working hard to make it all come together.
One of the considerations we need to plan for is to accommodate practice opportunities for our Mayville State teams throughout the high school tournament time. While all of this is going on, our men’s and women’s basketball, softball, and baseball teams will be practicing as their seasons are also in session. We appreciate the understanding and cooperation of our own Mayville State coaches and athletes, as well as faculty members, who are doing whatever they can to help make it possible to do it all in a short period of time. This is teamwork at its finest!
We’re coming into the home stretch of our Mayville State basketball regular season play. As of this writing, the men sit in third place in the North Star conference, two games ahead of Bellevue and three games back from Jamestown. They are 15-10 overall and 6-6 in the conference. The women improved to 17-7 overall and 7-5 in conference play after a win over Jamestown Saturday, Feb. 8. With the win, the women moved to one game ahead of Jamestown for second place in the NSAA standings. The teams played at Dakota State and Bellevue the weekend of Feb. 14 and 15 and will host their final home games of the season Friday, Feb. 21 when they host Valley City State.
Go to www.msucomets.com to keep current with all things related to Mayville State Athletics and please do join us at the games whenever you can. Our student athletes and coaches very much appreciate the amazing support they receive from members of the community.