St. Louis Park Beats Edina in Lake Farewell
Friday, February 25, 2005
Being the final regular-season home game of the season for the St. Louis Park, it was normal for the school to recognize the seniors in a pre-game ceremony. The game had significance in another way, however, as the 48-42 victory over the Edina Hornets also marked the Orioles’ final game in the Classic Lake Conference, after more than 70 years in one of the Lake Conferences.
The Lake District Conference began in the 1932-33 scholastic year. The schools involved in football that initial season were St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Wayzata, Mound, University High, and Excelsior. Deephaven joined the group for basketball. The structure of the conference changed through the decades, taking out northern and southern suburban schools, as it went through different designations, such as Lake Red and Lake Blue. More recently, some of the core schools—Hopkins, Wayzata, Cooper, Armstrong, Minnetonka, Edina, and St. Louis Park—became part of the Classic Lake Conference as the Lake Conference itself now contains teams from the southern and southwestern Twin Cities metropolitan area. St. Louis Park and Cooper are leaving the Classic Lake to become part of the North Suburban Conference next season.
To mark the event of Park’s Lake Conference participation, the school invited basketball alumni to attend and take part in a halftime ceremony. The first ceremony, however, was held before the game as the squad’s eight seniors, Stanley Scott, Clovis Gray, Arsenio Richardson, Tommy White, Bobby Foulkes, Will Chalfant, and the Wetzel twins, Joe and Adam, were introduced.
Juniors Joe Westlin and Michael Williams joined Richardson and the Wetzels in the starting lineup, and coach Larry Ronglien made few substitutions. Chalfant entered after Williams picked up his second foul in the first quarter. Other than a brief appearance by Brian Thompson for Westlin in the fourth quarter, Ronglien stayed with this lineup the rest of the game.
Edina took early leads of 4-0 and 9-6, but the Orioles went on top for good at 10-9 on a Westlin field goal midway through the first quarter, which Park capped on a three-point basket by Joe Wetzel at the buzzer for a 20-13 lead.
Edina scored the first three baskets of the second quarter to cut the lead to one, but that’s as close as the Hornets came the rest of the game. The Orioles held a five-point lead at halftime and extended it to 11 as Richardson and Joe Wetzel opened the second half with three-point baskets.
St. Louis Park was ahead 42-34 after three quarters and started the fourth quarter with a basket. The Hornets came back with six straight points, and had the chance to make it even closer after Adam Wetzel missed the front end of a one-and-one. Ryan Walden had a couple of open shots for three-point baskets for Edina in the final minutes, but neither dropped.
Richardson capped the scoring with two free throws and tried to go one better as he stole the ball, raced downcourt, and tried—unsuccessfully—to finish his home career with a dunk as the game ended.
Joe Wetzel was game-high with 15 points. Adam Wetzel was the only other Oriole in double figures, with 12 points. Six-foot-eight senior center Tom Watson led the Hornets with 12 points. Edina outrebounded the Orioles 27-24, and Tom Walthour was the leading rebounder with eight.
The former players and coaches introduced at halftime were Chad Austad, Kyle Beste, Wes Bodin, Cliff Bohmbach, Dick Bracher, Chuck DeRemer, Ken Drebenstedt, Phil Frerk, Steve Haggar, Lloyd Holm, Bob McFarlin, Chuck McFarlin, Tom Morgan, Don Schimmel, Roger Thompson, and Al Wachutka.
DeRemer was the only player present from the 1962 state champion team, but the highlight of the ceremony was the introduction of that team’s head coach, Lloyd Holm. Holm, now 93, coached a variety of sports at the high-school level. His greatest achievements came in basketball, and he coached that sport at Eyota, Benson, Red Wing, Denfeld in Duluth, and St. Louis Park, where he also was involved in a variety of roles in physical education and athletics from 1949 to 1977. He also created the curriculum for and supervised St. Louis Park’s Elementary Physical Education Program.
In basketball, Holm’s teams won conference and district championships at Benson, Red Wing, Denfeld, and St. Louis Park. He took Red Wing to the championship game of the state high-school basketball tournament in 1940 and 1941. In 1947, his Denfeld team won the state championship, and he repeated that feat at St. Louis Park in 1962 when the Orioles won the Minnesota high-school basketball championship. His feat of coaching two different schools to state championships, and bringing three different teams to the title game, was unprecedented during the single-class era.
Holm is a member of the Luther College Hall of Fame and the Minnesota High School Coaches Hall of Fame and next September will be inducted into the St. Louis Park High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
In addition to Holm, the school announced the names of the 23 other charter members of its Hall of Fame:
Bert Baston, football, 1912
Frances Bradley, football, basketball, baseball, track, 1949-51
Sally Callahan, synchronized swimming coach, 1957-93
Deb Cordner, gymnastics, track, cross country, 1995-98
Amy Davidson, basketball, soccer, track, 1982-86
Chuck Engel, soccer, basketball, track, 1972-73
Bob Fitch, football, basketball, track, 1934-37
Roy Griak, track and cross country coach, 1952-63
John Hansen, football, basketball, track, 1944-46
Warren Jeppesen, basketball, 1953-55
Nancy Knauer, swimming, softball, 1984-86
Sue Kragseth, basketball, 1976-79
Jerry Krueger, football, track, and wrestling coach, 1943-52
Joanne E. Kutzler, synchronized swimming, 1966-69
Terry Leiendecker, soccer, basketball, track, 1978-80
Bruce Mortenson, track, cross country, 1960-62
Jim Petersen, basketball, 1978-80
Erik Rasmussen, hockey, 1993-95
Dick Seaberg, basketball, football, track, 1949-1951
Pete Shapiro, gymnastics, 1974-75
Bob Stein, football, basketball, track, baseball, 1963-65
Bob Wagner, track, cross country, 1962-65
Tom Zanna, swimming, 1964-65