Dec. 27—In the 90-year history of amateur baseball state championships in South Dakota, it’s hard to make history.
But the Parkston Rays did just that in 2025.
The amateur baseball team got hot in August and won the Class B state championship in their first state tournament appearance and their third season as a club. The surprise run leads the Mitchell Republic’s list of top sports stories for 2025.
In the championship game on Aug. 17 in Brandon, the Rays were down five runs in the eighth inning
before they rallied
to win 10-8 over the Hartford/Humboldt Gamecocks and finish the season with a 20-9 record, winning nine of their final 10 games.
The Rays beat Madison, defending champions Dell Rapids PBR, Kimball/White Lake and Sunshine League rival Alexandria to reach the title round. Jake Helleloid was the tournament MVP, with two pitching wins and 20 strikeouts in three appearances. Fresh on a second-place finish in the Class B Legion season, Parkston’s Legion duo Carter Sommer and James Deckert
were key cogs in the Rays’ championship run
, as well.
The Rays’ run was
believed to be the first team
in nearly 50 years to make a state championship game in their debut as a club.
Here’s a look at many of the other top stories from the Mitchell-area sports year that was 2025:
2. Bates soars for Kernel gymnastics, while MHS takes second
Bentley Bates capped a brilliant gymnastics career by rewriting the uneven bars record books both for Mitchell High School and at the state competition in February.
Bates won the
uneven bars for the second year in a row
at the Class AA state meet on Feb. 15 in Watertown, scoring 9.917 to set a state meet record. One week earlier, Bates set the Kernel
all-time record
of 9.925 prior to the state competition in Sioux Falls. She was undefeated in the uneven bars event for the season.
Bates became Mitchell’s first repeat champion in an individual event since Amelia Rew did it in 2008 and 2009 on vault, and became only the third Kernel gymnast all-time with at least three individual state titles.
As for the state team competition,
Harrisburg bested Mitchell in the points race
, posting the highest team score in more than 50 years of the meet, denying the Kernels’ bid for a three-peat. Nevertheless, Mitchell had four all-tournament performers, including Bates, Olivia Prunty, Kyanna Gropper and Keyana Kelley.
3. Mitchell boys basketball takes second, makes third title game in a row
Once again, the Mitchell High School boys basketball team put together a strong run into March, playing in the Class AA state championship game
for the third season in a row
and claiming second place for coach Ryker Kreutzfeldt.
The Kernels finished 20-4 and reached the state title game in Rapid City after wins over No. 5 Huron and No. 1 Sioux Falls Lincoln before playing Brandon Valley in the title round for the second year in a row. The Lynx used a
sharp second half to take down the Kernels
53-45.
At season’s end, senior guard Markus Talley was the
Mitchell Republic’s player of the year
for a second-straight year and Class AA’s player of the year, while Gavin Hinker and Colton Smith were both all-state second-team selections. The Kernels were 62-10 in that three-year span of reaching the state title game.
4. DWU men’s basketball coaching changes hands again
For the second offseason in a row, the Tiger men’s basketball team underwent a leadership change, as one-year head coach Kevin Williamson
departed for DWU’s non-conference rivals at Dakota State University
on April 22. That came after a 20-10 season and the Tigers’ first NAIA tournament appearance since 2020.
Just a few days later, DWU promoted assistant coach Sam Nicholson to be the program’s new head coach at 28 years old. Nicholson had coached under both Williamson and Matt Wilber at DWU, and
reversed course to become the Tiger head coach
after accepting a Division II assistant coaching job before Williamson’s departure.
5. DWU volleyball with a surprise national tournament spot
For the first time in three seasons, the Dakota Wesleyan University volleyball team
made a surprise run
at the NAIA national tournament. And as it turned out, that was merely the start of their best play of the season.
Picked fifth in the preseason in the Great Plains Athletic Conference, the Tigers won nine of their final 13 matches before the national tournament. From there, they defeated No. 23 Park University of Missouri in the opening round to reach the final 24 in Sioux City, Iowa. DWU then defeated No. 14 The Master’s (Calif.) and pushed No. 3 Concordia (Neb.) to five sets to finish 2-1 at the national tourney. In the final poll, DWU was ranked No. 18 and was
led by All-Americans Kayleigh Hybertson and Lizzie Tyler
, who were the conference’s setter and defender of the year, respectively.
6. MCS’ Silas Holdeman continues Class B distance running dominance
The Golden Eagles’ running standout had another highly successful 2025,
capped by his return to the winner’s circle
on Oct. 25 in Huron, claiming the Class B boys state cross country championship.
One year after Holdeman finished second for the Class B cross country title by 0.03 seconds, the Golden Eagles’ junior became the seventh Class B runner since 2000 to win two state championships. In the spring track season, Holdeman also won the 1,600- and 3,200-meter Class B track championships on May 30 in Sioux Falls,
winning both of those events
for the second season in a row.
7. Freeman/Marion/Freeman Academy wins a state football title.
Cruising through Class 9AA, the Phoenix marched its way to a 12-0 record and an undefeated season. FMFA averaged more than 47 points per game on offense, allowed 10 points per game on defense and
claimed the state championship
on Nov. 13 by a score of 46-22 over Elkton-Lake Benton in Vermillion. It was the final game for the Phoenix co-op as constructed, with the Marion school district joining up with Parker for all sports starting in 2026.
The state champion Phoenix finished with
five picks to the Class 9AA all-state team
, coached by Dustin Tschetter. The team was led by senior quarterback Riley Tschetter, who accounted for 43 total touchdowns and
was selected as the Mitchell Republic football player of the year
.
8. Bon Homme’s Hellmann goes five-for-five
Bon Homme/Scotland/Avon wrestling standout Peyton Hellmann
made history in February
with her fifth state wrestling championship as a senior, the first girl in South Dakota to reach that threshold. That made for one state title for each of the first five sanctioned seasons of girls wrestling in South Dakota.
She finished her senior season with a 45-0 record and won the 145-pound championship at the state meet in Rapid City. Hellmann capped her high school career with 128 consecutive wins and never lost a state tournament match, finishing as the most outstanding girls wrestler of the championships. Hellmann, a
three-time Mitchell Republic girls wrestler of the year
, is now wrestling at Fort Hays State in Kansas, which is ranked in the top 10 as a team nationally.
9. Mitchell volleyball returns to the state tournament
After a series of tough seasons, including a three-win season in 2024, the Mitchell Kernel volleyball team
bounced back in a big way
with 16 wins and a return to the Class AA state tournament for the first time since 2018.
Mitchell was ranked in the top five in the South Dakota Prep Media poll earlier in the season, earned a couple of ranked wins over Watertown and Rapid City Stevens and defeated Spearfish in the SoDak 16 to reach the state tournament in Rapid City. Mitchell finished in eighth place at the state tournament.
The Kernels were led by senior setter Addie Siemsen, who
claimed the Mitchell Republic’s volleyball player of the year
honors.
10. Ryan Miller lands his first head coaching job at Murray State
Longtime college basketball assistant and Mitchell High School graduate Ryan Miller took over his first head coaching job at Murray State University in Kentucky, and
was formally introduced
on March 27. Miller, 50, who also hired Mitchell product Ernie Kuyper to be his general manager for the Racers,
won his debut game in November in Sioux Falls
over Omaha and has a 10-3 record as of Dec. 22.
Miller had a 20-plus-year Division I assistant coaching career working for the likes of John Calipari, Steve Alford, Tony Barbee, Jamie Dixon and, most recently, four seasons as the lead assistant coach under Greg McDermott at Creighton University, before taking the Murray State job.
Honorable mention stories from 2025: Mitchell girls basketball takes fifth place at state tournament … SDSU women win 30 games and a game at the NCAA tournament. … DWU women’s basketball returns to the NAIA national tourney. … USD football reaches the FCS quarterfinals, while both SDSU and USD have first-year head coaches. … KWLPG’s Lucas Lenz wins state title as undefeated wrestler … SCW girls basketball finishes second in Class B. … More than 300 players participated in the largest SDGA golf tournament in state history.
