Outside Looking In

He heard the cheers

The boisterous Minneota student section made it known who they wanted to see playing late in the boys' basketball game against Tracy-Milroy-Balaton last Friday night; their screams of "Put Jack in" directed at the coaching staff.
And when Jackson Lacek's number was called, the crowd turned the noise level up another decibel or two as he wandered over to the scorer's table to check into the game with 5:24 left.
He only had to wait 14 seconds for a stoppage in play before he stepped on the court for the final 5:10 of the game.
Lacek, one of only two seniors on this year's Minneota basketball team, has played sparingly this season. His chance to get off the bench is generally when the outcome has been well decided. He was hoping this would be one of those nights, especially since it would be the last home game that he and Anthony Rybinski would play in their prep hoops careers.
"We were up by 20 at halftime and I was thinking I might get to play tonight," Lacek told me the next day. "But then we started out a little slow in the second half so I said to myself, 'Oh, please no'."
Midway through the second half and the Vikings comfortably ahead is when Lacek admitted that he could hear fans yelling for the coaches to put him in.
"If I get to play, it's usually with around two or three minutes left on the average," Lacek noted. "I was a little surprised when the assistant coaches came over to me and said I was going in with around six minutes left. I could really hear them cheering behind me when they saw that I was going in."
Lacek admitted he was a little nervous to be thrust into the spotlight like he was.
"I hadn't taken a shot since halftime warmups and I didn't want to mess up," he explained.
Those nerves quickly dissipated, though, as soon as Lacek touched the ball.
With fans yelling for him to shoot, Lacek kept giving up a shot and instead flung the ball to a teammate, who would toss it right back to him as if to say "Take the shot."
"I didn't want to be selfish," the personable Lacek would explain. "I like to try and help my teammates score when I go in."
Selfish he wasn't. In a review of the tape, Lacek passed the ball 13 times in his five-plus minutes on the court. He took only two shots, but they were both memorable ones.
With 2:14 left in the game, Lacek found himself all alone just outside the three-point arc on the left side. Peyton Sheik passed the ball to him and the TMB defender told Lacek "just shoot it" as he gave Lacek some space. Lacek let it fly and the cords danced as the ball descended through. The referee raised both arms up to signify a successful three-pointer.
Most of the student section fans stood and cheered. Some gave a fist pump as to emphasize their happiness.
As Lacek started running to the other end of the court, the TMB defender told him half-jokingly "I guess I'll actually have to guard you now."
Lacek admittedly felt relieved at scoring a basket in his final home game.
But the story wasn't over just yet.
With the game nearing its conclusion, Minneota's Lincoln Jerzak blocked a shot and Lacek grabbed the rebound. He quickly dribbled the ball upcourt and with no defender approaching, he decided to fire off another shot from behind the three-point line with just over 10 seconds to go. This shot hit the mark, too, splashing the nylon mesh for his second triple of the night and the 15th for the Vikings as a team.
The crowd was even louder than when Lacek dropped in his first long-range basket.
Minneota won the game, 81-55, and Lacek won the hearts of the young fans in the crowd.
"A bunch of the little kids came up and congratulated me after the game," he said. "They even knew my name. That was really a good feeling."
Lacek might be small in stature, standing only 5-foot-5, but he came up big on Friday night.

Rich & Roger

Last week I penned a feature story on Tucker Novotny, the opening-day starting pitcher for the Minneota Gophers whose father, Paul, is a Minneota graduate now living in Cottage Grove, and his grandfather, Rich, was the band director here for many years.
After the article was published, I was informed by Tucker's uncle, Greg Novotny that Rich was also a high school pitcher for Breckenridge and that he took the mound against Roger Maris, who then played for Fargo Shanley.
Maris, as many of you probably know, went on to star for the New York Yankees as an outfielder and hit 61 home runs in 1961, a record that stood for many years until Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals broke it on Sept. 18, 1998.
Maris continued to hold the American League record for home runs in a season until Aaron Judge of the Yankees broke it on Oct. 4, 2022.