Decades ago, Matt Christensen was a face paint-wearing superfan watching his older brothers compete inside Rochester’s Mayo Civic Arena during the boys basketball section tournament.

He can recall feelings of excitement, but also heartbreak, seeing the Northfield Raiders lose, falling short of advancing to the state tournament. When it was his turn to represent the Raiders, Christensen experienced the same feeling of defeat before graduating from Northfield in 2005.

His nephew, Blake, suffered that same fate.

Similar stories have been shared across generations of Northfield grads since the Raiders last played in the state tourney in 1932.

The sport’s longest state tournament drought for a non-cooperative program finally ended Thursday, March 12, when Northfield defeated Austin 60-51 in the Class 3A, Section 1 championship game. Northfield is the fourth seed in the Class 3A state tournament and will face No. 5 seed Mankato East on Wednesday, March 25, in a quarterfinal at Williams Arena.

“I think Amelia Earhart was flying around the world,” Christensen said about the team’s last state trip. “The outpouring of alumni support here has been amazing.”

Led by Kayden Oakland, who will play football at South Dakota State and also participates in track and field, and solid role players, the Raiders improved from 15 wins last season to 25 wins entering this year’s state tournament.

“The number of people who have reached [out] is off the charts,” said Christensen, who was hired as coach in 2022. “Community members, if you go downtown, are clapping for us. It’s just been an outpouring of support.”

The Raiders aren’t the only team igniting support from students and community members. In Class 1A, Southland, Hills-Beaver Creek and Liberty Classical are all making first-ever trips to state.

Pressure to make state

As Northfield showed potential this season, alumni, from the 1960s to 2020s, started to believe this could be the team to finally break the drought.

The pressure started to weigh on current players like a “94-year-old, 800-pound Gorilla,” Christensen said jokingly.

“It was kind of an odd position to be in going into the section final,” he said. “It was an odd mix of emotions.”

The Raiders have toughness and resolve, though. That started after a season-opening, 74-72 road loss to Mankato East, last year’s Class 3A state runner-up.

Oakland, who has averaged 20 points, nine rebounds and four assists this season, said the loss let the players know they could compete with any team. After the loss, Northfield won 15 straight games, including gaining revenge against Mankato East in the Jan. 24 rematch with a 62-58 home triumph.

“We really came together because we knew this could be it,” said Oakland, who in a section semifinal win vs. Byron became Northfield’s all-time leading scorer.

In the section final against Austin, Northfield trailed by 10 points in the first half with Oakland, standing 6-feet-4 and weighing 230 pounds, limited. He would finish the game with 12 points. The Raiders weren’t fazed. Oakland’s younger brother Liam, a sophomore guard, led a second-half surge and finished with a season-high 20 points. Senior JT Graupmann, who will play baseball at Minnesota State Mankato, had 16 points and a team-high seven rebounds in one of the program’s biggest victories.

“We needed to give everything we had with every loose ball,” Kayden Oakland said. “Eventually, we got up 14 points in the second half and we never looked back.”

Raider maroon and gold

Five members of Northfield’s basketball staff are alumni. They enjoyed the postgame celebration after beating Austin almost as much as the players, especially when Christensen was showered by water bottles and a cooler dump in the locker room.

“It means a lot because we have a lot of alumni on our coaching staff,” Kayden said. “When I was a younger kid in the [fifth] grade, those guys were my role models watching them play in the section finals. Just to come up short each year, being able to do it for those guys and the people in the community, it’s been really special to be able to do that.”

It was a goal of Kayden Oakland’s to get Northfield into the state tournament. It was the same goal for his coaches and for so many players who came before them.

A little more than a decade after graduating from Northfield, Christensen returned with his high school sweetheart as his wife to raise their kids. He played college ball at St. Olaf and coached on staffs at Carleton College and Rochester Community and Technical College.

Christensen was on the college coaching track, but when the Northfield job became available, he jumped at the opportunity.

“I turned to my wife and said, ‘You want to get on the crazy train?’” he said. “I was a kid who had a half-cut basketball over my head and face painted at the section final games. I’d sell popcorn at varsity games in the stands. I was all in when it came to Northfield basketball.”

Before 1932, the Raiders played in the boys tournament in 1916 and 1928. The Raiders girls have had three state appearances as well, including 1979 and 2018 runner-up teams.

The town of Northfield is creating new memories for fans, young and old, with this year’s boys team potentially three wins away from its first basketball title.

“From Day One, it has been the program goal to make it to state,” Christensen said. “To have the type of mindset, work ethic and preparation was what we had been striving for.”

Basketball Across Minnesota

Fuller’s five

Five Minnesota ballers who stood out:

Gianna Kneepkens, UCLA: The Duluth native scored a team-high 19 points and shot 6-for-11 from the field, including 4-for-8 from beyond the three-point arc, in the Bruins’ 96-45 rout of Iowa in the Big Ten tournament title game.

Morgan Mathiowetz, Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s: The 5-8 junior averaged 33.3 points and shot 14-for-30 from three-point range in three games to lead St. Mary’s to the Class 1A state title. Her older sister, Madison, reached the NCAA tournament with South Dakota State.

Amber Scalia, Miami (Ohio): The former Stillwater standout averaged 16.7 points, shot 53% from the field and was 7-for-14 on three-pointers in three games to help the RedHawks secure their second-ever trip to the NCAA tournament. She was named Mid-American Conference tourney MVP.

Nasir Whitlock, Lehigh: Will the former DeLaSalle standout be the next Lehigh guard to make in the NBA? Maybe. But first Whitlock led his team to the NCAA tournament by averaging 23 points and five assists in the Patriot League tournament.

Henry Wiste, Southland: The 6-3 junior scored 39 points in the semifinals vs. Hayfield and 34 points in the Class 1A, Section 1 championship game vs. Lewiston-Altura to secure Southland’s first trip to the boys state tournament.

Minnesotans in the NBA: Chet clips hometown Wolves

Coming off his first NBA All-Star Game selection this year, former Minnehaha Academy star Chet Holmgren is still playing his best basketball of the season.

The Oklahoma City Thunder have won nine straight games through Tuesday, March 17. Holmgren had 21 points, nine rebounds and three steals in a 116-103 victory Sunday, March 15, against the visiting Timberwolves, his hometown team.

The 7-foot-1 OKC forward is averaging 19 points and 9.7 rebounds in six games in March. He scored 28 points and sank six three-pointers in a win over the Knicks on March 4 in New York.

College team of the week

The Minnesota Duluth women’s basketball team advanced to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Division II tournament with a 94-87, double-overtime win over Concordia-St. Paul on Monday, March 16, in Mankato.

Senior Maria Counts, a former Providence Academy guard, had 25 points and 13 rebounds in the win. Eden Prairie product Myra Moorjani (10-for-11 free-throw shooting) and Mankato East product Lexi Karge had 21 and 20 points, respectively.

Minnesota Top 25 update

Five of the top 15 teams in the final Minnesota boys basketball statewide top 25 rankings saw their seasons end in the section playoffs last week.

Cretin-Derham Hall, Hopkins, East Ridge, Buffalo and Mahtomedi were in the mix all season to make a possible trip to the state tournament. They faced difficult odds in loaded sections.

CDH’s JoJo Mitchell will now be off to St. Thomas to play college basketball. Jayden Moore to North Dakota. Cedric Tomes to the Gophers. Only Mitchell got a chance to play in the state tourney during his career among this talented Minnesota Class of 2026 guard trio.

Final thoughts ...

Well done, Minnesota 2026 girls basketball state champions Rosemount (Class 4A), Benilde-St. Margaret’s (3A), Providence Academy (2A) and Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s (1A). This was my first time covering the high school basketball tournament at Williams Arena and Maturi Pavilion. Everywhere I looked, there were Division I prospects. And it gave me goosebumps watching historic runs with BSM’s four-peat and Providence Academy’s five-peat with Maddyn Greenway. It’s a pretty tough act to follow for the boys tournament next week.

. . .

Basketball Across Minnesota will be published weekly on stribvarsity.com. Don’t be a stranger on X after reading, as chatting about these stories makes them even more fun to share. Thanks, Marcus (@Marcus_R_Fuller on X).