So, the 1st state championship 4-peat in Minnesota was accomplished by Minnehaha Academy in the MPSL and MISL from 1950 to 1953. The 2nd began the year after Minnehaha’s ended, in 1954. That was the year of 1st of 4 state Catholic titles for DeLaSalle in 1954, 1955, 1956 and 1957. It’s interesting to dig into DeLaSalle’s 4-peat in part for the added perspective that it gives us on Minnehaha’s somewhat more obscure 4.
1954
1954 marked DeLaSalle’s 4th state title and its 3rd in the 1st 14 years of the Catholic League tournament that was launched in 1941. De previously had won the 1927 title of the older Northwestern Catholic tournament.
As best as I can tell, DeLaSalle went 22-1, losing only to St. Thomas in the Central Catholic Conference, which consisted of Cretin, DeLaSalle, St. Cloud Cathedral, St. John’s and St. Thomas. After that 48-44 loss, De beat St. Thomas in a regular season rematch 65-58 and then beat the Tommies again in the regional tournament 44-41. Among their other wins were wins over Shakopee, which was unbeaten in the Minnesota Valley League; Minnetonka, 3rd in the Lake; Roosevelt, 3rd in the city; and Blake, 2nd in the MISL, 63-28. They beat Duluth Cathedral 34-25 in the Catholic final.
Senior Joe Dufort averaged 18 or 20 ppg, depending on your source, and junior Bob Kammerer scored 14. Dufort was the MVP of the state tournament. As the seconds ticked down against Duluth Cathedral, there were chants of “We want Hopkins! We want Hopkins!” Hopkins at that time was the 2-time state MSHSL champion and they remained favored for a 3rd straight title. It was only a few days later that Mpls. Patrick Henry beat Hopkins 54-52 in a Region 5 semi-final. DeLaSalle coach Dick Reinhart was quoted saying, “Sure. We’d like to play Hopkins anytime and anyplace.” Brainerd ended up winning the MSHSL title at 23-3 and it is not unikely that DeLaSalle was in fact the best team in the state. My own historical rankings have Brainerd #1 and DeLaSalle #2.
1955
Bob Kammerer, a 6-1 guard, returned for his senior season in 1955 to score about 15 ppg and to lead DeLaSalle to what I guess-timate as a 20-0 record. I know that they were undefeated, and that the Chicago Tribune picked them as the mythical national Catholic champion. I also know that they beat Mpls. Roosevelt, a rising power in the city though not the 1955 city champion, 64-48 and 95-56. As best as I can tell, they were 7-0 in the Central Catholic Conference with an average score of 78-49.
Kammerer, as I said, averaged about 15 ppg (I don’t have individual scoring for every game) with a high of 26 in a 63-35 win over St. John’s. The team’s greatness, however, owes much to the emergence of the coach’s kid, Tom Reinhart, a 6-5 senior center who was said to never have played on an organized team before. How the son of a noted basketball coach and one who turned out to be a wonderful player himself had managed to steer clear of organized basketball previously, I have no clue. But he came on to score somewhere in the vicinity 13 to 14 ppg with a high of 29 in a 90-60 win over St. John’s. In the region, Kammerer scored 18 and Reinhart 17 in a 61-48 win over Cretin, and Kammerer scored 20 and Reinhart 19 in a 74-57 win over St. Thomas. With De and Cretin and St. Thomas all in the same region, who the hell was left to play in the state tournament? Well, Duluth Cathedral, for one, and they were the sacrificial lamb in the final 57-33.
Junior forward Tom Healey had a high game of 17 points in the 1st Roosevelt game. Dale Kaiser, a 6-0 senior guard, had a high game of 16 points against St. Cloud Cathedral; junior Jim Brey had a high of 15 in the 2nd Roosevelt game; 5-9 senior Tom Jacobson had a high of 12 against Mpls. Soputh; and 6-3 senior forward Dave Theis, the top sub, had a high of 11 in the 2nd Roosevelt game and again against the Hamline freshmen. 5-7 senior guard Larry Daly had a high of 10 against Cretin. That’s 8 players who scored in double figures at one time or another. This was absolutely, positively the best team in the state that year. Mpls. Washburn won the city and state titles at 22-1. I don’t know who they lost to; it wasn’t DeLaSalle. But this DeLaSalle team, with the possible exception of Hopkins, who finished the 1953 season with 2 straight MSHSL titles and a 47 game winning streak, might have been Minnesota’s best team of the decade.
1956
After 1955 there was only one way for DeLaSalle to go, and it’s true. They weren’t as good as in 1955. They lost to St. Thomas 43-40 and they lost to Edina 55-52. On the other hand, Mpls. Roosevelt won the MSHSL title at 20-3 with a historic 101-54 blow out of Blue Earth in the state final. 2 of their 3 losses were to DeLaSalle 64-54 and 81-63.
De did not avenge its loss to Edina, except by osmosis. St. Louis Park beat Edina in the district, and Roosevelt beat St. Louis Park in the region. Roosevelt went on to win the MSHSL title despite its 2 losses to DeLaSalle. De did avenge its loss St. Thomas, however. First, it took a 55-18 halftime lead and beat the Tommies 78-58 in their 2nd regular season matchup. Then they beat the Tommies 51-48 in the state final, though St. Thomas led 29-23 at the half. De won the 2nd half 28-19 to finish the year at 21-2.
Healey returned to win all-region and all-state honors. He scored 30+ points 3 times and 20+ in another 5 games. Charlie Conacher also made all-region and all-state, while junior forward Paul Lehman also won all-state honors. Lewhman scored a high of 23 points in a 63-42 win over St. Paul Wilson. Brey also returned from 1955 to score a high of 33 points in an 86-45 win over Eau Claire Regis. De was again clearly Minnesota’s best team.
1957
DeLaSalle won their 4th straight Central Catholic Conference title and their 4th straight state Catholic title. In the state tournament, they beat St. Cloud Cathedral 73-35, Cretin 67-58 and Winona Cotter 67-41. They lost to Roosevelt at home 70-68, and since Roosevelt went on to win the MSHSL title, that game established Roosevelt as the best team in the state in 1957. De also lost to Mpls. Edison 57-55. They beat Red Wing 70-68 in sudden death OT. Red Wing went on to finish 2nd to Roosevelt in the MSHSL tournament, 59-51.
Paul Lehman was the star with a 24 ppg scoring average and a high of 42 points in an 86-70 win over Cretin. He scored a record 81 points in the 3 state tournament games. De finished 19-3 with a scoring averagbe of 68 points and a 45% shooting percentage, which was almost unheard of in those days. I have DeLaSalle ranked at #2 in the state in 1957 to complete a string of #2, #1, #1 and #2 rankings.
Details
Joe Dufort went on to play basketball at St. Thomas, but I don’t have any record of his achievements. Kammerer played at the U of M, the U of Wisconsin and St. Cloud State though, again, I don’t have much in the way of details, except that he appeared in 12 games for the Gophers in 1961, going 0-for-10 from the field and 0-for-2 from the line with a half a rebound per game. Tom Reinhart, on the other hand, played in 53 games at Notre Dame from 1956 to 1959, averaging 9 points and 7 rebounds while shooting 34% from the field. Tom Healy played 7 games at Siena in 1960, averaging 7 ppg. Jim Gleason played one year at St. Mary’s (Winona) averaging 4 points and 5 boards.
Paul Lehman played for the Minnesota Gophers from 1958 to 1961, and stepped into the starting lineup as soon as he could as a sophomore in 1958. He scored 7 ppg and then 10 ppg in his 1st 2 seasons. Then he blew out his knee. He came back in 1960-1961 to score 5 ppg but was never again a starter or the player he had been. A 1959 newspaper clipping shows that at some time in 1959, in either his 1st or 2nd year as a Gopher starter, Lehman already had a wife and 2 kids.
DeLaSalle vs. Minnehaha
So the 1st 2 4-peaters were horses of different stripes. Minnehaha was essentially a AA type school then as they are now, at least according to enrollment. They played Minneapolis public teams but never the top teams in the conference. I’m not sayin’ they were ducking them, it just didn’t work out that way. Other non-conference games were usually easy wins against outstate private schools or easy wins against small town teams like Moose Lake, Chisago City, Howard Lake and Dassel. Their best player, Mike Reinertson, had a nice college career at St. Olaf.
DeLaSalle played the best opponents money could buy, principally Mpls. Roosevelt but also Red Wing, Shakopee, Minnetonka, Edina and St. Paul Wilson. Their top players scored in double figures at Minnesota and Notre Dame or at least made a Big 10 roster (Bob Kammerer). In my rankings of the top 10 Minnesota high school teams each year, Minnehaha got a #5 ranking in 1952. Otherwise it was unranked even as it won 4 straight MPLS/MISL titles. DeLaSalle was #2, #1, #1 and #2. They, along with Hopkins, were the 800-pound gorillas of Minnesota high school basketball in the 1950s. Sounds kind of familiar!