Such Great (Mendota) Heights: Four Men with Ties to City Reach College Basketball's Pinnacle

Thanks to basketball skills and work ethic developed and honed in Mendota Heights, three Henry Sibley High School graduates recently experienced things that few athletes, especially college athletes, get the chance to enjoy.

First there was the confetti falling from the arena ceiling, all for them. Next came the trophy, all for them. After that, the chartered flight home, all for them. And of course there was the raucous on-campus celebration, all for them.

Anders Halvorsen, Peter Leslie and Noah Kaiser, former Henry Sibley Warriors’ basketball teammates, joined together again on the court for the University of St. Thomas, where they helped the Tommies capture the 2010-11 Division III men’s basketball championship March 19 with a 78-54 win over the College of Wooster (Ohio).

But the connections don’t end there. Tommies’ head coach Steve Fritz has lived in Mendota Heights since 1988, and his wife, Bev, taught at Sibley. The couple has three grown children, two of whom graduated from Sibley, and one who graduated from St. Thomas Academy.

Considering the bond the group has, it is fitting that some of its favorite moments from the championship run involve each other.

Kaiser, a sophomore, mentioned the hug he and Leslie, a junior, shared after the win over Augustana (Illinois) in the national quarterfinals.

Halvorsen, a 6-foot-9-inch senior who started all 31 games this season, shared a similiar moment and included another Sibley graduate, his brother, Chris, who plays basketball at the University of Minnesota.

“With a few minutes left in the national championship game, [Noah, Peter and I] were all out on the floor, and I looked up in the stands and saw my brother looking at me, and I just smiled,” Halvorsen said. “Noah saw it, too.”

Fritz, in his 31st  year as St. Thomas head coach, soaked it all in from the sidelines.

“When you’re up 24 and their best three-point shooting isn’t even looking to shoot threes, you know you’re in good shape,” he said with a smile.

As one might expect, Fritz has been doing a lot of smiling since his team won the title. And who can blame him? Fritz, who is also the Tommies’ athletic director, has been involved in the St. Thomas basketball program continuously since 1967. He spent four seasons as a star player and the next nine as an assistant coach before taking over as head coach in 1980. This is his—and St. Thomas’—first national championship in the sport.

“I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet,” Halvorsen said of winning the title.

“A surreal moment,” added Kaiser.

While the moment may have been surreal, the trio’s commitment to success was, and is, entirely real. They have known each other since before they started kindergarten and first played on organized teams together in elementary school. Throughout the years, on house league teams and traveling teams, they grew as people and players. Along the way, both Kaiser’s father and Halvorsen’s father coached teams on which the trio played.

When the time came to go to high school, they stuck together, enrolling at Henry Sibley, where they played for Tom Dasovich.

“There was never a question about where we were going to go,” Halvorsen said.

At Henry Sibley, they refined their skills with Dasovich’s help.

“Some guys don’t really play [defense] in high school, but he made sure we did,” said Leslie, a 6-foot-1-inch guard.

The Warriors went 21-7 in 2006-07, Halvorsen’s senior season. The following season, when Kaiser and Leslie were seniors, they posted a 26-6 record, losing in the Class AAAA state championship game.

The players agreed that playing for Dasovich prepared them for what they would experience in college.

“He talked about us playing at the next level,” Leslie said.

Halvorsen started at St. Thomas first, in 2007-08, with Leslie following the next season. Kaiser, a 6-foot-5-inch guard/forward, played at St. Thomas’ archrival St. John’s in his freshman season before transferring. Due to an injury suffered at St. John’s, the NCAA granted Kaiser a medical hardship waiver, meaning he was given an extra year of eligibility.

From that point, the trio focused on winning a national championship.

“We had the goal of winning a conference championship, a national championship,” Leslie said.

“We had this dream,” added Halvorsen.

And last month, that dream became real, even if it still seems surreal.