Lady Royals Basketball: Mission of tradition

Article by David Perry, Devils Lake Journal Sports, Thursday, October 26th, 2017.

When one walks the LRSC halls or enters the Royals gym, it doesn't take long to realize how special the Lady Royals Basketball program has been over the years. Banners line the gym. Eighteen out of twenty five MonDak conference championships; regional championships for seventeen straight years with nine wins; participating in the national tournament three out of the last five years (6 out of the last 10) are just a few of their accolades. Many programs would be thrilled with last year's 18-12 season but the Lady Royals are on a mission to keep the winning tradition alive.

"We have to get back to 20 wins and win that conference championship," Head Coach Danny Mertens said. "That's always my number one goal. Last year we were 18-12 which is down for us. We've had 20 win seasons for I don't know how long. Coach Schwab before me won almost 600 games." Winning isn't the only tradition that the Royals are known for. Families, generations and state wide connections bring the team together on the court and have so for many years which has contributed deeply to the Royals success.

"You take Maara Nelson from Carrington," Mertens said. "Her mom played on Coach Schwab's first team in '89-'90 & '90-'91. She went to two national tournaments." 'Then you take Bailey Lamp, her mom played '92-'94 for Coach Schwab. Emily Schafer, her sisters played here and both of them went to national tournaments. So there is a lot of tradition there."

There is a lot of tradition there and it doesn't stop. There are currently two Jorgenson players (Annie & Erin from Leeds) on the team and their older sister Megan was a Lady Royal and assistant coach. Assistant Coach Taylor Henningsgard , who also played ball for Coach Mertens has a brother who is in his first year on the men's basketball team. Kyle Henningsgard rocked the Class B Championship last year when his last second three-pointer dropped in the bucket to take the lead and win the game for Hillsboro-CV. Having a lot of ties and tradition is an understatement.

Connections for the Royals don't stop in the midwest region. In fact they stretch across seas as far as Australia and England. "We have four international kids this year which is a lot," Coach Mertens said. "We have some pretty good connections over there in the UK and Australia. Coach Marshall went over there two years ago and hopefully both of us can go back this year. (We) haven't had to go anywhere else. We've had the picks from there."

Having a highly successful program, quality players and athletes, high goals and a drive to always improve and get better, does have one downfall though. "We've had the 'X' on our back for a long time and I assume it is still there," Coach Mertens said.