What are the odds of having a state basketball team winning its tourney for the very first time in school history? Probably not great, right? But having that same thing happen in one of the other state tournaments that same weekend? That’s amazing to say the least and is exactly what happened this past weekend in South Dakota.

That’s right, White River indeed won its first ever girls’ State B last Saturday in Huron with an ambush of top-seeded Castlewood 57-37 in the title game.

Meanwhile, Ethan placed third over Corsica-Stockney 59-48. And our Region 2B survivor Herreid/ Selby Area won the consolation title game 53-36 over Waverly-South Shore. The seventh-place game winner proved to be Viborg-Hurley over Hanson 40-37.

Now that you are curious about the other first-ever state tourney champion, it would be Aberdeen Roncalli with a convincing 48-31 defeat of Hamlin Saturday in Watertown. The AR girls had won their opener over Sioux Falls Christian 45-34 and upset top-seeded St. Thomas More 36-35 the next night. And the Cavalier girls basically did all that with a stifling defense to say the least.

They only had one senior — Elissa Hammrich, and rumor has it that Roncalli is dropping down to Class B next year.

Hammrich is only one of three players on their roster with Ipswich ties. The others are Allie Morgan, a junior, and Jazmine Hart-Crissman, a sophomore.

Now briefly to AA. Their champion proved to be Sioux Falls Washington over Rapid City Stevens.

The state boys will go into action this weekend, including the B event in Aberdeen.

Top-seeded DeSmet will tip off against Lower Brule, seeded 8th, a SoDak 16 upset winner over Potter County. That starts at noon. Next at 2 p.m. will be #4 Viborg-Hurley vs. #5 Lyman.

Then at 5 p.m. #2 Canistota faces #7 Aberdeen Christian, followed by #3 White River vs. #6 Dell Rapids St. Mary.

The A and AA tourneys are also scheduled for this weekend — the A in Sioux Falls and AA in Rapid City.