June 15, 2021
As Lukas Lindgren, then a ninth grader, walked through the fieldhouse at St. Olaf College after his first ever appearance at the MSHSL state cross country meet, he got an important lesson in mentorship. “As we were entering the facility, I told two upperclassmen that I had just gotten a big personal record, and they told me that I was going to be a great runner someday,” he recalls. “Now I walk through that same facility on my way to practice every day and I often think about what they said.” Maybe it was chance, maybe it was meant to be, but four years after that prophetic day, Lindgren became a proud member of the track and field and cross country teams for St. Olaf College.
Before Lindgren headed to Northfield to run for the Oles, he enjoyed an impressive career at Mounds Park Academy. A member of the Panthers’ track and field and cross country teams, he was a four time IMAC all-conference honoree, a two time IMAC all-conference honorable mention honoree, 2015 all-state cross country runner, three time state qualifier and a multiple time team captain and most valuable runner. Lindgren also appears on the MPA track and field top ten list in eight different events, from the 1600m and the 800m to the long jump and triple jump relays. He is tied for seventh place on MPA’s all-time fastest cross country 5K list, with a personal best of 16:47. Read More
Maggie Harper was just a ninth grader when she was asked to step up and play an important role on the 2008 MPA girl’s golf team. The team had never won a conference or section title in the 20 years since girl’s golf began at MPA in 1988. But 2008 would be different, and Harper proved she was up for the task. In a season in which she would be named the team’s rookie of the year, Harper finished as one of the top six girls for the class A state champion Panthers.
There was a time, long before national championships and the Olympics, that Mason Ferlic had to be coaxed into running. Ferlic, among MPA’s most decorated athletes of all-time and one of the most accomplished distance runners in Minnesota history, grew up a soccer player. It wasn’t until his sophomore year of high school that he truly focused on cross country running and track and field. When he did, it was lights out for the competition.
At MPA, the last name Bourne at MPA is synonymous with cross country running, track and field, and Nordic skiing. Kristin and Kim Bourne dominated the competition in those sports from 2007-2013, and younger brother Matt continued the family tradition before graduating in 2019.
In an era where three sport athletes are increasingly rare, Morgan Emmans proved to be the exception to the rule. Emmans earned 12 varsity letters in volleyball, basketball and softball, playing just about everything for the Panthers.
Sometime before her junior golf season, Natalie Lansing realized she had big shoes to fill. Her older sister, Olivia, had graduated two years earlier after dominating the class A girl’s golf scene and was playing collegiately for Drake University. Filling those shoes meant Lansing had to make good on some lofty goals of her own. MPA had never won a section team championship in girl’s golf and she was out to change that.
Tri-Metro Conference champions, section 4A champions, state qualifiers – MPA’s 2010 boys soccer team will go down as one of the Panthers’ all-time great teams and midfielder Nick Campanelli ’11 was the glue that held them together.
Few athletes earn all-state honors in even one sport. But Nick Gardner ’14, among MPA’s most accomplished endurance athletes, was all-state in three sports, excelling in cross country running, Nordic skiing and track and field.
Olivia (Lansing) Herrick ’06 credits her successful prep, collegiate and women’s amateur golf career to an unlikely source: not playing golf all the time. “I didn’t play too much golf growing up,” Herrick told a US Golf Association reporter. “My interests were diversified – I also played varsity soccer and basketball. Once I went to college and golf was the only thing I was working on, I kept improving because I still had this hunger for it. I wasn’t burned out at 18 years old.”
In a program with storied history like MPA boys tennis, tremendous players and big names have come and gone. Parker Law ’19 might just be biggest of all of them.