June 15, 2021
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.
In cross country running, Gardner led MPA to a runner up finish at the 2013 MSHSL state meet, its highest ever finish. That year, he earned team MVP, Tri Metro all-conference honors, and all-state honors, one of just five MPA boys cross country runners to ever earn all-conference and all-state honors in the same season. His time of 16:48 in the 5K is tenth fastest all-time at MPA. Read More
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.
Ross Kigner, like many in the MPA class of 2008, lived and breathed sports. As a Panther, Kigner played football and basketball. And, like many other MPA students, he also represented the school in a variety of ways beyond athletics, as an award winning debater.
Sisley Ng shined as the Panthers’ goalkeeper, playing on the girls varsity soccer team starting in seventh grade and subsequently earning five varsity letters. Her MPA soccer experience prepared her for playing at the next level because she was able to play multiple positions on the field. “Those experiences helped me understand the game and the positions a lot more,” she said.
When Stephanie Aanenson ’11 looks back on her time at Mounds Park Academy, she is always drawn to her experience on the golf team. “Athletics were the highlight of my thirteen year career at MPA. When I think back to my years at MPA, the girl’s golf team is where my mind goes first.”
Marguerite Devens ‘15 excelled in the pool for MPA’s co-op swim team, Metro United, comprised of students from five Tri-Metro Conference schools. Devens earned all-conference twice and received the team’s coaches’ award as a sophomore.
By the time Taylor Washington ’10 started her senior season in the fall of 2009, she had already led MPA to a state championship in girls tennis. But winning just one didn’t sit well with her, especially when it came with an asterisk. That asterisk came in 2007. In the finals vs. Rochester Lourdes, Washington’s MPA Panthers won by default when it was discovered that Lourdes had made a lineup violation. In her final season at MPA, Washington wanted to add to her championship pedigree with an indisputable victory.
Ty Johnston tried it all at MPA. Before graduating in 2004, he earned eight varsity letter awards across three different sports, soccer, basketball and baseball, and also tried cross country running. But baseball was his first love. As a star on the diamond for the Panthers, Johnston was a three time captain, two time team MVP and three time Tri Metro all-conference honorable mention honoree.
At a lifting session in the winter of his senior year, Yahya Madar ’19 wrote 6’10 in black sharpie on a piece of recycled paper and taped it to the wall in MPA’s weight room. 6’10 represented his goal for the high jump during that spring’s track and field season. It would require him to jump four inches higher than he ever had before, an unlikely possibility, but one that, with a herculean training and effort throughout the season, and a championship performance when it counted, was possible.