Ignatius L Hoops
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THE MISSING MALLORYS
Last March 29th the curtain closed on North Dakota’s 2024-25 season with the resignation of head coach Mallory Bernhard. Bernhard’s version of the Fighting Hawks finished 12-19 contributing to a 57-87 career record over 5 years. Naturally, there were collateral departures. Leading scorer, Canadian sophomore forward Kiera Pemberton, left the Dakota prairie for the Texas plains where she was welcomed by Baylor. And Summit League Freshman of the Year, Jocelyn Schiller, traveled upriver from Grand Forks joining rival North Dakota State. In all, eight players hit the portal.
To pick up the pieces, NoDak’s head coaching position was awarded to associate head coach Dennis Hutter. Hutter had been with the Fighting Hawks for one season after 19 years at Mayville State. He greeted seven returning players while adding nine. With the dust settling, North Dakota was projected 7th in the Summit League behind #5 St. Thomas.
If you need to know one Fighting Hawk:
On the morning of the Summit League's annual media day festivities in Sioux Falls, senior center Walker Demers has been named to the 2025-26 Summit League Preseason Second Team, as announced by the league on Tuesday morning.
The honor is the first for the Grafton, N.D, native and marks the third time in the last four seasons that North Dakota has had a representative on the team.
Demers is set to lead UND as the team's top returning scorer and rebounder from last season, finishing with 9.5 points and 7.1 boards per contest last season in 25 games. She notched 12 games last season with double-digit scoring outputs, including seven against Summit League foes.T
On the defensive side, she also notched seven games with at least 10 rebounds and only had two games with fewer than three. Demers had two of her best games last season against St. Thomas, notching double-doubles in both regular season contests, including a 20-point, 15-rebound effort on Jan. 30.
In the Twin Cities, the missing Mallory was a surprise. Mallory Heyer a reliable, rugged rebounder and reasonably effective three-point threat, hit the portal. This effectively extinguished the fading afterglow of the WBIT post-season title and left the task of replacing a player that had started 102 consecutive games. While the departure may raise the curtain on a more dynamic offense, it certainly ramps up early season lineup interest.
Minnesota is 4-1 versus North Dakota (the only loss came in 1977). However, the biggest loss came in a 2014 game in Grand Forks when Rachel Banham was lost for the season with ACL tear. Replacing, Mallory Heyer is easier than replacing Rachel Banham. But this season was not supposed to be about replacement, it was supposed to be about restoking those post-season fires.