Thrilling 5-set win over Menno highlights a season of vast improvement The Freeman High School girls may have fallen one match short of the SoDak 16 with their straight-set loss to Parkston Thursday, Nov. 7, but head coach Sherrie Kafka will remember the 2024 season, not for what wasn’t, but for wha...

Menno battles Freeman Public for five dramatic sets, but are edged in the end When the seven seniors who were part of this year’s volleyball team at Menno High School look back on their final fall with the Wolves, their reflection will likely be bittersweet. On one hand, they helped lead the team to...

Season ends with early loss in regions, but 10 wins better than previous 5 years combined “I only see good things coming from this program.” If ever there was a fitting final thought from Jennifer McConniel, the outgoing head coach of the Freeman Academy/Marion volleyball team, that was it. After al...

A game that was well within reach at halftime felt seemingly lost by the end of the third quarter, after Parkston turned a 12-8 edge into a 28-8 advantage. But somebody forgot to put the quit in the underdogs from Freeman/Marion/Freeman Academy, and the boys just about treated their fans to a comeba...

It was a relatively quick and easy 3-0 win for second-seed Parkston, which took down sixth-seed Freeman Public in the third and final round of the Region 4B Volleyball Tournament in Parkston Thursday night, Nov. 7. The Trojans won 25-19, 25-14, 25-23 to advance to next week's SoDak 16; the Flyers fi...

Players and coaches from Freeman/Marion/Freeman Academy knew that Hill City was an explosive football team capable of scoring quickly and often — a team that scored an average of almost 51 points per game during the regular season. They also felt that the Phoenix were the better team. And on a cold ...

Marion senior Finley McConniel edged Mitchell Christian sophomore Silas Holdeman by the closest of margins — 0.03 seconds — to claim a dramatic 2024 Class B boys championship in Rapid City Saturday afternoon, Oct. 26. McConniel, fifth last year, beat Holdeman, the 2023 state champion, 16:45.97 to 16...

Freeman/Marion/Freeman Academy scored eight touchdowns on 10 possessions and held De Smet to 191 total yards — all on the ground — in a 58-14 win in the opening round of the Class 9AA playoffs Thursday night, Oct. 24 in Freeman. The win moves the No. 5-seed Phoenix to 7-2 and sets them up for a 357-...

The fruits of its labor are a-plenty for the Freeman/Marion/Freeman Academy football team, which is feasting on a Great Plains Conference championship earned last week and a postseason that begins at home on Thursday against De Smet, with kickoff set for 7 p.m. The Phoenix go into the Class 9AA play...