MARSHALL — Between the final days of the fall sports season and the opening weeks of competition in winter athletics, the Marshall area has had no shortage of excitement in that small period of time with numerous statistical feats already recorded across multiple sports.

From Abby Hennen’s 1,000th career point scored for the Minneota girls basketball team to Emma Klenken’s 63 save performance against Willmar for the Marshall girls hockey team, there has been a flurry of historically significant single-game performances and career milestones in recent weeks.

The bulk of the career benchmarks have come in the early stages of the winter sports season, but the ongoing trend began on the gridiron in late fall with a Southwest Minnesota State wide receiver from Tarpon Springs, Florida.

104 receptions

(SMSU Football)

In SMSU’s final game of the season against NSIC foe Augustana on Nov. 16, wide receiver Daniel Davis cemented his legacy in program history by hauling in 17 receptions for 171 yards in his final outing in a Mustangs uniform.

The 17 catches put Davis at the very top of the Division II statistical leaderboards for receptions per game this season with 9.5, and total receptions with 104. The Tarpon Springs, Florida native also finished third in the country in total receiving yards with 1,337.

In school history, only Wayne Hawkins (126) in 1991, and James Ashley (107) in 1987 finished with more receptions in a single season. Davis’ 9.45 receptions per game also ranks third behind Hawkins (12.60) and Ashley (9.73) on the all-time single season list.

As a result of his stellar senior season, Davis was recently included among 36 finalists for the Harlon Hill Award for the DII college football player of the year. Davis is one of seven wide receivers up for the award.

63 saves

(Marshall girls hockey)

To say it was a busy night in net for Marshall’s Emma Klenken last Thursday in Willmar might not fully cover it.

The junior netminder was a brick wall against the undefeated Cardinals as she stopped 63 of 66 shots on net to help Marshall come away with a 3-3 tie in a contest they were outshot 66-24. The 63 saves for Klenken established a new career-best, surpassing her previous career-high set last year in the Section 3A semifinals when she stopped 56 of 60 shots in a 4-2 loss to Mankato West.

Dating back to the final season in which statistical records are available (2009-2010), Klenken’s 63 save performance stands alone as the very best for Marshall goaltenders through that time. Her 25 saves in the third period approaches the top-six mark in MSHSL history for stops in a period, trailing Taylor Baumhoefner of Worthington’s fifth-place mark of 32 set in a 2007 game against New Ulm. In that same game, Baumhoefner also set a new state record for saves in a period (47) and saves in a game (118).

Two-goal debut

(Marshall boys hockey)

The substantial leap in competition-level from bantam to varsity hockey is an adjustment that generally takes some time to get accustomed to. That wasn’t the case for Marshall sophomore Braxton Meyer on Friday, though.

In the Tiger boys’ season-debut against a tough Albert Lea squad, Meyer got his varsity hockey career started with a two-goal game that included the overtime game-winner at the 7:35 mark of the extra period. Assistant coach Scott Mellenthin said the feat was unprecedented in his over 15 years with the Marshall program.

“I’ve been on the bench since 2004 and no one’s ever scored those type of goals, in their debut,” said Mellenthin. “Both were crucial and the last one was the game-winner. It was an incredible indoctrination into high school hockey for him.”

Wyatt Boerboom, another sophomore who made his varsity debut against Albert Lea, tallied a highlight reel goal in the contest as well. Prior to Meyer and Boerboom’s debut goals, the last Marshall boys hockey player to score a goal in his debut was Chase VanDeVere during his sophomore season in 2015-2016. He recorded a goal and an assist in a 9-2 victory over Worthington.

1,000 points

(Minneota girls basketball)

Minneota junior Abby Hennen needed only seven points to eclipse the 1,000 point mark entering Monday’s matchup against No. 5 BOLD. By the midway point of the first half, Hennen had reached that mark and went on to provide the offensive spark needed for the Vikings to defeat the Warriors and improve to 2-0.

In surpassing the 1,000 point mark for her career, Hennen joins six other Vikings to reach the milestone that was most recently set by Lydia Sussner. The entire list of Minneota girls basketball 1,000 point scorers includes Jami Rolbiecki (1,088 points), Brittany Buysse (1,123), Jodi Sussner (1,123), Brittany Dalager (1,962), and Taylor Reiss (3,038).