Photo by Samantha Davis: Dawson-Boyd head boys basketball coach Cory Larson communicates with his team from the sideline at the University of Minnesota’s Williams Arena during the Class A boys basketball championship game against Cherry on March 22 in Minneapolis. Larson is the Independent’s Boys Basketball Coach of the Year.

DAWSON — After leading the Dawson-Boyd boys basketball program to its first-ever Class A state championship in its first tournament appearance in over three decades, all while claiming a 30-3 record, head coach Cory Larson has been named the Independent’s Boys Basketball Coach of the Year for the 2024-25 season. 

“Once next season starts, it’ll [winning state] maybe sink in, but it still feels a little unreal. I was talking to a couple of the guys [recently] and asking them how they feel, and they still think it’s somewhat surreal,” Larson said. “It’s something that you want those guys to dream of, and eventually put themselves in a situation where they can set that goal to become a state champion.” 

Larson, a 1992 graduate of Dawson-Boyd High School, is coming off his 20th season coaching the boys basketball program. The last time the Blackjacks made the state tournament was in 1991, when Larson was a junior on the team. 

“That makes it, I think, that much more special. Just because I’ve been part of the community for such a long time, and I know how much our community supports our school in not just athletics, but every aspect of the school,” Larson said about competing at state as a student and coach. “A large part of our community, that’s their entertainment, is high school sports.” 

Dawson-Boyd had been a dominant force in Section 3A the past two seasons, but fell short of a state berth in 2023 to Russell-Tyler-Ruthton, the eventual state champions. In 2024, the Blackjacks were upset by Minneota in overtime of the subsection semifinals. 

“Everybody was probably hungry. We’ve won enough subsection championships, but never broke through and got into the state tournament for the last 34 years,” Larson said. “There were a lot of fans who were hungry for that experience.”  

Yet, continuing to return its young group of talent, Dawson-Boyd three-peated as Camden Conference champions this season. Its lone three losses came from No. 1 Class A-ranked Cherry in its second game of the season, from Class AA Albany and a top-ranked Dell Rapids St. Mary team out of South Dakota. 

“We brought back everybody from a year ago where we had fallen short, knowing that we had to grow in certain aspects of the game … We had a phenomenal offseason as a group,” Larson said. “I also thought coming in that every kid on the team had found little ways to get better.” 

Dawson-Boyd also remained toward the top of the Class A and Section 3A regular-season rankings. 

The Blackjacks earned the No. 2 seed in the state tournament, and cruised their way through the quarterfinals and semifinals with a 69-46 win over No. 7 Heritage Christian Academy and 80-66 over No. 3 Red Lake County to reach the title game. 

Come the championship on March 22 at Williams Arena in Minneapolis, Dawson-Boyd held the lead for 25 minutes, made 10 3-pointers and had 16 assists on its 29 field goals to dethrone top-seeded Cherry 81-74 for the title. The Blackjacks shot confidently all over the court, with 59% from the field, 52% from deep and 72% at the free-throw line. 

Upon the ring of the final buzzer, Larson immediately turned to hug his assistant coaches, Keith Stratmoen and Dustin Hjelmeland as the players crashed to center court together with a large Dawson-Boyd fanbase in attendance. 

“When you can have a special ride and special journey like the basketball team went on last winter, everybody latches on and certainly cheers on with a lot of pride,” Larson said. “We had a ton of fans at a lot of regular season games, and then into the playoffs and into the state tournament. Our fans in attendance were phenomenal, then you had a ton of people that weren’t able to get there that were listening via radio or watching on TV … It’s really, really, really special that so many people within the community, and extended community, were able to share the championship.”  

Although the potential of the 2024-25 squad was evident early on, it wasn’t until the Blackjacks’ 74-53 loss to undefeated Albany, who won the Class AA state championship, on Dec. 28 when Larson felt he saw a shift in the team that sparked momentum to carry them through March. 

“We competed for maybe the first four or five minutes of that game, and then they [Albany] just controlled the rest of it with discipline on both ends of the court,” Larson said. “We used that, not to compare ourselves to Albany, but to maybe show us what a championship-caliber basketball team really, really looks like. That everybody bought into their role offensively and defensively, and played unselfish team basketball.” 

“I thought we got into January and we started defending better as a group, and we’ve done a decent job, I think, of sharing the basketball on the offensive end, but I just felt like we started to trust each other,” Larson added. “Each kid started to trust their teammates more and more starting in January, and that just kept building and building. We were where we wanted to be come March. It felt like we were peaking at the right time.” 

That trust carried Dawson-Boyd onto a 20-game win streak to end the season, 13 of which came by 30 or more points. 

“I think you do that by not getting caught up and thinking, ‘OK, we got to go get the next win to keep the streak alive,'” Larson said about keeping the team focused with pressure building up. “It’s just staying focused on preparation, finding little ways to get better and enjoying each day of practice and each game day.” 

Stacked with several multi-faceted players, Dawson-Boyd was particularly led by junior point guard Gunner Liebl, and senior frontcourt duo 6-foot-8 Brayson Boike and 6-foot-7 Drew Hjelmeland. All three were named to the Class A All-Tournament team as well. 

“I think that’s where a couple of those guys grew the most, is how they led,” Larson said. “They were trying to enjoy the game, enjoy the journey and not stay too focused on any destinations. That was kind of the opposite of where we were the year before.” 

Both Boike and Drew will transition into Mustangs this fall, having committed to Brad Bigler’s Southwest Minnesota State University basketball program. 

“Selfishly, it’s awesome because I don’t have to travel far to go watch a game,” Larson said, laughing. “The coach that I know the best at the college level, is coach Bigler. We know exactly what we’re getting from him … From my perspective, he’s going to coach them as basketball players, but he’s also going to coach them as people and try to develop them as a person, just as much as a basketball player along their journey at SMSU.”

Coming off a state title and not losing a game since Jan. 18, Larson has begun to set expectations for next season through the early stages of summer workouts. 

“The message from day one when we started back the first Monday in June, was even though you have a number of kids that played key roles on that [2024-25] team, their role [next season] is going to change. The identity of this team is going to be different,” Larson said. “We’ll use part of the summer to try to help us build an identity on both ends of the floor, and you’re still going to do that through the months of December and maybe into a little part of January … Roles will be quite different.” 

Larson has translated his success and leadership across three sports for Dawson-Boyd, now winning state championships in basketball, girls golf in 2024 and 2025, and with the 2011 football team. 

Distinctly, Larson has won a trio of state titles just in the past year, coming off back-to-back championships with golf, in addition to the basketball run. 

“It’s just [about] trying to be consistent. I always try my best, not saying I’m perfect, but trying to model humbleness and graciousness, because you’re going to need both of those at times,” Larson said. “When you win, you have to be humble, when you lose, you have to be gracious. I just try to be the best possible example that way.”