Photo by Jake McNeill: Dawson-Boyd forward Brayson Boike dribbles down the court during a boys basketball game against Lakeview in Cottonwood on Jan. 12. Boike is the area's all-time leading boys basketball scorer

In an area chock-full of basketball talent, a few names rise to the top. Marshall head girls basketball coach Dan Westby decided to take note of that, compiling a list of all of the Independent’s 12 area schools’ top scorers dating back to the start of organized prep basketball.

The list includes players from Marshall, Minneota, Lakeview, Tracy-Milroy-Balaton, Russell-Tyler-Ruthton, Canby, Murray County Central, Westbrook-Walnut Grove and Dawson-Boyd. It also includes any former iterations of those schools as well as former area schools such as Ivanhoe and Clarkfield that have since been absorbed by another school.

Taylor Reiss, a 2016 Minneota graduate, is the lone area player to surpass 3,000 career points. The former Viking finished her prep career with 3,038 career points, but opted to play volleyball in college at Southwest Minnesota State University where she was named the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s National Player of the Year twice.

Dawson-Boyd’s Brayson Boike leads the boys area scoring leaderboard with 2,506 points, edging out Tracy-Milroy-Balaton’s Trevor Smith by 5 points.

Wabasso had the most total players across the boys and girls lists with 29. The Rabbits tied Dawson-Boyd with the most boys players at 16, and tied Minneota with the most girls with 13.

Marshall had the second-most total players with 12 boys and 12 girls, excluding former Central Catholic players Jim Longtin and Greg Lens who graduated in 1954 and 1963, respectively.

Combining all of the schools in the current TMB district would give the Panthers 25 total players. TMB is also the lone school with boys boys and girls over 2,000 career points; Trevor Smith is the area’s second all-time leading boys scorer with 2,501 points, and Spencer Smith is third with 2,059, while Milroy/T-M’s Mary Jo Miller is the area’s second-leading girls scorer with 2,655.

The list includes two players who will still be active next season, both on the girls side. Yellow Medicine East sophomore Bailey Mortenson has already scored 1,078 points, putting her inside the top 100 all-time at No. 91, while Minneota junior Jaylyn Coequyt has scored 1,029 points.

Westby noted a few factors influenced inflated scoring numbers in recent years.

1) Regular-season games played have gone up (Marshall’s 1963 state championship team finished with a 25-1 overall record while teams can now schedule 26 regular-season games).

2) The addition of the 3-point line at the start of the 1987-88 season increased scoring.

3) Girls basketball was not introduced until 1975-76, and the smaller ball was not introduced until 1984-85 (resulting in better ball-handling and shooting efficiency).

4) The game was restructured from four eight-minute quarters to two 18-minute halves at the start of the 2005-06 season, adding four more minutes of playing time.

The full lists for boys and girls can be found on page 4B