March 25: Longtime Watertown coach Marv Sherrill has died at age 84. The 1960 Huron and 1965 SDSU graduate was a state wrestling champ at Huron and a North Central Conference champion at SDSU. He was head wrestling coach at Watertown for 35 seasons (1968-2003) with eight state team titles, nine state runner-up finishes. 14 conference, 18 regional titles and a 504-151-13 career dual record. He also coached Brookings to the 1967 state team wrestling title. In addition, Sherrill coached the Watertown’s girls track team for 33 seasons with one state title (1978), eight runner-up titles, 12 regional titles and 8 conference titles. And he coached the Watertown freshman football team for 35 years and never had a losing season.
April 1: South Dakota State senior Brooklyn Meyer has been named the 2026 Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year. The Becky Hammon Award, in its seventh season, recognizes the best mid-major player in the country. The award is named for Rapid City native and current Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon. Winning the first award in 2020 was Rapid City native and St. Thomas More and USD standout Ciara Duffy.
April 4: SDSU senior Brooklyn Meyer was one of 20 Division I standouts chosen to compete in the Lilly Women’s College All-Star game in Phoenix. Meyer played for Team Lieberman, coached by Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman. Meyer helped her team win 72-69.
April 11: Nebraska senior-to-be volleyball star Bergen Reilly led her Cornhuskers to a sweep over Iowa State in a spring game in her hometown of Sioux Falls. Reilly was a three-time South Dakota Gatorade Player of the Year at O’Gorman. The Sanford Pentagon was stuffed full of fans, as the 3,376 seats sold out in three minutes when tickets went on sale. Reilly has become one of the best Division I players in history. As a junior, she was the national setter of the year and the Big Ten Player of the year. She is a three-time All-American and is the only player in Big Ten history to earn the league’s setter of the year honor in each of her first three seasons. Reilly will return to her home state this fall when the Jackrabbits of SDSU host the Cornhuskers Sept. 2 at First Bank & Trust Arena for a regular-season match.
April 13: Dan Jansen has been named the boys’ basketball coach at O’Gorman. He will take over for former Aberdeen coach Derek Robey, who retired after a long, successful stretch of leading the Knights. Jansen, an Orange City (IA) native, served as the junior varsity coach at O’Gorman last year. He was a two-time NSIC Player of the Year at Augustana, and was the NCAA Division II Player of the Year in 2016 when he led the Vikings to the national title. He then played pro basketball overseas.
April 13: Aberdeen’s Mallory Miller will play for the Florida women’s basketball team this fall. She was a former standout at Butler and Arizona State. The 6-foot-4 Miller was an all-state basketball and volleyball player at Wolsey-Wessington. Last season, sister Hannah Miller finished her college career at UND.
April 18: Rapid City Stevens graduate, Big Ten champion and Oregon sophomore Simeon Birnbaum has set a NCAA record in the 1,500 meters. Birnbaum ran a 3:31.69 to win the Oregon Invitational event at Hayward Field in Eugene (OR). Birnbaum’s time broke the previous record of 3:33.02 set by Villanova’s Liam Murphy in 2025.

April 22: Alabama football coach Kalen DeBoer signed a seven-year contract extension through 2033,
worth $12.5 million annually, making him one of college football’s top five highest-paid coaches. DeBoer is a Milbank native who was a national championship player and coach at the University of Sioux Falls.
April 22: The University of South Dakota and athletic director Jon Schemmel have agreed to a new five-year contract. Details of the new deal were not disclosed. Schemmel became the USD AD in January 2024, and is now under contract until 2031. Coyote Athletics has continued to see record successes with its annual fundraising efforts under Schemmel. USD has raised more than $49 million in the past two years and a record $35 million during the current academic year.
April 24: The 60th Watoma Relays was run in Watertown with the Arrows winning 12 events, nine on the girls’ side and three on the boys’ side. It was the first track meet held at the renovated Allen Mitchell Athletic Complex in Watertown. The relays hadn’t been run since 2022 due to a combination of weather and the renovation of the complex. It had been cancelled six times in the past eight years, mostly due to weather.
April 25: Coach Nate Tibbetts came home to South Dakota and he brought his Phoenix Mercury with him. The Mercury defeated the Chicago Sky 108-104 at the sold-out Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls in a preseason game. It was the first WNBA game played in the state. Tibbetts grew up in the Sioux Falls area. He grew up in Jefferson, and transferred to Sioux Falls Roosevelt as a junior. He was a standout player in high school and then at USD. Some of his players showed up wearing his old USD/SFR gear. Also in the third quarter, Tibbetts turned over the role of head coach to his assistant Megan Vogel, a former standout at SDSU, so she could share in the spotlight of coming home to South Dakota. The game sold out in 10 minutes.
April 29: Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger has agreed to a 10-year contract extension that will increase his annual salary to $6 million. It will make him one of the 10 highest paid college coaches in the nation. Otzelberger led the Cyclones to a 29-8 record and their third NCAA Sweet 16 appearance in five years this past season. Otzelberger is a former head coach at SDSU.
April 30: The SDSU volleyball team has added Brooklyn Meyer to its roster for the 2026 season. Meyer had one of the most decorated careers in the history of the SDSU women’s basketball program over the last four years. Meyer was a multi-sport athlete at West Lyon High School in Larchwood, Iowa, including three seasons on the varsity volleyball team. She has exhausted her collegiate basketball eligibility but is permitted by the NCAA to play a fifth season in a different sport. 
April 30: Mount Vernon native and SDSU sophomore Emilee Fox led the DI nation in three-point field goal accuracy for the 2025-26 season. She made 57 of 116 attempts for a .491 average.

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