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Hermantown’s boys basketball team is about to find out who it really is.
Grand Rapids comes to Hermantown High School on Friday night, the start of a stretch that will define whether the Hawks can turn a brutal early schedule into a late-season surge.
A road trip to Duluth Denfeld follows Tuesday, Duluth Marshall visits next Thursday, then comes a rematch at Cloquet and a home date with Mounds View — five games in 14 days that will shape the Section 7AA picture before February even arrives.
The Hawks enter it at 4-10, but the numbers only tell part of the story.
What Hermantown has really been doing since Thanksgiving is growing up fast against teams that don’t give away anything. The Hawks have already faced Princeton, Hibbing, Caledonia, Bemidji twice, Duluth East, Kasson-Mantorville, Esko, Cloquet and Bloomington Jefferson — a nonconference schedule that looks more like a state-tournament warmup than a rebuild.
It has been painful at times. Losses of 99-55 to Bemidji, 90-63 to Caledonia and 87-47 at Hibbing showed how wide the gap can be when youth meets size and experience. Kasson-Mantorville ran away with an 80-47 decision in southern Minnesota. Duluth East delivered an 85-52 reality check.
But inside that fire is the outline of something real.
Hermantown didn’t quit after being embarrassed by Bemidji in its own Holiday Classic. It came back the next night and beat Bloomington Jefferson. It went on the road to St. Paul Harding and won 94-50. It pushed Cloquet to the final horn in an 84-79 loss that felt nothing like the blowouts of November.
Those games happened because Hermantown has real young talent on the floor.
Junior power forward Sawyer Senst has emerged as the engine of the offense, averaging 17.2 points and 9.2 rebounds through 10 games, a rare combination of scoring punch and physicality. He has already piled up 172 points and 92 rebounds, carrying a load that usually belongs to seniors.
Ben Sundland has been just as important. The 6-foot guard is averaging 14.2 points per game and has scored 142 points while pulling down 41 rebounds. His ability to get downhill and score in bunches is what keeps defenses honest.
Noah Schulz has given the Hawks a third legitimate scoring threat, averaging 11.6 points with 128 total points through 11 games, while also grabbing 52 rebounds and adding interior toughness.
Around that trio, Hermantown is building a real rotation.
Bryce Lundeen and Corbin Petcoff are both averaging better than six points per game while combining for 84 rebounds, giving the Hawks length and effort on the wings. Shea Eckel and Simon Banaszak provide energy and physical play, while James Kleist, Jordan Wilcox, Nate Haedrich and Lake Decker fill in the gaps with defense and rebounding.
This is not a roster lacking for work ethic or fight. It is a roster learning, sometimes the hard way, how to survive at Class AA speed.
That’s why the next two weeks matter so much.
Grand Rapids, Denfeld and Marshall are games Hermantown can win. Cloquet is a rematch the Hawks already proved they can compete in. Mounds View brings another measuring stick. Rock Ridge visits Feb. 4 before the Hawks travel back to Virginia a week later.
Those are the games where raw numbers turn into confidence.
Hermantown doesn’t need to become a juggernaut overnight. It needs to keep shrinking the gap — fewer empty possessions, cleaner rotations, smarter late-game decisions. That’s how teams that get blown out in December become teams no one wants to see in February.
The Hawks have already taken their hits. They’ve already seen what size, speed and discipline look like when it’s done right.
Now they get to find out who they are when the schedule finally starts to tilt back toward them.
It starts Friday night in Hermantown, with Grand Rapids in the gym and a young team ready to show what all that early-season pain was really for.
